Stripling Warriors, Azaleas, and The Underground

My trip to Seattle, over the May 7-10 weekend, was packed with adventure. On Friday night, Kyle and Lisa attended the Redmond Stake pageant with their family, the missionaries, and Kirsten's friend Leslie, who has begun attending church. The musical, put on by the teenagers of the ward, was based on the Book of Mormon and was composed by a woman in Lisa's ward.

Michael had a big speaking part, representing Helaman's stripling warriors.

Spencer also had a speaking part, but I couldn't tell which character he was, from my perch at the very back of the hall, and I missed my photo opportunity. This picture at least shows half of Spencer (on the far right).

The program was spectacular and the crowd was huge.

Afterwards we stopped at Cold Stone Creamery for ice cream. The cute clerks were on the Eastside track team with Spencer and Michael.

On Saturday, Kyle and Lisa worked and Michael and Spencer were at Youth Conference. I took everyone else--Grant, Kirsten, Bryce and Alyssa--into downtown Seattle to take the Underground Tour and visit the zoo. Grant helped me take photographs, including the two below.

We visited Pioneer Square, the oldest part of Seattle.

We started our Underground Tour in an old saloon and then we climbed beneath the streets to see the ruins of Seattle from the late 1800s.

We climbed in and out of tunnels in the dodgy part of town. The kids loved it!

The museum had wonderful old typewriters, washing machines, and other antiques.

One colorful part of Seattle's history was toilets that spit sewage out the top of the toilet when the tide came in.

We roamed the colorful neighborhood...

with Seattle's first skyscraper.

For lunch, the kids each picked a candied apple at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, and we cut them up and shared them.

We next headed for the zoo and found our favorite "dog of the day"--a huge, very lean Great Dane.

Highlights of the zoo included exploring a penguin cave...

petting a gecko...

and admiring the flamingos...

and the hippos.

Best of all, the kids enjoyed having tropical birds eat birdseed from popsicle sticks which they held.

It was a spectacular day, with the mountains clearly visible around us.

We finished the day with a Mexican dinner at El Grande.

On Sunday, we shared presents and a Mother's Day feast at Lisa's house...

with artichokes as a special treat.

On Sunday afternoon, we walked down Azalea Way at the Washington Arboretum,

"This is the place everyone comes on Mother's Day," the attendant told us, and, indeed, the whole world (and all their dogs) seemed to be there.

Steve Ebert, You're an Ironman!

14 hours 10 minutes. That's all it took for Steve to swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles, and run 26.2 miles. "At the beginning of the bike race, riding up those steep hills, I didn't think I'd make it," Steve said, but make it he did.

We watched for a glimpse of Steve riding his bike past Coral Canyon at 9 a.m. We snapped photos of Steve's fellow bikers, but we caught sight of Steve early enough to wave but too late to snap a picture.

Dave and Steve's parents were at the "transition point" when Steve traded his bike for marathon shoes. He also gave Camille a call.

We watched and waited at the finish line and then afterwards, as Steve was checked in and was given a slice of pizza, some grapes, and a silver paper blanket to keep off the chilly night air.

Steve arrived a little after 9 p.m., and the announcer intoned, "Steve Evert, you're an Ironman!" As with the bikers, I got great photos of other runners emerging from the arch...

but couldn't quite get Steve (there he is, running through the arch, but just out of focus). At Steve's next Ironman race, I'll be ready.

We celebrated Sunday at the Texas Roadhouse with Steve, Al and Marilyn Ebert, and Steve's and Camille's good friends, Matt and Ruth Perkins.

Essence of the West

I flew to Boise April 28 for my Idaho Skills legal seminar, required of all new Idaho lawyers. The classes were mundane...

but after the schooling was over, I spent a few lovely hours at the World Center for Birds of Prey, outside the city.

This is where peregrine falcons were bred and released from the time there were only 30 left in the wild, until now, when they have been taken off the Endangered Species list.

This peregrine falcon was born nearly blind and so lives at the center.

The bird now targeted for breeding and release is the California condor. I got up close and personal with a bald eagle and other beautiful birds.

The most memorable part of the afternoon, though, was watching a storm come in, against the backdrop of mountains, wood fence, sagebrush, grasslands, and lonely road. It was the essence of the West.

As I arrived in the Salt Lake Airport, friends and family gathered to welcome missing members home.

I hurried towards Northland Drive for my own welcome.

Celebration of Endings and Beginnings

April 26 and April 28, 2009 were the days Grandpa Spendlove and Grandma Calder died, just one year ago. Pam Johnson planted daffodils by our front door in memory of our parents, and they bloomed this week, bright and dazzlingly alive! This was also the week we welcomed Nicholas Spendlove's fiancee, Jessica, into the Spendlove family with a wedding shower. The contrast of future and past, happiness and bittersweet memory, was the theme of the week.

The world was filled, for us, with celebrations of both weddings and deaths.

Dave and I attended a temple session on Saturday afternoon, where we both thought of our dear, missing parents. We also watched the many spring brides celebrating their new beginnings with fancy dresses, photographs, flowers, and doting attendants.

Jessica's shower was festive and happy, as we all put aside past and recent losses.

On Monday, April 26, Dave and I stopped by the Wasatch Lawn cemetery to be there at 4:19, the same moment that both Dave's dad and my mom died, two days apart.

Mt. Olympus presided over the cemetery, as lovely and unchanging as it presided over Calder and Spendlove lives, for the many years we and our parents lived in its shadow.