Grandpa Dave and His Pals

Steve and Camille Ebert were in Boston during the weekend of April 15-17, 2016, where Steve ran the Boston Marathon and Camille visited friends and family.  One surprise connection was a joint visit to Camille's Sudbury friend, Roz, and to Liz Calder.  Roz' husband is Liz' singles ward bishop! Dave agreed to take Ezra to his lacrosse game in Draper and his football game in East Millcreek on Saturday morning, as I did Dave's household jobs--cleaning bathrooms and vacuuming throughout our three story house, as well as my own mopping, laundry and dusting.  Dave also took Ezra to lunch and provided me with photos as blog-fodder.  As I checked my Fitbit, which said I climbed 54 floors on Saturday, I decided I did not get the better end of the deal!

 Ezra was a talented goalie.

 Grant Flindt, who is in the Missionary Training Center learning Slovakian, asked for lots of pictures with our emails.  David acknowledged Grant's need for pictures and sent him this one.

 Dave started Saturday morning with a long walk with his friend, Richard Carman.  Richard and Dave used to run together, but Dave reverted to walking when friends who walked passed him as he ran. The Salt Lake Marathon wove around SLC on Saturday morning, and Dave passed the runners on South Temple and again in Holladay, as he drove to pick up Ezra.  Dave watched the race wistfully, since one of his happiest achievements was running a marathon himself in three hours and five minutes.

Family and Friends

On the April 8-10, 2016 weekend, Dave and I visited some of our favorite people and met new friends, as well.  David's birthday present from Steve and Camille was a gift certificate to Bombay House, a favorite SLC Indian restaurant.  We cashed in the certificate on Friday night, and spent a few fun hours with Steve and Camille, enjoying chicken tikka masala, garlic naan, and mango lassi.  Emilie Ebert learned to love Indian food during her trip to Bengal last year, so Camille took her home a pint of mango lassi, as well!  Time with his children is David's very favorite gift--and the food is frosting.

Dave spent Saturday, April 9, 2016, with his brother, Alan, visiting the Hill Field airplane museum and then driving to Antelope Island, where they explored an old ranch.  Dave has made a point of getting together with his brother and sisters more often recently.  We also went to supper with Alan and Janice at the Cinegrill on April 14.  When Dave and I arrived at the Cinegrill on the dot of 7 p.m. and found Alan and Janice already there, I commented, "For sure, the three of you grew up together." Janice recounted how her dad was always, always on time.  Being late was a capital offense.

 SLC is full of exotic ethnic restaurants.  Dave and I finished the weekend with supper at the Galley Grill, a Ukrainian cafe in Sugar House.  A Ukrainian pop singer danced through music videos on the TV on the wall as we ate our borscht, pickle plate, and meat-filled dumplings.  The blond, blue-eyed Ukrainian waitress was nearly as pretty as the Ukrainian pop singer.  She said most of the Ukrainians in Utah are Mormon immigrants.  She was surprised to hear Ukrainian spoken with an American accent, as she walked down a SLC street.  The speakers were a couple of former Ukrainian missionaries catching up in their borrowed tongue.  "I was amazed they could speak so well after just two years," the waitress said. We thought of Grant and how he is already conversing easily in Slovakian after just seven weeks.  We told the waitress we would be back soon to try the blinys (cheese-stuffed crepes).

Back to Nature

When David was a boy, his father enlisted him to pick beetles off the trees in the family garden.  A few days of that cured him of gardening forever.  My father loved vegetable and fruit gardens all his life, and I have always wanted a large one.  This year I rented a 10 x 12' plot in Cannon Greens, a  garden run by Wasatch Community Gardens in Glendale, at 1300 South 800 West.  That is gang territory at night, but it is benign during the daytime.  Last Saturday, April 2, 2016, the members of the garden held a work party to dig and compost.  The group included a contingent of refugees from Burundi and a man with arms completely covered with tattoos who said he was "into tomatoes".  I planted my garden early, then learned that the drip irrigation system won't be hooked up until the end of April.  David accompanied me to water the garden with a hose.  I have spinach, chard, collard greens, bok choy, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, and onions--a treasure of cold weather vegetables.  I also planted two types of lettuce in our back yard, where I can easily grab them for my salads.

 The community garden provides mountains of compost and wood chips, wheel barrows, shovels, and trowels, as well as free classes on gardening.  Each gardener has to put in 6 hours of general service in the garden.  My assignment is to plant four huge metal troughs with flowers to beautify the entrance to our haven.

 There is an area of the garden reserved for fruit trees--pear, apricot, plum, and two varieties of peaches.  We can all share the fruit.

David walked up City Creek Canyon on Saturday morning with his friend, Richard Carman.  They have run and walked the canyon together for thirty years.  David never tires of its beauty.

Goodbye to Jenny and the Little Guys

 On Friday night, April 1, 2016, we gathered with Jenny, Sam, and Henry to say goodbye, before they returned to Miami.  Jonny flew back to Miami on Tuesday, March 29, after his St. George weekend, and Jenny stayed the rest of the week in SLC with her parents.  "The first time I called Jonny, I wasn't sure he missed us," Jenny said wistfully.  In his week without family, Jonny ran every day, read two books, and lost six pounds. "The most recent time I called, though, he was ready for us to come home," Jenny said.

 We met at Olympus High for Emilie's lacrosse game, as Olympus beat Skyline!  I sorted Emilie from the other players by her long, blond ponytail, and Camille kept track of her by her neon yellow shoelaces.  A more prosaic way--the #4 on her jersey!  We then ate supper at Camille's house.  Camille cooked chicken stew with Greek olives, served over foccacia bread with fig jam and sliced cheese.  David made his signature green salad, and I made the fruit salad and mint  brownies.  Sam wandered through the kitchen as we worked, savoring a single blueberry, a raspberry, and a blackberry.  He had gotten an "owie" on his forehead during his visit to SLC, but he was still in fine spirits.  Henry slept in Camille's bedroom

New Friends for Easter

Spencer and Grant choose the nicest friends!  It was a treat for Dave and me, last winter, to host groups of Spencer's and Grant's friends at our St. George home.  Spencer came to our SLC home for Easter dinner on March 27, 2016, and he brought with him a date, Naomi, as well as his roommate, Logan, and Naomi's friend, Olivia.  We ate an Easter ham, with chocolate mousse cake and strawberries for dessert.

 The next Sunday, April 3, 2016, Spencer, Naomi, Logan, and Olivia joined us again to watch LDS Conference.  We hauled out the ham again, made into ham and bean soup, and finished our meal with lemon cheesecake.  The real feast, though, was the speeches of our Church leaders.

Naomi served a mission in Bulgaria, and she met Grant while teaching missionaries in the Provo MTC who will serve missions in Slavic countries.  Grant will leave for Slovakia in May.  Dave and I packed Grant an Easter package this weekend, including his favorite candies, Mike and Ike's, a CD of hymns, some pens, and a couple of  t-shirts.  Grant's favorite t-shirt was the one that said "Spare Me the Drama" across the chest.

Home Again

Surprise!  We planned a trip to St. George with Camille's family for the weekend of March 25-27, 2016.  Early that week, we got a phone call from Jonny saying he had bought $200 round trip tickets from Miami to Vegas for that weekend, so we gathered Mike and Heidi and had a mini-reunion. Spencer and friends were already invited for Easter dinner in SLC, so we hurried home Sunday morning for yet another mini-reunion with Spencer. 

 On Friday, we hiked through the redrock pinacles and canyons of Snow Canyon, looking for petroglyphs.  "Grandma's wearing a jungle explorer hat!" my grandchildren chortled.

 Camille was our fearless leader, leaping across the sheetrock to lead us to the best petroglyphs.  Maneuvering two grandparents and two babies across the sheetrock was a challenge.

 It was spring in the desert, and the flowers were out.

 We had a full house, with Emilie and Jono sleeping on couches in the living room.  I had the piano tuner scheduled for 8 a.m., a bit hard on the teenagers on the couches....  The final impetus to getting the piano tuned, after more than five years, was Heidi's mom visiting our St. George house last week. She has seven pianos in her home and, I'm sure, none of them were out of tune like mine was!  Heidi tried the piano after the tuning and pronounced it much improved.

 Mike and Heidi drove to St. George from SLC on Friday night.  Michael and Jonny both love board games, so we played a few rounds of Balderdash.  Dave turned out to be a natural at the game of devising new meanings for obscure words.  He was by turns hilarious and shrewd.

 We visited the St. George Art Festival, where Dave and I bought a beautiful pot for our bedroom and talked with the artist who made it.

 I loved the stained glass.

 I also loved the colorful characters.  This man and his wife, who was from Khazakstan (or was it Uzbekistan?) sold exotic felt hats.

 Mike, who visited Uzbekistan a few years ago, felt right at home in a tribal hat.

 On Saturday night, Camille bought cupcakes to celebrate Emilie's and my birthdays.  It was a treat to hear each family member say nice things about us.  Emilie got lots of compliments for her charm, poise, and goodness, and I got compliments for my parties.

 We had time to show how much we loved each other.

Sophia the Dancer

 One of the delights of having children live in SLC is that I can drop in on their school programs.  On March 22, 2016, the fifth and sixth graders of Cottonwood Elementary School put on a spoof of a 1950s rock'n'roll bandstand program.  Sophia was one of the dancers, and she was graceful and darling in silk scarf and pink flared dance skirt.  Afterwards we stopped by Swig for frosted sugar cookies and sodas.