Goodby and God Bless to Emilie!

Emilie spoke in Sacrament Meeting at her Holladay, Utah, ward on June 18, 2017, before leaving for her LDS mission to Romania.  She will spend six weeks in the Missionary Training Center in Provo, learning Romanian, before flying to Bucharest on August 1. "You sounded like Paul preaching to the Corinthians," I complimented Emilie, after hearing her speech.

Emilie was set apart as a missionary on June 20, 2017.  Emilie's family and grandparents met with Emilie's stake president and bishop as they gave her a blessing and appointed her as an LDS missionary.  She will be known as "Sister Ebert," or "Sora Ebert" in Romanian, for the next eighteen months.

Camille and Steve hosted more than 100 guests at their home on July 18, 2017, after Church, as family, friends and neighbors dropped by to wish Emilie a successful and safe mission.  Camille filled her house with hydrangeas and peonies.

Emilie has many friends and admirers.  She is poised and gracious, and circulated easily among the guests.

 Annelise is getting prettier and prettier (as is her mom).

"This looks like a brunch at La Caille," our son, Michael, said, referring to SLC's fanciest restaurant. Camille filled four tables in her backyard with fruit plates, breakfast casseroles, a yogurt bar, cookies, and pastries.  The very best cookies were the chocolate chip ones, baked by Steve, Emilie's dad.  Steve also makes better rolls than any of the ladies in the family!

Steve and Camille greeted their many guests.

"This is a trial run for a wedding reception," I said of Camille's spacious and lovely backyard. "Annelise, all you need to do is provide us with the man, and your mom and I will do all the rest," I teased my 15-year-old granddaughter.  "Not yet, not yet!" Camille protested.

 David is proud of his talented, charming granddaughter.

And Mia is as sweet and photogenic as always.

At Home in Rexburg

Lisa's son, Michael K, and his wife, Rebekah, are students at BYU-Idaho in Rexburg.  Michael is studying computer science and Rebekah is studying economics and finance.  On June 17, 2017, Dave and I met Michael K and Rebekah at their apartment.  We got the address wrong and banged and banged on the door of one of their neighbors, before finding the right spot!

We took Michael and Rebekah to lunch at the Texas Roadhouse in nearby Idaho Falls.  We were impressed with Michael's job upgrading the BYU Idaho website to comply with ADA regulations and best practices, including making it accessible to blind students.  We were also impressed that Rebekah holds down two part-time jobs, as well as excelling in her schoolwork.  She also plans parties. Rebekah and Michael hosted a Memorial Day party for 15 friends, and Rebekah is now planning a party in August, to celebrate Michael's and her first year wedding anniversary.

We stopped at The Burg in Rexburg to try the best shakes in town.  Before leaving Michael and Rebekah, we made arrangements to stop by Rexburg to visit them again next fall.  Tentative plans are to try out the new fine dining restaurant in Rexburg and attend a session together at the Rexburg Temple.

On the morning of June 17, before meeting Michael and Rebekah, Dave and I attended a temple session at the beautiful, newly remodeled Idaho Falls Temple.

Ice cream and Memories

One of the most endearing qualities of Mike's wife, Heidi, is her love of family.  Heidi is fond of and close to her own family, the Bastians, and also close to us.  Heidi set up a monthly lunch group this year for her mother and three sisters.  As the creative people they are, their monthly activities have ranged from making carrot pudding in a pressure cooker to reading witch chants and poems for Halloween.

Heidi invited me to join her lunch group on Friday, June 16, 2017, for an ice cream tasting.  Heidi made four varieties of ice cream, and then Heidi's mother, Gay, and I told memories about ice cream and dairy products.  My Grandpa Calder owned a creamery in Vernal, Utah, and sold ice cream throughout the Basin.  My father learned from his father and made homemade ice cream for us when I was a child.  He even managed to make ice cream in Ethiopia, where there was no pasteurized milk, by mixing condensed milk with frozen raspberries purchased by him at the US Air Force base, Kagnew Station, in Asmara, and hand-carried to Addis Ababa by him in an Air Force plane.

Gay grew up on a dairy farm in Star Valley, Wyoming.  She told wonderful stories about her parents, the dairy farm, and growing up in Star Valley, as Heidi taped the interview.  One memorable tale recounted Gay getting caught in mud at her father's farm that was so thick and deep that she was marooned in it, in her new boots, until her father rescued her.  Gay also described the transformation of her father's dairy farm by technology, including milk being automatically deposited from cows into big tanks, with no hand milking required.

 Heidi caught the interview on her computer.

It was a treat to spend time with Heidi, Gay, Heidi's sisters, and Heidi's nieces and nephew, including cute Andrew.  Heidi's sister, Jessica, and her family, including Andrew, now live next door to Heidi's parents in Axtell, Utah.

Flag Day and the North Rim

I always wonder, when we leave for a weekend in St. George, whether we'll find new and different things to do, after our hundreds of trips to St. George since we bought our home there in 2001.  The weekend of June 9 to 11, 2017, was in fact filled with new and different adventures--worries resolved.  We attended a Flag Day concert at Dixie State University on June 9, then traveled to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon via Jacobs Lake on June 10.  We wandered through antique and rock shops and stopped for an outdoor concert in Springdale on our way back to St. George from the Grand Canyon.  The lodge at Jacobs Lake, above, has world class cookies and memorable chicken salad with orange basil dressing. 

St. George is a great place for a Flag Day concert.  It is conservative and patriotic, and there are lots of men who have fought in America's wars.  The Southern Utah Choir presented the program.  The master of ceremonies asked the men who had been in the military during each of America's recent wars to stand as he named the war.  There were just a few elderly souls who stood up for World War II.  

Dave stood as a veteran of the Viet Nam War.  He also stood as an Air Force vet as the band played the anthem for each service.  I thought of our four years in Tucson as the band played "Into the Wild Blue Yonder."  I thought of Dave's dad fighting in the Battle of the Bulge as the band played "As the Caissons Go Marching Along", and I thought of my mom and dad in their Navy whites as the band played "Anchors Aweigh."

One treat of the concert was a very good barbershop quartet.  Only in St. George would a musical group sing "Come, Come Ye Saints" at a military-themed event!

The concert was a time of reflection for both Dave and me.  As a Baby Boomer who lived through the Viet Nam War era, I am virulently anti-war, yet I was still touched by the many people standing to acknowledge that they had been willing to risk their lives for our country.

Dave and I were off early on Saturday morning for the Grand Canyon.  We always love stopping at Jacob's Lake Lodge on the way, with its high quality Native American art and its good food.  Dave offered to buy me a squash blossom necklace, but I demurred.  I have amortized the expensive Native American mosaic bear pendant he bought me several years ago by wearing it all the time and everywhere.  I can't see myself practicing law in SLC day after day in a thousand dollar, heavy, silver squash blossom necklace!  But what a sweet thought.

We were soon in the historic North Rim Lodge, with its floor to ceiling windows looking out over the abyss, and its photos and statues of the mules who ferry guests down to the bottom of the canyon.

We took the Bright Angel trail to a lookout over the walls of the canyon.

My dad was a fine photographer who specialized in portraits of picturesque and exotic people.  I couldn't resist this couple.  "Can I take your picture?" I asked. "You look so interesting." 

Dave and I love rummaging through antique stores, and Southern Utah has a large collection of them. I look for vintage lace, crystal, and out-of-print books on Mormon history, and Dave searches for old Life magazines from the 1940s and 1950s.

We also love Southern Utah's rock shops.  Dave was fascinated by this crocodile head.  I found a Dugway geode that we bought for the auction at next month's Spendlove reunion.

We spent the evening at the outdoor Tanner Amphitheater in Springville, near Zions Park.  The artist was a one-man band who played country and rock music.  He was amazingly good.

A dancer also led volunteers in country line dancing.  I joined the crowd at the front of the stage for some boot-stomping.  I was as clueless as these other volunteers look!

We were exhausted from our long adventure, but we were still thrilled by the colorful sunset as we headed west to St. George.

Snowbird with the Emmers

Paul and Julie Emmer have been Dave's and my close friends ever since Paul and Dave worked as orderlies at LDS Hospital before we were married, and I was a medical technician, handing instruments to the surgeon.  Paul and Julie invited us to spend Friday evening, June 4, 2017, with them at their Iron Blosam condo at Snowbird.  We ate supper, played card games, and laughed and talked together and with Paul and Julie's cute daughters, Jana, Emily, and Camille.

Janice's Wedding

Dave's sister, Janice, married Mark McCrady on June 3, 2017.  It was the beginning of a new life for Janice, after a painful divorce.  Mark is an air traffic controller in Afghanistan, who came home from Baghram on two weeks leave to get married.  He and Janice dated in high school and then drifted apart.  The new couple's challenge is finding Mark a good job in Utah, so they can live together, rather than keeping touch by Skype and email.

Dave's sister Nancy is very close to Janice, but she stayed in Nauvoo on her mission, rather than coming home for Janice's wedding.  Nancy explained:  "I knew that if I returned to SLC with just three months of my mission left, I'd stay in Utah--emotionally, if not physically."  Nancy's children made up for their mom and dad's absence by turning out in force for the Bountiful temple wedding--Jacob and Meghan, Brent and Jill, Jennifer and Chad.  Mike joined Dave and me.  Ben, Janice's son who is just back from an LDS mission to the Philippines, was a witness at the wedding, and his fiance, Brittany, was Janice's escort.

 Brent and Jill

 Janice and Mark on the temple steps

Janice's children, Charlotte and Joshua, came to the temple, as well, and brought their adorable little boys.  Finn, Joshua's Scandinavian-blond son, found a big stick that he insisted on holding in all the wedding pictures.  Dax, Charlotte's son with huge brown eyes like Charlotte, explored the temple grounds with Finn, while Dax's brother, Jet, tried to be in every picture that was taken, even the romantic shots of the bride and groom!

On June 5, 2017, Janice hosted a reception in a friend's lush garden in Centerville.  Janice wore a pale pink, floor-length sequinned gown rather than a traditional wedding dress, but she kept the other wedding traditions--the ring ceremony (with Jet in the foreground), throwing the bride's bouquet, and cutting the cake.

 Family and friends relaxed among the trees in the late afternoon, savoring an Italian buffet, followed by some of the 300 mint-frosted brownies I made when the cookie caterer fell through at the last minute!  There was a bride's cake, a groom's cake, flavored popcorn in little bags, and photographs of Janice and Mark on every table.  Janice had attended to every detail!

Janice even commissioned a love song to commemorate the occasion, performed by Elizabeth Kartchner, Nancy Moench's granddaughter.  Jacob, Nancy's son, who is a talented pianist and composer, played music for the party.  I wished Janice's parents could have come to see Janice so happy.

After cutting the cake and throwing the bouquet, Janice and Mark left for a surprise honeymoon planned by Mark.  "All you need to bring is a bikini," he told Janice.  The destination was the Caribbean island of Antigua!

The Jonny Connection

Jonny called us to say that he would be in Moline, Illinois, as we passed through on our drive from Nauvoo back to Chicago on May 29, 2017.  Moline is the headquarters for John Deere Company, Jonny's employer.  Jonny was in Moline to host a group of John Deere dealers from Chile as they examined John Deere's new construction equipment.  We had just 30 minutes to spend together, so we dived into a bar and ordered "the quickest thing you can make us." The pretzels and Mexican bean dip were just right, and the conversation was even better.

We were flattered that Jonny made the effort to see his old fogey folks.  He seemed genuinely glad to see us and, of course, we adore him.