Easter!

For the first time in years, Conference was on Easter weekend. Dave and I joined Grandma Spendlove and Darrell for the Saturday morning session of Conference. Grandma served us a breakfast of Darrell's favorite hot cereal--equal parts of quinoa, barley, wild rice, and cracked wheat.

We settled back to hear inspiring talks by Julie Beck (Relief Society President), President Eyring, and other church leaders...

and to read the paper (during commercials only, of course).

We also checked out the always beautiful views of St. George from Grandma's front porch...

and the spring flowers Darrell planted around the yard.

We also admired Grandma's spotless garage, with its new linoleum garage floor and even a bit of carpet!

The St. George Art Festival was being celebrated in Heritage Park...

with dozens of Kokopelli symbols decorated in different styles and colors.

As I snapped photos at the children's face-painting and hair-dressing areas, I thought of my dad taking so many charming photos of children in Asia and Africa. American children are equally charming.

Dave and I wandered the shops...

with their full supply of intriguing crafts.

I missed my mom as I passed a shop selling dozens of 500-piece puzzles, since I would normally snatch one to take home to her.

We passed the usual collection of interesting characters at the food stalls.

We paused to appreciate the sidewalk art, although it was not quite the quality we found in Florence.

We spent the afternoon in Kayenta, a development west of St. George, with its stunning desert views.

We wandered through the five art galleries in Kayenta...

and even found pieces by my jeweler, Jeanne Fagen, at one of them.

We enjoyed shrimp scampi served with lavosh bread and olive tapenade at the stylish Kayenta cafe.

We drove back to Salt Lake City Sunday morning to cook Easter dinner for Mike and Alan Dale.

Passover and Sushi

After five interviews, Michael nailed down his job as a financial analyst with Boart Longyear!

We celebrated with sushi at Takashi, the best Japanese restaurant in town. "May I have three sushi rolls?" Michael asked David. David weighed the importance of the occasion and decreed that three sushi rolls was appropriate! That's edamame, or soybeans in the pod, next to David--one of our new extra-healthy, "feel self-righteous" foods.

We are short on Passover pictures because cooking the Passover dinner and performing the Passover ceremony were so all-consuming that I forgot to snap photos or even delegate the task to Mike. I measure how complicated a meal is to cook by how many "recipe" dishes there are. This time there were eight recipe dishes--salmon gefilte fish, hazoreth, flatbread, baked lamb, brisket in sun-dried tomato sauce, potato pancakes, flourless chocolate cake, and macaroons. That's not counting the asparagus and green salad that the Moenches, our guests, brought. In my personal measuring system, anything more than three recipe dishes is a BIG MEAL! Nancy and Darrell came with Josh and Jody Kennedy and their family.

Everyone got involved in cooking. I poached the gefilte fish, which was a mixture of ground salmon, eggs, and matzoh meal (flour), flavored with horseradish.

Dave grated the potatoes for latkes, or potato pancakes, and Michael fried them. Josh Kennedy, Jody's husband, made the flatbread in the foreground of this picture. He is a creative cook, and added a little turmeric "for flavor and color."

Here I am, emptying the chicken broth into the matzoh ball soup. Everything, including, amazingly, the salmon gefilte fish, was delicious.

I found an online "Christian seder" booklet. I made copies for each of the adult guests. Dave led the group and we all read along, chanting prayers and responses together during the service, which began before and finished after our meal. We passed around a plate of parsley dipped in salt water to remind us of the tears we shed as slaves in Egypt, of hazoreth (chopped fruit and nuts) to remind us of the mortar we used to build monuments for Pharoah, of horseradish to remind us of the bitterness of our life in Egypt, and of lamb to remind us of the sacrifice required by God.

We talked about how glad we were to be freed from slavery. Moses forced the Pharoah to let us go. The final motivation was when the first born children of the Egyptians were all killed, but the Jewish children were protected by their parents marking their doors with blood to keep the Angel of Death away.

We drank four glasses of wine (really grape juice) at different points in the service, left a vacant seat for Elijah, looked up and down Northland Drive to see if Elijah was on his way, and even toasted each other, "Next year in Jerusalem!"

Breakfast with the Berretts

We made a quick trip to St. George on March 20, to check out the house and its gorgeous views of Pine Mountain after our long absence.

We met Grandma and Darrell Berrett on Saturday morning at the Bear Paw Cafe for breakfast.

As we waited for a seat at that popular restaurant, we wandered among the shops nearby. We checked out the oversized photographs of red rock country in one store (how many more coral buttes can we fit into our house?), and the Native American jewelry and artifacts in another. The owner of the Native American store said he never would make it financially if it weren't for all the people who couldn't get seats at the Bear Paw.

He sold the perfect leather jacket for strutting into the Oakley Rodeo, and a red and black Indian blanket to curl up in when the bronco rides ran late.

I was less enticed by this fringed rawhide "Indian maiden" dress. "You should wear it to work," Dave counseled me, as he does whenever we see a particularly strange or scandalous outfit. I start feeling anxious just at the thought.

Grandma and Darrell shared an omelet with great home fried potatoes, while I ordered my regular, the baked apple with ice cream but "only a little" whipping cream. The unmodified dish comes with two scoops of ice cream and whipped cream obscuring every bit of apple and even the mound of ice cream. More is more. We appreciated the way our Coral Canyon chapel looked against the red hills...

but we hurried home to Salt Lake City on Sunday morning to attend our own Sacrament Meeting and then host our beloved Michael for Sunday dinner.