Lovely sounds

I heard an interview with

Ladysmith Black Mambazo

on NPR today. Tuned in driving home from taking Kent to the airport before church started.

It was lovely. Do you know this group?

South African acapella singers.

LION KING rings a bell, maybe?

They have an album "Songs from a Zulu Farm" being released Feb 7th, first of a projected "back-to-roots" trilogy.

How about Old McDonald Had a Farm in Zulu . . .

Unbeatable!

Here for streaming tracks.

Back soon with how the move's going. I'm dizzy with details and will spare you most. A few pictures when I can take them and so you know, everything's going like it should. I'll be lonely without Kent in February and happy too to be with family here. What a reunion! There's still so much to do and I'm pacing myself. Not too tired, but weary of the chaos. Glad the house is coming together. We've had so much help. Thank you all (more than I can say) who are wishing us well and pitching in! 

Catching up

1-20 Moving day - piles in every room. All in a day's work for Mayflower with four strong guys hefting our things into the truck and well me more than a little fragile at day's end.



1-21 Breakfast way early, closing on our house at 8:15 a.m. at the attorney's office (thank you!) and outta' here.



First snow sighting was across Mississippi. Dreary gray day. 13 hours in the car.



1-22 Stayed with Brad and Dana and the kids overnight, all day Saturday, and that night.

Brady boy


Kenter


Garrett



1-23 Not far north of Brad's and Dana's home we crossed into Missouri heading for Kansas City and St. Joseph and Lincoln, Nebraska. Had we known what lay ahead crossing out of Arkansas we would have decided to cut west at KC on I-70. But we didn't.



As planned, we moved north. I was getting sick, Kent's shoulder was lame from all the driving the first day, the temperature was going down, down, down as we went up, up, up through the remains of an only hours-old snow storm. One-lane driving and our windshield wiper fluid fozen in their lines - so we had to make about three stops to clean the windshield; toward late afternoon slogging north we finally hit 80 and DID cut west for NE, picking up speed. 11 hours.



1-24 It's our ninth anniversary today! Headed out of North Platte, Nebraska where no appreciable snow lay. The winter trap is east of us. 37 warm degrees and heading west toward Cheyenne and on across Wyoming to drop down into Parley's Canyon to SLC. Always my favorite sight around these parts.

Cheyenne


East of Park City, Utah


1-25 Woke this morning in mom and dad's basement, breakfasted and stepped outside with Kent to drive to the new house. SNOWING HARD. Couldn't see even a few houses up the street. I've been imagining for weeks the first breathtaking views from our house.



Well, no.

Disclaimer:
a) A crew is now on the mountain laying gas lines or pipe around us. Our street is the parking lot for their machinery and vehicles.

b) On A Clear Day You Can See Forever popped into my head just now but it has (as you can see) nothing to do with this pic. There is no breathtaking view on this morning, first ever standing at my window. Well except for snowflakes curling around the eves over which I'm looking from this top story and beginning to frost the ground.

We walked around our empty house getting our bearings and went back to mom and dad's to wait for the truck to come tomorrow with our stuff.

Postscript: I'll post again with pics of our house and maybe a view out my window since we're now in. And now doing everything in reverse - at this moment completely surrounded by boxes. I do confess to having worked hard to get my kitchen in, so at least those boxes are empty. My 9 x 13 Corningware dish is in ten pieces. A glass pitcher didn't make it. Last night Kent unboxed the mirror to the guest bedroom dresser and called my name in earnest tones; I rounded a corner into the bedroom and . . . it's cracked corner to corner. Beautiful beveled mirror. I held my breath and covered my face with my hands for about 15 seconds and didn't complain. The computer came up yesterday and Internet has been installed. This has been my first morning doing what I love in the dark quiet hours. I'm feeling less fragile and (a teensy bit) more at home.

Moving on

Today's been errands mostly around town with Erin. Dare I say it? (6 degrees.) I fly home early in the morning. It's been a quick week. Erin is a busy mother and I don't envy her all the energy it takes to run the family. She does a good job.

My mind is reviewing the details of getting home and getting moved. There's too many (and they're too boring) to count or talk about. They'll happen in their turn. It's an exciting time - it is, and sad as we say goodbye. I wish I knew more what we're facing in the future but no, that wouldn't be real life.

One thing about the next few days is I'll need to pace myself mentally and physically. I've talked with Kent long distance for days now, and everything'll come close up and personal as I arrive home to work with him to leave. I'm mentally reviewing steps to the  "how I work together with someone I love" dance. The way I was first introduced to Kent over nine years ago was through ballroom dance practice. I got to know him better at a Friday night singles' dance months later - he asked me out after. The way we work together now is a dance we keep practicing steps to. Shoot, it's a dance all your life.

The computer at my house gets packed tomorrow. Don't know when I'll post next - maybe before then, probably not. I'll be taking in a lot of scenery starting with flying on home, and for days driving to Utah. I'll be riding, not writing. I love blogging and will miss it. No biggie - posting isn't a leisure thing, it's a daily thing as I can (and I try), but it can be put on the back burner for sure. It will be.

I'll be sad to leave Erin and Mike and the kids. In time they'll leave here - in the summer - and Mike'll start his practice we don't know where. They'll be the ones packing and moving and getting set up somewhere new, and this I don't envy Erin either. When she gets there wherever they're going and is all the way moved in I guess for a while our family'll be settled. Maybe though there's no such thing. Like I said, I wish I could see what we're [all] facing in the future.



But no, that wouldn't be real life.

Family Night

Hoo boy, the days are whizzing. Which seems impossible as outside is at a standstill. To look out the front window is to look at frozen still life. That's redundant. The house that has been under snow across the street through the piney front yard here IS still in every detail, and the icicles hanging ponderously from this house's front eves ARE exactly as they've been since I came except for the fine point that one broke in half Saturday - as one of Erin's friends knocked at the door to collect Abbie methinks. The murky view of apartments and the bus stop across from Erin's to the side is framed still in the kitchen window, every jot and tittle of the place as it was when I came. How does time move when the scenery does not?

I've stirred the Costa Rican Sundae I'm making for dinner a few times and the smell of cumin is coming downstairs here now. Erin is crashed in her bed asleep. She got home about 1:30 and puttered around a little but gave up and took a nap. I've finished folding laundry, minute bits of clothing these children wear . . . how did I do this with five and a husband? Laundry'll eat you alive, yes. Half the couch is covered with folded tiny clothes and I'm deciding my part is done. Erin can put it away - is that uncharitable? She knows all the nooks and crannies in this house for undies and socks and jammies and you name it, and there's all that.

Mike's come downstairs and turned on



with the three kids. Erin showed me this marvel before she left so I sort of know what it is and it's a riot seeing the whole family - Erin's awake now, said she smelled cumin - working out in the family room.

These pics are from the other night, same bat-time same bat-channel just with jammies. The kids stretched before they started . . .



. . . then Abbie ran hurdles. Everyone in the room cheered - no wait, that's the Kinect crowd, mass shouting and wholesale grandstanding.Whoohoo! Our tiny crowd can't raise the decibels like THIS, though they almost can. The little dude from Fantasy Island back in the 70s shouted every week da plane, da plane, and I want to shout every day here, da noise, da noise!



Next Landon tried this wave thing. One of you will know the real name for it.



Tonight Erin's in the mix and just now hollering at me to come, come Mom look at Noah! Abbie's back on hurdles again and Noah's running lopsidedly in place next to her. "Did I do good?" Landon catapaults into his mom's lap and holds her face in his hands,and Abbie finishes with a cheer and a high five from Mike and Noah grins as he hears his name called and Nana whooping, and an hour has whizzed by and it's almost dinner time.

Chill out

Not to all the time be harping about how cold it is here, but when we stepped out of church today temps were sunk. 3:00 in the afternoon and the high was a veritable 13 degrees. (That's nothing Mike will tell me later as we chat(ter) about it - late January and February... thank goodness I'll not be here... hangs between 0 degrees and 10 for a high.) Well Mike had been walking behind me and the kids along the church hall and out the door. Now mind you it wasn't Mike so much I wanted when we got out the door and started down the walk for the parking lot and my teeth began chattering like Farkle dice thrown on the glass kitchen table and my nose hairs froze and my poor knuckles chapped (as I was gloveless as I had been admirably in charge of getting everything to church but my own gloves) - it was the Car Keys he had in his pocket; then again, not even them. It would have been more rightly said I wanted the Key of the Century. This is the expression Shana my grown up niece used to guilelessly use - recently (she admits it) - talking about that thingy which opens the car door. The remote people, the remote. Perhaps she was saying Key of the Sentry; it's all the same - the keyless entry! Go back and work that out if you can. It would be THAT I craved right this minute bracing forward in the wind holding the neck of my coat closed, my hapless knuckles exposed, and teetering in my Sunday slip-ons on ice cubes in the parking lot, which... well...

... which Mike, who had NOT come out the door with us and was amiably speaking to probably Reed in the church foyer, hoisted above his head when he saw me look toward the van.

I clambered in as the side door magically opened but not before getting the two kids who larked ahead of me the whole way like on a green soccer field in summer hoisted into their seats and buckled in and seeing Mike nearly on us with Noah. Noah who had on something to be envied; a down puff coat with hood and a strap-on beanie with tassel and only his two eyes bright showing. And gloves. The doors to the van shut and we rolled.

Don't say it Laura, don't. (My sister.) She commented on another post recently: I'm smiling cuz it's about time you got a little winter weather on your body!!! 

Which does nothing to warm the cockles of my heart. Sheesh.

This from my nephew Dave's e-mail to his parents does me good. Seasoned missionary in Japan.

"Remember but months ago when i was talking all about how hot it was here in Japan? Yeah well, imagine jumping out of a frozen Helicopter and free falling through an ice storm in your skivies only to crash through an ice pond and land in the water while kids are throwing snow balls at you, and then suddenly the sun decides to move just a few more meters from the earth, and then someone who has just been outside shoveling walks comes up and puts his hands on your face and someone throws an ice cube down your back, and then you drink a sierra mist after brushing your teeth, and then put one of Dads mints in your mouth, and then out of no where Julie Bastian throws a cold bucket of water on your back, and also you are cold. Then you took the words hot, warm, and even mild out of the dictionary and froze them with liquid nitrogen. That is how cold it is right now. I am talking cold people. The other day i was out contacting with an Elder and we were both talking and then suddenly a wind came up and we both just stopped mid sentence and moaned, "uuuuuhhhhoooooooooooooooooooo MY GOODNESS IT IS COOLD!" So yeah, its cold."

Let me entertain 'ya

Just outside Erin's front door day before yesterday.



Temperature 7 degrees at breakfast this morning. Drip-'n-freeze-'cicles almost to the ground overnight!



Lunchtime. Oooopsie!



Baby Noah. Hard to catch either standing still or smiling. I'm happy he's happy.



Abbie dressed for Tacky Day at school yesterday. Pajama bottoms, these; and you can't see them exactly, but three ponytails!



We're in the kids' closet this morning in TOTAL darkness, Landon's idea, c'mon Nana, 'cause he wants to see the glow worm glow he found in the bottom of a drawer. (Probably been there five years, all his life.) I'm aiming at what I hope is the worm and - autoflash! - success!




Erin and her sisters- and mother-in-law are having a blast. They'd better be! Lion King two nights ago; Wicked last night (and to the hotel with Wicked T-shirts); Mama Mia this afternoon and Mary Poppins tonight. There's all kinds of ways to be entertained.

Landon

This hour is the first Landon hasn't had his hands on this;



since Wednesday night. From the dollar section at Target where we had to go for a thing or two from the airport. Either that or a treat I said when the kids asked Nana for a toy - and he chose that. Yesterday the handle came off in a tug of war with him and a nasty dragon. Him in a fort under the couch pillows and blankets, and me the dragon. Kent makes a better one for sure with his monster sounds but I put on a  good show.

He looked a little brokenhearted down in his cave but put it right back together and held on to it til bedtime even when more of the handle came off. A sad face and a sigh. (The things a dollar'll buy.)

Today he found his Bakugans and Transformers and Batman and Spiderman and some dinosaurs in their box by the bookshelf. Hasn't noticed THEM for two days.

That may be because, well . . . (sword handle here)



. . . the fight's gone out of him?



Not so much . . . we just played us a little Bingo downstairs and he killed me!

Coldy

Mom, you wear socks at my house, Erin instructs after I arrive. I've been here an hour and have slipped into my Birkenstocks after all day in my winter shoes and socks coming on the plane.

I know I know I'm muttering now. It's a new day and it's snowing. It's very cold. One of Erin's hooded sweatshirts gives me another layer I need on in the house - I packed light on purpose knowing I'd be wearing Erin's clothes. Right now sitting at the computer in her finished basement I'm wearing my coat over that! And socks of course. I slipped on her Sherpa-lined Minetonka's at the front door to walk Abbie to the bus this morning. My shoes are slippery-slidy compared to this gear that hugs your feet and grips the snowy road.



See the road I mean? Not so much.



The kids' back yard.



Just outside the kitchen door.



These pics are dark. The day is very dark. It hasn't stopped snowing since Abbie left this morning. I go out to wait for her in an hour and will bundle up - erm, like a polar bear!

Synthia

I love a part of Synthia's post on her blog (link) about a little, well, difficulty in life. No not in life - in Jerusalem, where she landed about a week ago  . . .  

I'm trying to retrain my brain to not smile at those that pass by me. Smiling at young Arab men could be very dangerous because they won't necessarily see it as an innocent expression of global friendship, as I'm trying to portray.

My niece Synthia is probably THE single most chipper person I know. Always a smile for the people she's with. She visited us here in 2008 a few days before leaving on an 18-month mission to Uruguay from her home in Utah. I think she flew over to see exactly where I live and who I am here, me who she knew intimately in Utah before I married and moved. She was in junior high and high school those years and I was single and working for her dad and popping into her house all the time like one of the family . . . every once in a while we took off and did girly-girl things. Eh, we're wired a little alike, so there was incentive to come I know! And she loves Kent.



She has the most expressive look - cheeky little face as a baby, eyes popped open wide - that draws you right in. That and her smile. No wonder she needs to retrain her brain to not smile at those who pass by her now, a not too-too simple task. To smile is her native language!

She's generous. Smart. Inquisitive. Flappable. Busy. Creative. Eager. Spiritual. Her energy precedes her into a room or conversation or relationship. I'm impressed she has crisscrossed the world north and south and now east and west in service and study with her natural joie de vivre. I have no doubt she can do anything she puts her mind to and succeed. She's all about it! She'll squelch any "innocent expression of global friendship" that is her natural way (for a while) in favor of the local customs. Four months - and then she'll come home and give us all hugs!

Just before leaving for her mission October 2008


With cousin Jenny returning from her mission spring 2010


With brother Skylar, July 2010


With cousin Jamie August 2010

J-J-J-January!

Coat, gloves and hat

for a little f-f-f-freeeezy


outdoor

 fun!