Utah - A mountain desert

On our way back home from Florida, I sat next to a contractor from Syracuse, New York, who was headed to Park City for a conference at the Stein Erickson Lodge. As we talked, I realized that he had no clue what Utah was like. He had no concept of a place where lawns had to be watered to grow, where it only rained 14 inches a year, and yet the mountains get 600 inches of snow a year. He couldn't imagine a place where mountains rose 8000 feet above the valley floor that was already almost a mile high. As we got closer to Utah, he could see the mountains and the lack of growth. He marvelled that there were no deciduous forests, and yet he could not imagine a place where the mountains held snow capped peaks with quaking aspen, alpine fir, and blue spruce. Today I was able to go bid a job at Brighton Ski Resort, taking only a couple of hours out of my work day, and was transported to a totally different environment than the valley floor. Being away from Salt Lake for a while let me appreciate what a wonderful place this is where we live. I just thought I would share a small piece of the beauty I saw this afternoon.

Books and Music and Pots - Oh My!

Here are samples of the items we have decided to get out of our house to reduce the clutter. They include lots of books including the Science Library -(lots of experiments), the Time-Life set of American Wilderness Books (about 20 volumes)and lots and lots of Reader's Digest Condensed Books (about 30 volumes)

Janene has added lots of her pottery and tons of sheet music.

Come One - Come All- First come first served. They will be here for a week and then they are out of here. We could even be tempted to let some of our other books go as well. Just let us know what you want.

Chelane Commissions Her First Work of Art

During our recent trip to Mata Ortiz, Mexico, we went to the home of Juan Quezada to look at some of his pots (we could only afford to look) and see some of his family's works. We met Juan's son, Alvaro at the gallery in their home and Janene and I bought one of his pots. (More about the pot and the trip later) In talking with Alvaro, he asked if we wanted to see him paint one of his pots since he was painting one to be exhibited in Tuscon. Of course, we jumped at the chance to watch a master potter work in his studio.

We followed Alvaro out into the dirt streets of Mata Ortiz, past a few yards with chickens, dogs and goats to his home on Iturbide Steet. Once there, we found that his studio was his immaculately furnished living room! One thing you will note in Mata Ortiz is the homes may not be much to look at on the outside, with dirt yards, adobe walls and mud roofs, but inside they could be any home in the United States. We watched as he painted this pot. He never even seemed a bit bothered by seven of us looking over his shoulder, asking questions and firing flashes.

He works totally freehand, not knowing what the pot will look like beforehand. He says that he starts to draw some basic lines and then lets the pot tell him what to paint. He usually will repeat that pattern three times. The brush he uses has the hair of a small child, usually someone in his family. The paints are made with local minerals, ground up and mixed with water and fine clay. The pot was made of a specially prepared clay dug from the hills outside town and is astunning dark chocolate brown color. Juan has shared with the entire town his methods for making the pots and his love of quality, but he has kept a few thing like the pigments a secret.

When we went back to Juan's home a day later to look at pots again, Juan's wife Guillermina, came out and said we must stay for a while longer. The family had something to show us. In a few minutes Alvaro came out of the kitchen with the beautiful pot that he had been painting. They had just taken out of the firing and it was still very warm to the touch. When we asked how much it would bring after the exhibition, we inquired if he would be willing to sell it now before it was shown. He hesitated a moment and then said "Yes". The words were no sooner out of his mouth when Chelane piped up and said "I'll buy it!" We had Juan come out to have his picture taken with Chelane and his son and their newest family pot. We all marvelled that Chelane ended up with the very pot she watched the artist make. Chelane brought home 13 pots of her own this time down and every one of them is a treasure.

A little bit o' frost on the punkin.

Today we awakened to 10 inches of freshly fallen snow. Needless to say, our trees didn't like this new feature, especially our fruit trees, but it sure made it easy to pick our apples. Just bend over, no need for a ladder, almost like picking tomatoes. Janene picked all the tomatoes yesterday right before it started snowing. She brought down eight buckets of vegetables while I was beginning the honey extraction ( yes, we have harvested the honey and right now it is all over our house, dripping from various buckets into strainers) We had to knock the snow off the pine tree this morning to get the branch high enough that we could get out of the driveway to go to church. Luckily, it looks like we didn't have any major branches break.

Ben's Baby Blessing

Benjamin Theodore Landon was given a blessing today by his father and attended by quite a few of his family. He was the star of the show in his little one piece tuxedo. Through it all, he was calm and collected. He never even looked the slightest bit nervous, in fact, he slept right through the blessing. It's a good thing that Heavenly Father pays attention to priesthood blessings because I don't think Ben even heard one word

Afterwards, at Angie's house, he was passed around to everyone who wanted to hold him and he even learned to smile a little. Here he is with his great grandmother, Darlene ( who will probably shoot me for putting a picture of her with her eyes closed on the blog ).

Nathan was there to see his little brother blessed. He has been attending a very good( and expensive ) school. The Carmen Pingree School has been wonderful for Nathan and he has learned a lot. Today, he wanted to chatter and engage me in conversation, even though I couldn't understand a word he said. He wanted to look at me and wanted to take me by the hand and show me around. He even posed for me when I asked him to. The other day, he was playing with his toy phone and Angie heard him say "Grandma", so she immediately called Grandma Janene and let him talk to her.

Little Lily had lots of fun playing with her cousins, but by the time I got around to see her, she was sound asleep on her mother's lap. Andrew put her in a little doll stroller and drove her around the house. She had great fun until Andrew almost dumped her on her head. Andrew enjoyed the time as well. When we got to Angie's house, everything was immaculate, everything in it's place. By the time all of Ben's cousins got through, the house looked like a tornado had gone through. Cy, Sam and Mikey were running around saying " I'm a tornado". We all had lots of fun. We are really blessed to have all our grandchildren living so close.

Yuri is Married!

About 25 years ago, a young Japanese mother named Kimie (Kim-ee-ay) brought her three children with her to the United States as part of a friendship ambassador exchange program that was sponsored by President Carter called the Friendship Force. Kimie and her daughter Yuri, and two sons Junichi and Kenichi stayed with our family for two weeks. We have written to each other often and stayed in touch. We have marvelled at the emphasis the Japanese put on education and how important it has been for their family. All of the children studied in special schools for what has seemed like an eternity compared to our educational system. Kimie's last letter was all about the marriage of her daughter Yuri to Ryosuke. Here is a picture of Ryosuke's father and mother on the left and Masayuki and Kimie on the right as they join with the bride and groom to smash the lid on a wooden barrel with special wooden hammers. Why they do this is not clear to me, but it is all part of what appears to be a very formal celebration of the marriage of these two. It must have taken hours for Yuri to get her hair put up and get dressed in her fancy white kimono. We all (well maybe some of us) remember the fun we had with them when they were here. The kids were cute and adorable then - they are successful and prominent people in their communities now. Kimie doesn't look any any older than she was 25 years ago. We wish Yuri and Ryosuki will enjoy their new marriage together and wish their families well. Our lives have been blessed as we have been able to share our experiences with each other.

Thanksgiving in October

The other night we had a visit from Lisseth, Glen, Brandon and Mary. They brought us a bunch of yummy food that we added to our normal vegetables from our garden dinner. She cooked up a pot roast, made gravy, had garlic potatoes and then other veggies she cooked with the pot roast. She made a delicious vegetable medley thing that used almost pickled veggies... I don't know how to describe it, but she will post a comment to say what it really is. Then, to add to it, her neighbor brought over a bunch of tempura with teriyaki dip that we devoured because Lisseth brought it to us. (it wasn't our fault - we couldn't resist). Finally, Janene made an apple crumb pie (is that called apple pan dowdy?) with roadkill apples. Oh!... maybe those are really called windfall apples. WITH ICE CREAM! Holy Succotash, Batman! Was this a feast or what? When it was time to go we all just rolled our fat little bellies over to the door and down the hill. It was almost like the old pig parties we used to have with our friends in Morton Meadows. And, yes those are brussell sprouts from our garden.

Evening in Little Cottonwood Canyon

Tonight Janene and I decided to do something spur of the moment, the way we used to do when we were younger. As soon as I got home from work, we jumped in the car and headed up to Little Cottonwood Canyon. Of course, we grabbed the camera and tripod as we were going out the door. Years ago, it was not unusual for the Phillips Family to head up the canyon to get ice cream cones at the Timp Freeze in Midway, or to catch dinner at the Spring Chicken Inn near Wanship. It was totally wasteful and not eco-friendly, and in many respects it wasn't very smart ( the food at Chick's Cafe in Heber is not what you would call "world-class"), but it was a chance to get Mom out of the kitchen and allowed time for every child to get some other child upset about something. Tonight it was our plan to listen to the debate, take some pictures and have dinner at the Snowbird Lodge.

We took beautiful pictures as the sun set in the canyon and the sky lit up with some pastel pinks. The Lodge Bistro was closed (I must remember that in the off season it is only open on the weekends). Much of the color had already faded from the autumn leaves, but the evening sun made up for some of that. It was worth the trip, if only for our frazzled nerves, and to sooth the frustrations we were experiencing as we listened to the debate/posturing. Why is it that none of those people in the town hall setting asked the question on everybody's mind? You know - the one that says "How did it come to this? - That we only have you two clowns to pick from. Now what are you going to do about that problem for America?"

Ahhh! The beauty of nature, the smell of the oak and maple leaves, tinctured with the occasional pungent aroma of pine and spruce. That , added to the cool breeze and evening light, and a person could almost forget about the plunging value of your 401(k) and the pile of bills our kids will have to pay off. It was well worth the $25 in gas it took to get there. Arghhh!

Heather and her stuffed family

Heather believes that this picture was destroyed. The original showed Heather in her birthday suit with all of her furry friends. Now through the wonders of technology, she has been clothed and is now suitable for posting to the world. She need not fear. The original photo will be found in our safe deposit box. This precious little girl reminds me of the little girl shown in our previous post, her own daughter.

The Joy of Family

I love this picture of Elsie and some of her friends. Of course, I saw echoes of Elsie's Mom and her stuffed friends when I took this picture. Elsie gathered all her animal pals, dressed them up, and posed them on the couch. Then without any prompting, she sat down with them and ...... smiled. She was content with a mother's day's work and proud of her children. If we hadn't had Heather and Joseph living with us, I would have missed this treasure. We have been blessed to have almost all of our married kids and their little families living with us in our home. Every one of these episodes in our life is a golden memory. This week Chelane moved back home for a while, and we are getting to enjoy her company. Shon and his whole family came to our rescue and helped haul all of her stuff back home. Max, Jake and Isabel helped carry things out to the truck and Mel packed up the kitchen when everyone else was worn out. We even got a little help from Brandon. WE LOVE OUR FAMILY!