Ann's Words

We’ve been looking forward to this evening for a long time.  John and I hosted our first Senior Missionary Reunion this evening in our back yard.  Friends started arriving at about 6:00 and stayed for the rest of the evening.  They didn’t want to leave.  It was wonderful.  We had a large group of missionaries, plus a few extras, like the Merkel family from Offenbach, who have moved to SLC for 2-3 years with his church job, Abbey’s parents came (they are going to serve in Frankfurt in September), Kurt Heiss my Grossgartach relation was in town from Atlanta and he came (he and his wife are putting in their mission papers in a couple of weeks and may end up in Frankfurt as an AMA).  So in all, about 70 were here.

We had J-Dawgs come to cater the dogs and everyone brought sides and salads and desserts and there was plenty of good food.

The evening was Really wonderful.  We had couples come from AZ, CO, ID and CA.  Everyone really made an effort to come.  There were very few missing, most who weren’t here are on another mission somewhere.  It really was amazing to see everyone.  I love these friends so much, I really do.  A highlight of this mission was having so many other couples with us.

The visiting and reminiscing went late into the evening.  Oh, what a joyful time!

There are 3 videos at the end of the pics you really won’t want to miss.

Here are 3 recordings of Elder Mark Andrus reciting some fine poetry he wrote and shared while serving in our mission:

I had a day after returning from St. Louis to prepare for our annual Book Club Retreat at our Sundance Cabin.  We ladies look forward to this every year.  It’s a gentle time to relax, visit, work on projects and play games as we share what’s in our hearts with each other.

One of the fun topics of conversation this year was each of us describing our perfect day.  Another evening around the dinner table, we each told what meds or supplements we take and why.  That was pretty fun!  We’re enjoying aging together.

Cathy Duffin is preparing to serve a mission in Cambodia with her husband, Jim.  Lori Munk, now serving as an RS President, has welcomed twin grandbabies and is expecting another set of twin grandbabies.  Lori King was able to join us.  About a year ago she suffered a brain injury after falling in her garage.  Shelley is getting ready to sell her house and look for a new one.  Julie is also preparing to move to Provo/Orem and build a new home there.  Kristy works in the temple taking care of the prayer roll submissions.  Kennedy brought her famous homemade french bread.  Virginia dropped by for an afternoon.  We watched the movies, Dr. Thorne and Pollyanna.  We all are very different but we have so much in common.  We try hard not to talk about politics, but to share and uplift each other with the good in our worlds.  We missed those who couldn’t join us.

Shelley and Julie and I are working on a writing project from the Book of Alchemy.

So we got to be with the kids from August 1st until the 11th. What a glorious and exhausting week!  Clark is 8, Josie is 6, Margot is 5, Vivy is 3 and Lenna is 1+.  They are happy busy active little kids and we love them like crazy.

In the pics that follow, you’ll get a fun idea of how we spent our days.  LOTS of reading and taking walks and visits to parks and play areas, puzzles, games, fabric sorting, some ice cream, some cookies, and lots of fun meals and sticky fingers.  We also watched all of the Harry Potter movies with Clark and Josie while the littles napped and Margot watched her favorite princess movies in another room.  Clark has almost finished reading all of the HP books.  He’s a reading maniac!  And the girls are right behind him.  It really was a glorious 10 days!

Every night Clark and I would go out to the front porch lights to catch moths and bugs to feed to Frogzilla.

A summer storm interrupted our back yard weanie roast.

We all went to the Back-to-School activity for the older kids.

Hatchet got a big thumbs up from Clark!  We ordered the rest of Gary Paulsen’s books for him to keep the adventures going.

On our last night before the parents’ return, we took the kids out for burgers, and then to Ted Drew’s frozen custard.  YUMMMM!

On a Saturday night, after a fun trip to a Wendy’s for burgers and ice cream, we loaded everyone back into the car and headed home to get the kids cleaned up for church in the morning.  Clark wanted a shower, so he went first.  Then I helped strip down the 4 little blonde-headed girlies and got their slippery little bodies lined up in a tub full of warm water, legs crossed, facing me with a few bath toys like ducks and mermaids bobbing round them.  One by one, I helped shampoo their hair and wash them down.  As I bent over the tub,  Margot, age 5, kept looking down my t-shirt, studying my chest, trying to make sense of cleavage.  Finally she looked up at me and said, “GrAnn, does your butt crack go all the way around to the front??”

Reunited with Mom and Dad!

We had a last day or so with them all before flying back to Utah.  Oh, what a fun week!  But we are old and we feel it.  Still, I’m grateful for any time we get with any of the grandkids.  These are OUR PEOPLE and we love them.

We finished reading Charlotte’s Web on our last day, then we watched the movie.  What a great way to wrap up our time with the kids!

These plump little toes don’t quite fit her feet!  We’ll see if she grows into them.

We’re all about making dinner fun and effortless for Heidi when we visit.  Last time we took the family to Shogun, a local teppanyaki restaurant and the kids did not forget it!  They love the fire and exciting food prep right at our table.  And we all love the food!

And if, by chance, the Krispy Creme “hot now” sign is lit up as we drive home, John will pull in for some dessert.  This was a great way to start our 10 days with the kids.  In the morning Adam and Heidi will be off to Mexico.

We turned around from our Alaska trip and headed to St. Louis to take care of Adam and Heidi’s 5 adorable children for 10 days while the parents joined Heidi’s siblings on a get-away to Mexico.  We were so excited to have so much time with the kids.

Of course I packed some new pieces of fabric for the girlies.  You may remember the Quilt Box I made for Josie a couple of years ago.  Every time I see them, I add a few more pieces.  Today as soon as we got out of the car, the first question was “GrAnn–Did you bring us more fabric??”  The answer:  “Of Course!!”

A Quilt Box for my Josie Girl!

The very first thing we did when we got inside was pull out the new scraps!

Margot quickly found a piece with Maleficent, her favorite villain (a leftover from her favorite pillowcase)!

The girls enjoy sorting and picking out their favorites.  I like to believe I’m training up little quilters, which makes me very happy indeed!

As we pulled into our neighborhood after the Alaska trip, something looked very different.  Our 5 flowering pear trees have been removed.  It was John’s idea.  They were old and the branches were brittle and they made a big mess, but they were beautiful in the spring and in the fall when blossoms bloomed and leaves turned brilliant.  Sometimes change is hard for me.  I will miss those trees.

Here’s a look at those trees in the winter:

Where do the quail go when it snows?

Our last two days we made our way to Anchorage with a stop at Hubbards Glacier along the way.  The ship didn’t go too close because of all the floating ice chunks in the water.

Here’s a look at our room and a few oft-visited places on our ship–

On our last day, we got off the ship in a place called Whittier, which was just a walk down the ramps to waiting buses (we did not see a town). We were organized into groups according to our flight times out and the buses we got on took us on a bus tour ending at the airport with ample time to check in (some went straight to the airport, some got to see things along the way). Our bus had time for some nice touring.

We stopped first at Portage Valley where we saw the Portage Glacier and a beautiful glacial lake.  We enjoyed an hour-long drive with a cute guide explaining things along the way about the area, the wildlife and life in this area closer to Anchorage.  Then we went to a wildlife refuge, where rescued or orphaned animals are brought.  It was a sort of Alaskan wildlife zoo with big natural areas for each animal.  We had 70 minutes there to wander and see the beautiful animals–Bison, Muskoxen, Bears, Deer, Elk, Reindeer, Wolves, Moose, Porcupine, Owls, Eagles, and more.  It was a good stop.  We all enjoyed it.  They had good signage and information about each animal.

Then we continued into Anchorage and to the airport, where we had about an hour before our departure to Seattle.  We were all on the same flight.  Then we said our goodbyes via text because we had to race to our next flight that left in 30 min to SLC.  We made it just in time.  They flew on to LA.  What a great trip this was!  Alaska was spectacular, and wild, but I think it was Caleb who really stole our hearts.

Today was our last excursion day off the ship.  This morning we pulled into Icy Strait Point, which is an area Norwegian Cruise Lines is developing.  We were the only ship stopping here.  I think other ships sometimes come here.  It’s like they needed one more stop on this trip, so they created one near the sleepy little town of Hoonah (about 700 people).

The ship docked on the edge of land they are calling “a wilderness landing,” and we unloaded in a place with nothing in sight except for a path to a “transporter gondola.”  It was like a big fancy enclosed ski lift that took up over and through a wooded area to a pretty newly developed (tourist) area built up around an old cannery that now houses shops and some restaurants and things to do, like a long zip line (a different gondola up to the top of another mountain for a 90 sec zip ride down) for only $250.  We figured $3/second or so.

The area was nicely developed.  The old cannery was part museum showing the history of canning salmon here (which I’ve read 100s of pages about in my Michener Alaska book).  That was interesting to me.

We’d made arrangements to go whale watching later this morning.  We went in a van with the wife of the whale watching guide, Sean. Sean and Theresa are retired school teachers and live in Hoonah, where Sean grew up. They love it here.  Below is the little boat we went out in to spend a few hours watching the whales frolicking around us.

We saw some sea otters floating on their backs and a brown bear mama with her cub on a beach, eating from piles of seaweed the tide brought in.  And we saw humpback whales, spouting all around us, then dipping down into the sea, waving their beautiful tails at us.  We saw probably 50 or more tails waving from the groups or pods of whales around us.  It was fun.  We didn’t see any Orca whales.

It was pretty relaxing to be out on the sea (in this inlet) with islands and land nearby.  The water was like glass.

Then back to shore, where Claire and Graham met us with Caleb and we walked through the board-walked area around the shops, then walked most of the way along the shore on a path to Hoonah town.  This has always been a fishing village.  They do a lot of King Crab fishing, halibut, salmon and more here.  Locals can catch what they need for “subsistence” and there are places by the docks where they can clean their fish.  Outsiders need licenses to catch here in Alaska.

We had to be back on the ship by about 6:00.  We were probably the last ones to board, soaking up the last of our ground time in Alaska.  It was nice to just stroll and be with the kids and Caleb, who makes everyone happy.

We were docked in Skagway this morning, another small town kept alive by cruising visitors. There were several ships in the harbor area stopped here. They have more than 1 million visitors during the summer months. This was a Gold Rush town when gold was found on the Yukon River. The town was fun with cute historic shops, brothels, museums and so many tourist shops filled with all things Alaska. Lots of jewelry, carvings, skins, animal kitsch and more.

Graham arranged for us to get a rental car here, so we could do our own excursion. Most got on a train that went into the Yukon Territory (in Canada) with scenic views of this rugged country. We did the same and more by car, with freedom to stop and go where we wanted to. It was great. We spent most of the day driving the one main road that went inland, stopping at waterfalls, scenic overviews, and waterways. Everything was pretty spectacular and raw. There were very few people. We saw some tour buses doing what we were doing. They’d stop, people would get out, snap a photo, and get back on.

We enjoyed climbing over the granite boulders down to the water in one area that looked like it should be a movie set for a dinosaur movie. There were so many interesting plants growing between the stones–low growing pines, mosses, wildflowers. It was really spectacular.

We drove to a town named Carcross, where a golden spike was driven in the Yukon – White Pass route in 1900. This little town has made it a nice stop for visitors with boardwalks and fun little shops all decorated and painted with Alaskan art (like totem poles art). There was a general store with really good hard ice cream and a sour dough bakery with good cinnamon rolls. They had a playground for kids to climb on and some sitting areas in the shade. Today was warm and sunny. We’ve had pretty perfect weather here this week.

We stopped at Emerald Lake, a breathtakingly beautiful green lake–the water was almost florescent. There were rivers and lakes all around us, surrounded by straight tall pines. No one lives in most of Alaska. It’s just forests and wild country. We drove into the Yukon Territory (Canada), which was more of the same. It reminded me a bit of the Grand Tetons, with beautiful mountains all around us, many still topped with snow. The air is clean and crisp.

On our way back, we stopped at a lake and let Caleb play a bit, throwing little rocks into the water. Took some photos for their next CMS card. Enjoyed being on our own and off the ship. This was a nice day, all to ourselves.

We got back into Skagway at about 5:00 and drove to an area where they said bears like to come to feed. It’s a marshy area with river rivulets filling a valley. We drove about 30 minutes into that valley, looking down on it from the road. We saw eagles, but no bears, but it was interesting. It also felt like dinosaur lands. As we were leaving that area, we saw a lone black bear right off the side of the road! That was fun. He was a young one, and went over and down the hill out of sight. We saw our bear!

Then we returned our rental car to the man at the only gas station in town after he helped Graham fill it up.  We had until 8:30 here, so we spent the rest of our time walking through on the boardwalks through this old town filled with tourist shops.  We stopped to buy some popcorn at Richter’s where they were giving out free samples.  That was fun.  Claire & Graham found a park where they sat on the grass and she fed Caleb.  John and I wandered a bit longer in town, then met them—they’d also gone to get some King Crab for dinner there.  Claire loves to buy local food when she travels.  She always finds out about the places to go for the best tasting.

Then back to the ship.

Here’s a display of what a gold seeker needed to survive: