Mid-month news

It seems pretty wimpy to post photos of our 3 inch Missouri snowfall on Tuesday when the east coast is reporting 2-3 feet of snow!  But, here they are anyway. 

 

 

looking down our street

It was enough to cancel the first Easter cantata rehearsal of the season.  I had been planning to skip out on Civic Orchestra to pick up a folder and music so when it was not to be, I thought “well, do I go to orchestra now?”  only to see an e-mail a few minutes later announcing that it, too was canceled!  Woo hoo!  So, Elise and I watched Downton Abby :)

Our week began with an afternoon trip to St. Louis to help Quinn celebrate his third birthday.  He is such a great little guy and we love him so much.  Isn't this a cute photo? He is so intent on his iPad game.

 

During the morning of the 18^th, while I was teaching 3 ½ hours of cello lessons (!), he went on a long metro ride with his family to give him his train fix for the day.  And, of course, most of his gifts were about trains in some fashion.  We fed into his obsession and gave him two train books.  Here are photos from his birthday dinner.

 

 

Steve and I stayed overnight and caught the 9:00 temple session on Tuesday.  As we drove back to Columbia, the snow was beginning to fall. 

I broke my eyeglasses Monday morning.  Since it had been three years since my last eye exam, I went to Walmart Optical on Wednesday to get an exam and to order a new pair of glasses.  I have been seeing flashes of light in my left peripheral vision since the first of the month and I simply thought it was the same thing that happened to my right eye back on ’09.  As the eye ages, it has a part that pulls away and you see light and floaters.  It resembles a retinal detachment but it isn’t.  I learned this from the ophthalmologist who checked my eye out seven years ago.  I shared the news with the optometrist on Wednesday, he looked at my retina and said it seemed fine but I really should go to an ophthalmologist all the same just to be sure.  So, that was where I was Friday morning.  Happily, all is well with both eyes. 

For our date Friday night, Steve and I polished silver while watching the old movie “Titanic” with Barbara Stanwick and a very young Robert Wagner.  I have been sewing this week while re-watching the BBC version of “Sense and Sensibility”. 

Elise gave me my Christmas present yesterday with brunch at Range Free - a totally gluten-free restaurant downtown.  I had eggs benedict for the first time in my life.  Yum.  Afterward, we braved the bitter temperatures and walked to Strange Donuts where I had a gluten-free chocolate donut sprinkled with butterfinger bits.  Heaven in my mouth.  In the afternoon, I went to my pottery class and threw three more pots and cleaned up the three I did two weeks ago.  I can’t believe how much fun I am having with this new hobby. 

We fed pizza to the missionaries and a young part-member couple last night.  They had an adorable almost one-year-old who was a dynamo.  She kept me on my toes in my non-child-proofed house.

Brrrr, it's January!

Well, I hardly know what to write after our busy, traveling-all-over December!  But, I AM so happy to be settling down into routine again….walks on the nature trail,

 

 bike rides, family history, and just savoring the quiet, calm days of winter.  We have about an inch of snow on the ground with bitter temperatures this morning.  However, just Thursday, it was so mild that I did a little bit of yard work!  I pulled off bagworm bags from our poor blue spruce tree and pruned the tart cherry branches away from the sidewalk.  

Yesterday, Steve and I built a fire in the pit in back and burned old documents because the poor paper shredder couldn’t handle the load.  We had some branches from the Frasier fur Christmas tree and it was cool to hear the popping of the needles when we threw them into the fire.  I roasted some marshmallows.  Trissy monitored our progress.  It was too cold for Sadie.

Can you spot me in the midst of all the cellists?  

 

  The Odyssey Chamber Series concert yesterday was a free children’s affair featuring the Carnival of the Animals and two of my students and I were part of the sixteen cellists playing “The Swan”.  This photo was from our Saturday rehearsal.  

I am resuming my pottery lessons and I threw three pots last Saturday!  It was SO fun. 

See the cute little elephant pitcher?  Steve’s sister, Michelle, gave it to him for Christmas. 

  It was the one used every pancake morning at the Lambson home while Steve was growing up.  Michelle got it when Iola passed away and she decided Steve should have it.  She sent it in a box with pancake mix and real maple syrup.  The griddle and coffee pot are cast aluminum and also came from Steve’s mom.  Steve learned to cook pancakes on that griddle when he was a boy. 

On Monday, I had a dentist appointment in Boonville and Steve and Elise tagged along so we could visit a new second-hand store I had heard good things about and an antique mall.  The store was very nice and I came away with three skirts, a scarf, and a dress jacket for $8.00!  We ate lunch in a little diner near the river before returning to Columbia.

 

Melanie celebrated a birthday last weekend.   

  She had a “princess party” on Friday, the 8^th, and we had her birthday dinner ( pork loin, mashed potato, green salad, strawberry cake)  on Sunday, the 10^th, although her actual birthday was Saturday, the 9^th. 

Sarah and Sadie photo during the games we played after dinner....

 

Steve and Kirsti are celebrating birthdays today!
 
 We enjoyed stuffed pasta shells, garlic bread, green salad, grapes, and chocolate cake with gelato for Steve's birthday dinner. 

Steve is modeling one of his gifts - a tunnel for his train setup.





Bacon and Bones finally settled down during the games but their usual activity is to wrestle each other all over the living room.  In fact, we put the leather couch cushions up so they won't destroy the upholstery.  Trissy, on the other hand, was not bothered by that.

 And, Sadie, just needed to keep warm!

Indiana after Christmas

Steve and I left the day after Christmas for Indiana to spend a few days with Julina and Alex and kids.  We drove the entire way in torrential rain.  It was annoying because we couldn't use the cruise control but we were thankful that the temperatures weren't colder or it would have then been snow or freezing rain!

 While we were there, we visited two places.  On Monday, we saw "Jingle Rails" at the Eiteljorg Museum.  Here are some photos from the exhibit.  You can see that everything is made out of natural materials.  Pretty neat....













Alex is in a wheel-chair because he is experiencing muscle loss for some unknown reason.  He had a biopsy a week ago and they are sending the sample to the Mayo Clinic for analysis.  We are all kind of on pins and needles waiting for the results. 

 The next day, we went to the Children's Museum.  That place is enormous and we only hit a few exhibits because of the size and because it was jam-packed with families taking advantage of the holiday break.  Primarily, we went to the Sacred Journey's presentation that featured five religious pilgrimage sites around the world.  It was very interesting.  I thought the coolest part was getting to touch an actual stone from the temple in Jerusalem!

On permanent exhibition is a Chihuly glass sculpture.  It was just magnificent. 

And, on the bottom level, one could look up into the bottom of the display

Here is Steve at the front of the museum with a Transformer.  

And, here is what the front of the museum looks like.  It is a fun place.

Christmas 2015

Wow, December went by quickly - I guess that happens when you spend two of the four weeks traveling!
This is the nativity Steve got himself in Hawaii.  In case you cannot tell, it is inside a coconut shell


 While shopping at Aldi when we returned from Hawaii, we ran into this fellow.  William Hawkins is now almost 15 but we knew him best when he was 5 and lived with us for a few months while his mother was in the hospital.  He had two younger brothers at the time and they were sent to other homes in the ward.  A memorable event with William was that he helped us move Elise to Indiana and during the drive there, he kept asking "where are we going?".  He helped, in his little five-year-old way, haul Elise's possessions up the stairs to her apartment.  And, when we were all done, we all went to see "Cars".

Here are Steve and me waiting for Star Wars, the Force Awakens to begin.  Steve is catching up on his beauty sleep, as you can see  :)

MMCO (Mid-Missouri Community Orchestra) played at Parkside Manor to cheer up the residents.   

 I rounded up a group of extremely talented young musicians to play for the Candlelight Christmas party.  (l-r) Ethan Forte, Erica Lim, me, Grant Bradshaw, Joanna Yu, Amanda Bradshaw
 

 Christmas decor throughout the house

Christmas day.... 

Quinn and Joe

Sadie and Steve

Emily, Elise, Lucy, Noah

Steven with missionaries in background

Elders Estes and Peterson

Emily and Sarah

Tamara and Steven

My favorite gift from Steve - a dancing Charlie Brown!

Hawaii - the Big Island

Monday, December 7th, Steve, Beckie and I flew to Hilo on the Big Island (which is actually called Hawaii.)  Here is the ocean view from the Hilo area.  It is quite rocky and steep and there are hardly any beaches on this side of the island.

 

 After renting a car, we had a couple of hours to kill before checking into our Home Away rental so we visited Rainbow Falls right in the middle of the town of Hilo.

 

Further upstream, it reminded us a little of Johnson's Shut-Ins  

After checking into a nice rental,

We got back into the car and drove to Mauna Kea to watch the sunset and to stargaze.

Mauna Kea is the tallest mountain in the world (because it begins way down at the bottom of the ocean).  We just went as far as the visitor's center - which is plenty high up. The road to the summit past the center is really steep and gravel and scary.  No thank you!

We had a fantastic view / experience where we were.  From the center, we hiked up a nearby "small" hill that, with the thin air, left Steve and me pretty breathless. 

 

 

And, then the view left us breathless!

It was an incredible evening.

Tuesday, we visited some of my cousins.

 (l-r) Lance, Ken Sims, Susan, Joshua, Kevin, Cindy

Cindy and Susan are daughters of Jean Holmberg Boll Sims who is the daughter of Gladys, my mother’s sister.  Jean’s sister is Charlotte, the cousin who lives in Wisconsin.  About seven years ago, Susan and Lance decided to get escape the corporate rat-race in Colorado and move to Hawaii.  They now raise hydroponic tomatoes.   Here is their green house (and the ocean in the background!)

 

 

 inside the greenhouse - tomatoes at all stages of growth.  

this is Lance on dry-wall stilts "tickling" (pollinating) the tomato blossoms which is what a bee would do out in a regular garden. 

We got a tour and it was very fascinating.  It is a seven-day-a-week, fifty-two week operation but evidently very satisfying.  Their property has all kinds of citrus trees and a banana tree 

 

and they raise chickens.  And the view is amazing! 

 

Cindy and Kevin came to Hawaii a couple of years later – primarily to help with the care of their mother who had Alzheimers and Ken, her husband, just couldn’t do take care of her alone any more.  Jean and Ken came to Hawaii when Cindy and Kevin came, I think.  Jean passed away last May.  Cindy lives right next door to Susan on land that has an old, fungus-ridden macadamia nut grove.  When they first moved in, the property was totally overgrown and the house was falling apart.  They have worked quite a bit on the house and are in the process of reclaiming the land – ultimately to grow coffee.   

 

 

They have a few trees now and Cindy showed us how she dries the beans.   

 

 She also makes soaps and sells both at local farmer’s markets.  Susan sells the tomatoes to local restaurants and also at the farmer’s markets.   

Susan and Lance have no children and Cindy and Kevin have one son, Joshua, who just got married and he and his wife live nearby.They treated us to an amazing lunch (Cindy is gluten-free so I had a worry-free feast!)

 It was a wonderful visit!  

We finished our day by driving to the south part of the island to visit Volcano National Park.  The vegetation, as you can see, is very lush right around the visitor's center.

 

 

 We walked through a lava tube (I can't remember how they are made - you will have to look it up)

And, then we just were awed by the active volcano from various parts of the park...

 

 

in the photo above, on the left is the volcano.  In the middle, what looks like smoke from a fire, are steam vents

above is the closest we were able to get to the volcano.  Below is how it looks at night.  So cool!

Wednesday, we checked out of our rental house and shopped at the farmer's market in Hilo

 



 and then drove to the other side of the island (about a two-hour trip) to go to a gorgeous beach.


 Beckie flew back to Honolulu that afternoon but Steve and I stayed one more night in Kona.  We got to attend the temple that evening.

 this was our view from our hotel room...
 
 The next morning, we drove back to Hilo to return the rental car and fly to Honolulu.  The road, called the "saddle road", takes you through amazing terrain.  At times, it felt like we were driving through Wyoming or Utah, it was so barren and desert-like.  The huge lava fields brought us back to the reality that this was Hawaii.  That black patch below is lava....


 

 see those critters way in the distance?  They are goats walking on the lava field!

We flew back to Honolulu Thursday afternoon. 

 

 Here is Steve at the Hilo airport.  Beckie met us at the Honolulu airport - we found a place nearby to enjoy a picnic dinner and watch our last sunset in Hawaii.   Aloha!