First week in Utah

Greetings from Ogden, Utah this lovely Sunday morning.  We are at Sarah's but will be transferring to Grantsville this evening to stay with Steve's sister, Michelle.  It has been a great trip so far...but, I should probably back up and start at the beginning of the week:

Monday morning, still in Saint Louis, was working in the yard and planting the items I picked up from Gateway Greening that rainy Saturday.  The afternoon was Southerland music lesson day since I was at the Honda dealership most of Friday.  Tuesday afternoon was our departure time but we had Larkin over for preschool in the morning.  Aside from playing with all my stuffed lambs, she helped me water all the plants I had just put into the ground the day before.

Emily helped me drop our Honda back at the dealership where it will stay until it is fixed and until we return home.  Linus was a bit of a concern all day because he had been having diarrhea since Saturday and we thought that the can of special food I bought at PetSmart that day would take care of the problem.  Sunday and Monday he seemed fine but Monday night, he was up four times to go outside and we knew we better not leave without trying to solve his digestive problems. So, we had to fit a trip to the vet into an already rather tight schedule.  He got some anti-diarrhea pills, a probiotic to sprinkle on his food, and some even more special food to eat.  And, then it was time for Beckie to drive us to the airport.  She is taking care of the dogs - sleeping with them at our place but bringing them to her place during the day.  Here they are chilling out with her - Sally decided that dirty laundry and power cords were the most comfortable spot.  Linus definitely made the better sleeping location choice, I think.

Beckie reports that Linus is back to normal pooping as of Thursday.  Hooray!

Our flight to Salt Lake City left at 6:30 and we followed the sunset, landing just as the sun went down over the Great Salt Lake.  It was pretty cool.  Steve slept most of the way and I watched movies.  I finished "The Personal History of David Copperfield" which I had started on my flight home from Arizona back in February.  When I logged on to Southwest's inflight WiFi and tapped that movie, it started where I had left off!  Creepy.  The movie turned out to be pretty good - kind of a qwirky adaptation but the basic story line was true to the book.  I tried to watch the new Dr. Doolittle movie with Robert Downey Jr. but it was awful so I started to watch "On The Basis of Sex" and, so far, it is pretty good.  I will finish it on my return flight.  Sarah picked us up from the airport and we stayed overnight with her.  She took us to pick up our rental car Wednesday morning (it is cheaper to rent cars away from airports) and we drove down to Spanish Fork to see our new little grandson and to spend a couple of days.  Little Ivan Sebastian is just adorable - very good looking - and, so far, an easy baby.  

Kirsti and Ryan have a lovely home and yard and I was privileged to help Kirsti do some yardwork while I was there which is actually a fun activity for me.  I cut out some dead rosemary (and smelled delicious the rest of the day) and dug out grass and cut dead branches from her row of blackberries.  I put in a thyme plant and cut back dead growth from her sage plants in front.  Alice was her delightful self and hopefully, by the time we leave, she will let me give her a hug.  At least she will blow kisses with me.  I must make a better effort to FaceTime with her more often and mail her letters so I am not such a stranger whenever she sees me.   Aside from cuddling a newborn, and going to a store a couple of times (because we forgot everything the first time!), we watched two movies after Alice went to bed:  Greyhound - an Apple original movie starring Tom Hanks as the captain of a Naval destroyer escorting supply ships across the Atlantic during World War II, and The Big Year (neither Kirsti nor Ryan had seen it).

We left the Merrills Friday morning for Ogden again, stopping at a Deseret Industries along the way to purchase additional shirts for warm weather as we didn't pack enough and temperatures were in the 80's.  Steve and I both found two tops each plus I bought a new "summer" purse and we picked up an additional duffle bag to take back all the stuff we are accumulating while we are here (hooray for two free checked bags apiece, Southwest Airlines).  Sarah, Steve and I drove to see the Spiral Jetty Friday evening and it was really worth the very long drive (the last fifteen miles being on a washboard gravel road) through completely unpopulated country.  I couldn't believe how remote this place was.  We saw no other cars or houses once we turned off the main highway and so very glad we had a reliable vehicle because if we had broken down, we would have been stranded.  But, it was worth it!  The Spiral Jetty, created in 1970,  was the last artistic endeavor of a man who died young.  Sometimes it is not visible when the lake is high but we had no problem seeing it on Friday.  Had we brought bug spray (the brine flies were fierce) and had we arrived a bit earlier, it would have been great to hike up a small hill to get a better view of the spiral and to walk out to the lake edge beyond the jetty.   Sarah and Steve DID walk out to the center of the spiral and I got a rather grainy photo of them.  I was going to join them but realized I had left my purse in the unlocked car and there were about four other cars parked with us (although the occupants were on the hill or out at the shoreline).  Being there at sunset was pretty magical, I must say.

Saturday morning, we arose early because Sarah wanted to show us the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge just a little north of Ogden and the best time to see birds is early morning or evening.  

They have a twelve-mile auto tour that we took and we saw SO many birds.  The mosquitoes were very thick (and the thousands of swallows were in heaven) so we didn't even open our windows.  

This is a yellow headed black bird - there were hundreds of them

Here is a flock of pelicans. The entire outing was really fun.

The rest of the day was pretty laid back - we helped Sarah put in her raised bed vegetable garden

We had delicious Chinese food (that had a marvelous gluten-free menu) and we went to The Cupcake Shoppe to pick up dessert and ran into a former Arizona Phoenix Mission missionary, Ethan Jimenez, who was the counter clerk!  Small world. (Steve and I are modeling our new D.I. shirts)

We watched Florence Foster Jenkins last night with Sarah.  Coming up this week:  a family gathering with Steve's brothers and sisters this afternoon, spending some days with his sisters Michelle and Maureen as well as more days with the Merrills.  Steven flies in next Saturday to be at Ivan's blessing on Mother's Day.  It promises to be an awesome week....

 

Births and Birthdays

On Monday morning, April 19th, Kirsten gave birth in a scheduled C-section to a 9 pound 1 ounce 19 inches long baby boy they named Ivan Sebastian.  Her gestational diabetes caused him to be so big and the doctor didn't want to hazard a v-back birth.  Mother and baby are now home and doing very well.

Steve and I will fly to Utah this Tuesday evening to get to meet this new little fellow.  Can't wait!

Sarah celebrated her 34th birthday on Saturday.  Doesn't this ice cream cake look incredible?  We are also excited to spend time with her while in Utah.  

I have been working through the week on a blessing outfit for little Ivan and I finished it last night while finishing up season two of the Great Pottery Throwdown and a BBC miniseries about queen Victoria and prince Albert.

 

Larkin spent most of her time with us Tuesday morning playing downstairs with the two stuffed kitties she brought.  Here they are having a tea party....

We had some chilly temperatures on Tuesday and, combined with the rain that fell, we actually had a bit of snow later that afternoon!  And a freeze warning that night.  Happily, I have just planted in pots so far so I was able to bring them in the house to protect them. 

In typical April-in-Missouri fashion, the next day was sunny and not nearly as cold.  The dogs needed to be groomed and the earliest I could get them into a groomer close to home was mid-May!  We needed to pick up more dogfood from the rescue shelter down south of here so I thought I might see if I could get them into the groomer we used previously that is located near the shelter and, happily, they had an opening for Wednesday.  So, I cleared the calendar and Steve and I just made a day of it.  We dropped Linus and Sally off at 11:00 and then drove to a nearby state historic site. It was Sandy Creek Covered Bridge State Historic Site and was just lovely to explore.  

We packed a lunch and ate in the car and then put the seats back and napped.  We drove around a little nearby historic town called Kimmswick and visited a Christmas shop when we got the call that the dogs were done.  They look so good but darn it, with the weather turning chilly, I had to dig out the doggie sweaters for the poor, shivering dogs!  

I had a visit from Elizabeth, a Columbia friend, on Thursday into Friday.  Her daughter is getting married in June in Oregon and she needed a "mother of the bride" outfit that would fit her short and rather round shape and she was not sure she would find anything in Columbia.  So, I invited her to come to Saint Louis and we would shop here.  Now, I am NOT a shopper by any stretch of the imagination but I texted a friend who IS and who used to live in Saint Louis (and she has a daughter who still lives here) and asked her where we should go.  And, surprisingly, she and her daughter both recommended the Dillards at the South County Mall just down the road from us.  So, that is where we went and that is where we actually found something that is suitable.  It is literally suitable - a pants suit....get it?  Ha Ha.  Anyway, I will need to alter the length for her so she left it with me and I will work on it when we return from our trip.  

Friday was a day to spend at the Honda dealership.  Over a month ago, the hatch back window broke into a million pieces and we had to have it replaced.  At the same time, the back latch stopped working and, initially, we thought it might be glass stuck in the works so we had Safelite return to check it out.  Well, it wasn't glass so I called the Honda dealership to tell them the problem.   Through a phone diagnosis, the correct part was identified and ordered and, when it finally arrived, I scheduled a repair for Friday.  We also needed to have the passenger side mirror replaced (because I backed out of the garage and bumped it, cracking the mirror) and we needed a safety/emissions inspection.  Sadly, I couldn't schedule a loaner car during this repair because they were all booked so I packed a lunch and my book and went to wait it out at the customer waiting area.  Four hours later, I learned that the car failed the emissions test and needs a knock sensor AND that the back latch needed even more parts to be fixed.  All parts needed to be ordered.  The only thing I left with that afternoon that was fixed was the side mirror.  I believe we are going to leave the car at Honda while we are in Utah so it can be fixed once the parts arrive.  Hopefully Honda will agree with me when I call about it tomorrow....

Yesterday it rained the whole day so, even though I was able to pick up the tomato plants and herbs I ordered from Gateway Greening (an outreach branch of the Missouri Botanical Gardens), they did not get into the ground.  Hopefully, they will tomorrow.  But, I did get to go to the pottery studio and check on my projects and, happily, they survived their first firing.  I won't be able to glaze them, though, until mid-May.  

Emily finished working on the photos she took of the string quartet and here is a sample.  From left to right is me, Ara (2nd violin), Doug (viola), and Melissa (1st violin).  Next week, I will blog from Utah!

 

Grandchildren and Gardening and Clay, oh my

We started our week by helping Lucy celebrate her 10th birthday.   Emily purchased a "pottery party" for the occasion.  A local pottery studio sent her home with six bisque fired cereal bowls and a whole rainbow of glazes and each member of the Southerland family painted their own personalized breakfast bowl.  Steve and I were there to observe (we certainly don't need any more bowls - not with me back into my own pottery adventure) and help (I worked with Larkin) and to sing "Happy Birthday".  Emily created a magical dragon cake, complete with a hoard of gold coins.  It was a lovely evening...

Tuesday we got to see Larkin and Emily again thanks to grandparent pre-school.  One task I have wanted to do was to open up our little 3-person tent and see if we could fit two twin-size air mattresses inside so I thought it might be a fun thing to do while Larkin was here.  You can see that she thoroughly enjoyed herself, bringing up toys from the basement and playing house for most of the morning.  

The yard is making progress.  You can see that our raised vegetable bed is complete.  We planted raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, a maple tree, and a pie cherry tree last week.  We have made numerous trips to the mulch site for large wood chip mulch for our now double car turnaround (next to the garden), for small wood chip mulch to put into flower beds, and even for more soil/compost for future plantings.  

We saw the Southerlands again on Friday afternoon.  My quartet rehearsed at the Lutheran church and then Emily came to take about ten photos of us for publicity purposes since we are planning a concert in June.  Because we are the Carondelet String Quartet, we had our pictures taken at the iconic boat house at Carondelet park.  Emily brought the kids (who had a blast running around the lake during the photo shoot) and Joe came to our house after his work.  From there, Emily and Joe went on a date and Steve and I fed the kids and played yard games with them and had a scavenger hunt inside and started to watch a movie but their parents arrived just then.  Earlier, I had sewed up a bunch of beanbags, filled them with small pebbles (pests would get into the bags if they were full of beans since I plan to store them in the garage), bought three graduated baskets from Dollar Tree and created a beanbag toss game.  We also brought out wiffle bats and balls and two ping pong ball tossing/catching toys we got at the dollar store and the evening was a success - although I was bone weary by the end of the night.  

Happily, a good nights sleep was all I needed because Saturday was trimming day at the pottery studio.  Here is what I created: (clockwise from top left- a new cereal bowel for me, a soap or candy dish, electric toothbrush head holders, a teeny pot, another small bowl, a mug for Steve.  I hope my cereal bowl will be the right size since clay shrinks as it dries.  I won't know until everything is fired.  

The rest of the week was just normal, routine stuff - shopping, cleaning, paying bills.  I finally got a call from the jewelers to tell me that my diamond ring was ready - it needed to be re-pronged.  And, I got the appraisal for the huge blue aquamarine ring I inherited from my mother.  Turns out, the gem is just cut glass but there is still $1,300 worth of gold in the piece!  Steve and I watched two more episodes of the pottery throw down and we watched "Once I Was A Beehive" together on Thursday night.  I sewed up two dog harnesses from a pattern I bought on Etsy.  I am not very crazy about them but they are certainly easier to put on and take off.  Overall, it has been a very nice week.

 

I just love April

Steve and I enjoyed a lovely week.  Throughout the week, we worked on our raised vegetable garden:  finally getting all the cinderblocks transported from Menards to our back yard since they were too heavy to bring all at once.  We mixed up all the black dirt we had in our various containers stored in the garage with vermiculite and peat moss and put it into the garden enclosure.  We managed to re-fill all the containers with more black dirt and mixed all that up and, while we could use a wee bit more, I am calling what we have "enough".  That is hard work and, obtaining black dirt is kind of tricky.  We get it free from the Carondelet mulch site and it is a hot commodity!  Sometimes we go there and there are five or six cars parked around the pile with people shoveling dirt into containers and truck beds as quickly as they can.  We finally got our new load right after 8:00 am Friday morning when the scoop loader was replenishing the dirt from the BIG pile located behind a locked gate.  Being new to the area, I don't have the exact info on how it all works but here is my theory:  St. Louis collects everyone's leaves on a regular basis each fall and brings them to dump sites - Carondelet mulch site being one of them.  The leaves are left to decompose in very long piles and that is what I believe creates this black dirt.  The city workers also grind up tree and shrub limbs into large and smaller chunks for the public to use.  We have put down the large chunks in our back yard turn-around area and we will use the smaller chunks to spread on flower beds in the front yard.  It is a terrific resource for which we are very grateful.  Now that our raised bed is ready, I will start planting this coming week.  We received some of the trees/plants we ordered a while back and I now have two half barrels on the deck with a little blueberry bush in each.  We have a cherry tree and raspberries and thornless blackberries waiting to be put into the ground in the next few days - once things dry out (we had a LOT of rain on Saturday).  Our behind the lot neighbor, Kenny, took us to a couple of local nurseries on Tuesday since that is where he likes to get his bedding plants and I was able to find some shade-loving annuals to plant in pots by the side of the house.  It was great of him to show us around.  

Speaking of gardens, Steve and I took Larkin on a "fieldtrip" for grandparent preschool to the Missouri Botanical Gardens.  Weather was absolutely perfect and the tulips were just stunning.  There were still daffodils blooming as well as cherry blossoms, redbud, crabapple, and even magnolia trees still looking good.  We took a little tram ride and finished up the morning at a delightful fountain that featured statues of racoons - although, they looked enough like cats that that is what Larkin called them. (cats being her favorite animal)  She had such a great time playing with the water bursts (the fountain was like a splash pad) and getting her feet wet.  We enjoyed a picnic lunch under a tree in the parking lot as we awaited her mom to pick her up (car seat transfer is a real pain).  I couldn't help remembering my last visit to the Botanical Gardens in the fall when my back was giving me so much pain.  I loved seeing everything but I was really not comfortable. Whereas this time, I had no pain whatsoever!  (again, thank you, physical therapy).  

Steve and I had a chance to do even more walking Friday morning when we took a tour of the Concordia Cemetery right across the street from our house.  The woman who wrote the history book of Holly Hills (which I checked out from the library, read, and have now purchased our own copy) gives these tours and it was quite fascinating.  Concordia is the fourth oldest cemetery in Saint Louis.  This was the cemetery we helped to clean up a week ago.

Can you see the thousands of violets growing in the grass?  So beautiful.  But, surprisingly, these violets do not have a smell.  If they did, the fragrance in the cemetery would have been incredible, there were so many....

Below - we found a lamb in the cemetery.  Sadly, the marble doesn't hold up well to the weather and pollution. 

We voted for mayor and alderwoman on Tuesday.  We bought groceries on Wednesday.  Steve took Fred to buy his groceries on Thursday.  I taught music lessons to my two cello students via FaceTime and to the grandkids in-person.  And, on Saturday morning, I finally engaged in pottery again!  There is a studio not far from here called the South Broadway Art Project and it is a lovely, large facility in an old brick turn-of-the-century set of stores where the owners live upstairs.  They have about six wheels, tables for hand building, and they offer classes of all kinds for all levels.  I signed up for the open studio time and, I discovered that I have not lost my ability to throw a pot on the wheel.  Yay!  I will go back next Saturday to trim the pieces I threw.  Then, a short hiatus while we are in Utah before I resume.

Steve and watched episode two of the second season of the Great Pottery Throw Down, The Big Year, and The Straight Story.  The Marvel comic movies and series are just getting too violent so, rather than watch them, I am reading the plots on-line.