Some of Our Favorite People and Their Favorite Things

While we lived in White Salmon we were lucky enough to be adopted by (and to adopt) some honorary grandparents for our kids, Rich and Carla. These two empty-nesters had kids and grandkids living far away, just as our own families were far away.  They became dear friends who filled in some gaps in our lives, and we think we did the same for them.

They were always willing to help with our kids, and in fact, were our only local confidantes during Damon's job interviewing.  To tell you what kind of people they are, they welcomed our 4 kids into their house for two nights just a couple of hours after arriving back from their own road trip. They are the only people we trusted to take care of the kids while Damon and I flew to California for his interview in Sunnyvale. The kids had a ball going to the movies, playing on the slip 'n' slide, and baking cookies. Carla even had all their clothes laundered and the kids bathed and ready for bed when we picked them up Saturday night. These are some great people.

We loved having dinner at the Potters. They sometimes joined us at our house, especially when "bachelor" Rich got left behind while Carla was off visiting her real grandchildren, but we were often at their place on Sundays for hours enjoying a meal and just visiting and playing. We also spent several Christmas Eves at their home with a few other families eating goodies, exchanging gifts, and having a Nativity program. There were years when we weren't sure the snow would be clear enough for us to make it to their driveway, but we always managed and were so glad we did. 

Rich is surely sharing some funny story about his days as a forester.

Carla took care of everyone and never let us do the dishes. And they always seemed to have ice cream in the freezer.

When we moved to Milpitas, Damon left about 10 days before the kids and I did so that he could start his new job and find a home for us. A couple weeks before he left, we realized that Carla and Rich would not be returning from their own vacation before Damon left town, so we knew we needed one more Sunday afternoon with them. We went over shortly after church and didn't go home until it was nearly dark. While we were there, I sent Adah around the house to take photos of the things she wanted to remember about our friends' home.  Here's a sampling of the things that are special to Adah, and me, that I thought would be fun to share.

Rich's mint jar: He always had mints in his pockets at church and Adah loved them. When he learned the other kids didn't like mint, he stocked up on Baskin Robbins hard candies, like cookies 'n' cream, for them.

 

Adah learned just where to find the mints when we were at Rich's house.

 

Rich's forest signs and antlers: Their upstairs hallway walls were covered with all kinds of signs warning about logging roads being impassable, forest fires, and who knows what else--all ephemera from Rich's career as a forester.

 

The toys and their bin: Every time we came, this bin of toys got pulled out from the closet under the stairs.

 

Hanging above Carla's kitchen sink:

 

Another favorite activity when visiting Carla and Rich was to plunder carrots from the fridge and take them to the neighbor's horses. Usually Damon and Rich would wander through the trees by their house with the kids while Carla and I stayed inside to clean up dinner or just chat with our feet curled up on the couch. Sometimes we'd all go.

 

 

 

We were sure sad to leave behind these wonderful friends. One of Rich's greatest laments was that Holly was just finally warming up to him. We couldn't have made our move without them. Aside from packing and watching kids in the week Damon was gone, Carla took the kids to her house while we loaded the truck and cleaned the house, and then they gave us all a place to sleep that final night in White Salmon when our house was vacant. These are good, kind people.

We know that these are life-long friends, and hope they'll visit us soon!

I Heart the White Salmon Library

One of the things I loved the most about living in White Salmon was our local library.

My parents raised me to use the library. I can remember having my own library card around age 5 or 6; it was yellow and black. When we moved the summer before I started second grade, one of the first things we did in our new town was visit the library and get cards for everyone in the family.  Even now, my dad says that when he's no longer able to drive and get around much, he just wants a bus pass and a library card, and he'll be happy.

Visiting the library for the weekly story time quickly became a ritual for me when we moved to White Salmon in late 2005. It was a great chance to get out of the house--especially during the rainy season--and socialize with other moms (and dads) and let my children play and then check out books for the coming week. I met one of my closest friends at story time just around the time we both moved to White Salmon.  For the next 5 years I hardly missed a week. Once Holly was born and school was out for the summer, I got out of the habit. Even once summer ended and the girls (who were getting a bit too old for story time) were back in school, I still found it difficult to get out of the house and miss Holly's nap. Our attendance over the last two years was a bit more spotty, but we still made a point to attend all kinds of other library programs like the free Saturday movies (including popcorn and lemonade), Lego clubs, holiday celebrations (like Columbus Day), and all the fun summer reading puppet, magic, and reptile shows.

The amazing librarian behind most of the fun at the library is Heidi. We love her, as does just about every other kid in White Salmon--and even Hood River. Her story times drew a following from both sides of the river.  Easy-going and always ready to laugh, Heidi's warmth brought people right into her programs and made them feel welcome. No matter that your baby or toddler was crawling or wandering around during story time. No matter that every kid wanted to touch every puppet she brought out. Heidi had a way of making it work, and of remembering everyone's names. (Writing those name tags every week surely helped.) Even long after my older girls had grown out of story time and gone on to school, Heidi remembered them and always made them feel like they were the most important people that she had talked to that day. It also helped that for the last few years Heidi was our neighbor, just living a few doors away. We often walked to and from school with her and her kids.

 

Aside from all of the excellent programs, the library itself was just a great place to be. It had a wonderful children's area with soft benches and chairs for reading, tables with crayons and paper for coloring, a Lego table, and shelves full of fun (quiet, of course) toys. I used to think that the toys were just a great perk and that maybe they were superfluous for a library.  However, since moving and visiting our new library, I've learned that a few quiet toys in the children's area would be a great help in entertaining my pre-readers quietly while I choose books to read to them.

The computers were always a big attraction, as well. They had one computer connected to a few kid-friendly Internet sites such as pbskids.org and Tumblr Books, and the other computer had simple games and read-along stories, like Arthur and Little Critter. It's quite possible that Gunnar learned to use a mouse on these computers.

Adah is my reader. While all my children loved perusing the shelves for new books, they mostly wanted to take them home to read later. It was usually only Adah who could avoid the distractions of the toys and computers to simply sit and read.

 

Well, sometimes . . . 

We spent many a pleasant rainy, snowy, or too-hot afternoon in the library. The kids rarely argued and we often saw friends there, so for me it was a great time to chat or to simply sit and read a book to my children or by myself.

And no visit was complete without a departing visit to the circulation desk to get a stamp on the hand. Heidi even let the kids come behind the counter for a final photo-op.  I'm glad that my kids' first library experience could be so positive and I hope they will always love books and libraries as much as I do.  We miss the White Salmon library!!

 

O Canada: Calgary Zoo

On our last full day in Calgary we went to the zoo with my parents. (Peter headed south to Utah that morning.)  This is where the magnitude of Adah's photography really came out. She took dozens and dozens of pictures. I couldn't possibly put them all on here and tried to pick a sample of the best shots--ones that weren't fuzzy (with a few exceptions), had our family in them, or showed our favorite animals. Enjoy this tour of the Calgary Zoo!

 

These cool metal sculptures were lining the walkway from the parking lot to the ticket window.  There were many different animal silhouettes.



 

They were also fun to climb on.  Here I am with Holly and Maggie:

 

 The first animals we saw were of the native-to-Canada variety.

Big Horn Sheep:

 

Caribou:

We, along with many other zoo patrons, were able to sneak through some trees off the path and get really close to the fence where some of these caribou were just sitting and hanging out.

 

a.k.a. Reindeer

This guy had a particularly gigantic rack of antlers. They actually fall off and grow again EVERY YEAR.  I thought that was pretty amazing given the size of some of the racks. It looked like a big pain in the neck (literally) to have to carry those around.  

 

The photographer briefly relinquished her camera to pose on this cool log.

 

As usual, Mom was the new photographer; there are never any pictures of me! Actually, to be honest, there was a picture of me by this log, but you couldn't see all the kids faces, so I chose to post this one of Damon and the kiddos riding the bears.

 

Otters:

I love otters. I think they're so cool, and cute. We loved watching them swim and play in their habitat. In this photo, one had just climbed out of the water and another is poking his head out.

 

They seem to have so much fun and even had some slides (see the bottom of the tube behind this guy?) taking them from the rocks into the water.

 

The viewing area had a window that allowed us to the see the otters swimming underwater, too. I love how smoothly they move through the water. They don't use their front paws at all, just their rear legs and tails.

 

Musk Ox:

Prairie Dogs:

Adah was very patient trying to get a shot of one of these guys popping out of one of their holes. They were not very obliging.

Peacock:
There were several of these fellows wandering around.

Flamingos:

 

Butterflies:

The zoo had one of those warm and humid butterfly habitats where you enter through two sets of doors, wander around marveling, and then have to check for hitchhikers before exiting. I love these places. Something about butterflies is so magical, especially with children, I think.



 

I never seem to get any hitchhikers, or even brief visitors.  My mom, however, made a little friend:

(I believe these butterfly photos can be credited to Maggie's camera, by the way.)

 

Elephants:

I really like elephants, too. We were in time for a zoo keeper talk at the elephants and learned a bit about who was who and how long they'd been there. The usually-solitary bull even came over to say hello. This one, however, I believe is one of the females.

 

Snow Leopards: (I think)

Can you see them sleeping on their platform?

Vampire Bat:

 

Shortly after the bats we made it over to the tiger habitat where a new mother and her three 4-month-old cubs made an appearance. They often stay inside a little house, but they came out to a platform where they lazed about.  The adult male tigers were in an adjacent enclosure and they were pacing around on the opposite side (making a good photo difficult). Their pacing was no doubt due to the storm that was brewing in the skies.

Everything got very windy and very dark as a major rain (and hail in other parts of Calgary) storm blew in! I was with my parents, Holly, and Gunnar, while Damon had the older girls on the opposite side of the habitat where we each had to take cover under small shelters where the signs about the animals were.  We stayed there for a few minutes before seeking shelter in a crowded gift shop.  After that we went dashing through the zoo in the rain (it had let up a bit and wasn't coming down in sheets). We were trying to make it to the cars, but opted to re-visit the butterfly habitat when a zoo keeper let us in the back way.

We'd seen the weather reports and were expecting afternoon showers, but the intensity of this storm really took us by surprise. As we raced through the zoo, we were not only avoiding puddles but also downed branches that had fallen in the paths. There were also some larger branches in some of the habitats and it's probably very luck that no one--human or animal--was injured. It was a truly smashing way to end our trip.

We had intended to just call it a day and head back to the car, but the storm blew through so quickly that it was all over and done with in about 20 minutes. From our butterfly shelter we explored a few more areas of the zoo. One of the most memorable visits was with the hippos. Sandra Boynton sure makes them look cute, but, I gotta say, those things are UG-LY. And, their territory-marking behaviors (or whatever the reason) are pretty gross. We witnessed it.

All in all, a great day at the zoo learning more about the amazing animals that inhabit this earth. The Calgary Zoo was well-done and we loved spending the day with my parents. The kiddos were super well-behaved and it a fun finish to our time in Calgary.

The next morning we headed home, intending to stay the night somewhere in Idaho, as we had on the way up, but long about Couer d'Alene, we decided to just go for it and rolled into White Salmon sometime before midnight with a carful of sleeping kids. Phew! I'm so glad we made the time amidst all our crazy moving plans to visit my parents. It was great to see them (and Pete) and to really take a break from everything that needed to be done at home.

O Canada: Work & Play

After a late arrival back in Calgary on Sunday night--watching the most amazing lightning storm across the valley as we drove towards the city--we slept in at our hotel just a bit on Monday morning before getting going. Elder and Sister Wangsgard, however, were up and at 'em at the mission office so that they could get their work finished before setting off to play with us.

We picked up Pete at my parents' apartment (he got the couch there) and met my parents at the mission office a few miles away. Adah, who took hundreds of photos on this vacation, captured several shots of where her Nana and Gumpin serve. Unfortunately, many of them were fuzzy and got cut; I just grabbed a sample to show you.

They do have a more official sign on the building, but as they share it with a Church Distribution Centre (Canadian spelling) and Employment Centre, this sign is in the window of their exact office:

 

Nana works at her desk in the reception area. My dad gets his own office. I think he said that's because he is the financial guy, so he has a safe. He also had a supply of vacuums and a few other household goods that he bought at a discount. He oversees the missionary apartments and figures it's worth it to have a few things on hand for when they're needed.

 

I liked this photo. It's a shelf full of copies of the Book of Mormon in different languages. Hindi and Haitian Creole are the only labels I can make out.

 

Once their work was completed and we had shaken the hands of a few other missionaries, we had lunch and then went to Heritage Park, a living history museum right in Calgary. There's an antique car museum, a midway with rides and games, and a village with original and replica buildings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. We focused our visit on the village. And, as Adah accidentally left her camera in the car, I've resorted to Heritage Park's website for some photos to give you an idea of what we saw that day.

We visited several buildings, such as the doctor's surgery and home, a bakery, the pool hall, and post office that lined the village's main road. Costumed historical interpreters were there to tell us about each building and the artifacts on display. We got to watch interpreters act out vignettes in the street, and the whole place was quite charming.

At the working blacksmith shop all the kids and I got "branded" with an iron stamp (as opposed to a rubber stamp). We also visited a carpenter's shop where the children were invited to come in and use a hand drill to make their own button & string pull toys.



By far the favorite spot was the one-room schoolhouse. The children visited there a few times. I learned that I would have been reprimanded severely for my long finger nails.

The kiddos loved writing on their slates, where they answered the grade-specific questions written on the blackboard, and checking out the period maps and portrait of Queen Victoria hanging on the wall. This photo (taken on Peter's iPhone) was the only picture we got of our visit. It's fitting, as we spent the most time here. What can I say? I have studious little children.

O Canada: Banff National Park

On our second full day in Calgary, we attended church in the morning and after lunch at my parents' apartment the nine of us headed northwest for Banff National Park. On our drive from Washington to Calgary we took the road through Banff, causing a slightly longer journey since we came into Calgary from the opposite side from where my parents live--oh well; the scenery was amazing & we were happy to return.

Look at that ridge line! I mean, I seriously kept thinking, "No one would believe it if I drew these mountains. No one draws mountains like this." The peaks were so jagged and bare. And this wasn't the only set of mountains like this. We marvelled again and again. 

We made a few stops along our way, one for a visit with a little black bear.

 

The first real stop was at Lake Louise. It was AMAZING.

 

My brother Pete really wanted to go to Lake Louise, and I'm glad he made it a must-see for his trip so that we could all go.  My family went on a trip to Canada in 1984 (??) and visited Lake Louise. I would have only been about 5 1/2, so don't really remember much of the trip. I basically just remember that I went to Canada, and that the Oreos were different. Pete's five years older than me and remembers more of the trip, but for me, everything about Banff was new.

I don't know if these photos can give a true representation, but the color of the water at Lake Louise was so remarkable. It's been described as emerald--I would have called it aqua--and comes from the tiny rock particles in the melt-water that comes into the lake from the glaciers above it. The silt floats in the water, making it appear cloudy; sometimes it's called glacial milk.

 

Here's Maggie dipping her feet in the lake:

 

 

Pete and Dad across a little inlet:

 

 And Dad's photo of us:

 

The Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, a luxury resort, sits on the eastern shore of the lake. It was built in the early 1900s by the Canadian Pacific Railway. The best story we learned while there was that on the occasion of a fire in 1924 where a whole wing burned down, they were able to save all the guests and their luggage and to serve dinner on time that night. A wing of the hotel was lost in that fire and there have obviously been additions and upgrades since then, but a 1913 wing still stands.

 

It's a pretty majestic site . . . although not quite to compare with the natural views.

 

There is a path through the woods that goes around the lake that we walked along for a bit before turning back around so we could have a picnic dinner and see more of Banff.



  

Moraine Lake was another amazing sight. Glacial "rock flour" floats in this lake as well, but the water here was brighter blue than Lake Louise. I couldn't decide which I preferred. They were both so remarkable and beautiful.

 

Moraine Lake was much less crowded. I'm sure it had a bit to do with the time of day as it was near the end of the day when we were there, but I think Lake Louise is better known (well, and there is that giant hotel there, too).

 

Pete told me that when we visited Moraine Lake in 1984 that a huge slab of rock fell off this cliff and came crashing down into the lake as we were standing on the shore where this picture was taken.

 

Gorgeous! 

 

Our last discovery before getting in the cars to return to Calgary was this pika. I'd never seen these little guys before and at first we thought they were chipmunks scurrying around, since we did see those, too.

 

He seemed to be making a little nest or gathering food. We weren't sure, but we saw him stash grass under the same rock a couple of times. He was a cute little fellow, but eventually he caught on to his audience and hid away.