Winter Distractions  ❤  Happy Valentines Day!

Early birthday celebration at Bombay House with neighborhood friends (my 78th, Gae Rose's 90th!)

I enjoy watching grand kids' sports. Ken coaches son Andrew Taylor's basketball game

        Andrew and some of his birthday party friends at a fun gym

        

Carl Wendenburg (Taylors' German cousin/exchange student) and I enjoyed an exciting BYU volleyball game. BYU students are always enthusiastic! We got tickets from our friends who went to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and just returned successfullythis afternoon!(Mount Kilimanjaro is a dormant volcano in Tanzania. It has three volcanic cones: Kibo, Mawenzi, and Shira. It is the highest mountain in Africa and the highest single free-standing mountain above sea level in the world: 5,895 metres above sea level and about 4,900 metres above its plateau base). 

I've been too busy to do my usual amount of reading, but have enjoyed Ann Pachett's essays "These Precious Days" She is pictured with her father and 2 stepfathers.

Walk in my neighborhood. We've had very little snow lately, but maybe this week.

My friend Marilyn visited from Reno and we went to Tru Religion Pancakes for breakfast. Come visit and I'll treat you! After 2 -3 days of flight delays and cancellations she and 11 others were finally able to go to Ghana this weekend on their medical and school assistance trip. Bonus for me: I got her for a day.

                        The BYU choruses concert was fabulous!

              I am a great afficionada of the Winter Olympics. 

Brittany Bowe in a great act of friendship and sportsmanship, offered her spot on the women's speed skating team to teammate Erin Jackson. Only the top two skaters earn a bid to the Olympics. But Brittany Bowe , who came in first at Olympic Trials, decided to give up her spot out of "the spirit of the Olympics," to allow Jackson the opportunity to compete.  Jackson wins gold in 500m speed skate.

It was thrilling to watch Nathan Chen from SLC, a student in statistics at Yale University, win gold in the men's single figure skating, and Mikaela Shiffrin,who had covid last month, win in super G and downhill skiing. So incredibly fast. And there are so many fabulous athletes. 

And there are so many fabulous athletes. Shaun White, snowboard legend leaves without a medal, but inspired many younger snowboarders.

The USA team in opening ceremony of Tokyo Olympics in 2018. The U.S and other countries diplomatically boycotted the Beijing Olympics because of human rights atrocities by China, but allowed the athletes, who have trained and dreamed for years to participate.

Senator Mitt Romney chaired the very successful 2002 Salt Lake Olympics.

My grandson Aaron Taylor enjoys skiing Black Diamonds at Sundance Resort in Provo (where I broke my hip in 2006)

Some of my family came to celebrate my birthday. Phoebe helped me blow out candles! Lucy and others made beautiful cards.

Alby Petelo invited me to a very extravagant exposition of jewelry....$1000-$1,000,000 value. Hard to fathom! We didn't buy anything! Crazy!!!

My grand-daughter Kelly played the role of a pirate in "Wendy and Peter Pan" at her school.

We all enjoyed it. What a great experience for the participants

      Lucie, Carl, Andrew (above)  Molly, George and Kelly (below)

        Another fabulous BYU student production: Ballet in Concert. I also recently attended "Ballet Hispanico" (Latino, Cuban classical and also portrayal of discrimination of Hispanics a la West Side Story

My grand-daughter Lucie raises chickens. Her mom bought her this apron to collect the beautiful colored eggs she collects each day.

Carl has enjoyed several hikes to the "Y". He says these bare and rocky mountains are more dangerous and very different from the forested mountains of Germany. 

Sunday dinner with son Marc and family and three missionaries. The redhead is waiting for her visa for Norway, the next is learning Samoan for Utah.

As we commemorate this week and next the birthdays of our first President George Washington (1789-97) and 16th President Abraham Lincoln (1861-65), I am filled with gratitude and awe for the incredible legacy of freedom, justice and wisdom of those who have gone before us. We have work to do, but we must honor these great men, forgive and understand their times and failings, and rebuild a unified country and set an example of democracy for our world.

                The first anniversary of my move from California....

Has it already been a year?  The country was also experiencing a new beginning with the inauguration of President Joseph Biden on Jan. 20, 2021.

I had frantically packed up my Palo Alto house, saw the moving truck take everything to storage until I had a new address, was saying good-bye to my previous life, and setting off on my new adventure in Utah on January 28, 2021. It has been a big change: new house, friends, city, church congregation, climate/weather, health care, etc.etc. I try not to feel nostalgic, but there are things and people I especially miss. But much of my family is here, and I think change is often good for us! 

So, to give you an idea of what I've been up to:

No, I haven't been gambling (and I found out photos are not allowed in casinos), but Las Vegas is something you must experience once (and only once, I think) in your life. I rode with my son Marc and family to watch grand-daughter Hannah's gymnastics meet.

    We stayed at Hotel Venezia, complete with canals and gondolas

and enjoyed the spectacular lights and sights and good food

                               The fountains at the Balaggio Hotel

         And after a night in Saint George, we drove back home along                                         the snowy desert freeway

The cold evening did not stop us from celebrating 3 of my kids' birthdays (Julie: January 10, Peter: Jan.15, and Marc Jan. 18), around the fire pit at my daughter Emily's house.

I finally saw the deer we're warned to watch out for on University Ave

         (above)The view from my house      

               and Timpanogos on my walk along University Avenue

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Sunday afternoon Emily, Kelly and Aaron Taylor and their German exchange student/cousin Carl, who recently arrived from Hannover, invited me to walk in the crisp air through the snowy fields and paths.  In the summer this park is crowded!

            Mount Timpanogos from Provo Canyon is spectacular

                             We saw deer and wild turkeys.

                                                                        

                                                               ******************

I enjoyed the beloved musical Fiddler on the Roof (set in 1905, first performed on Broadway in 1964), an amazing production by BYU. The author Sholem Rabinovitch, writing under the pen name "Aleichem" was born March 2, 1859, in a Ukrainian shtetl (an Ashkenazi market town), He created the character of Tevye, who became the centerpiece of many of Aleichem's short stories. The Kyiv pogrom (massacre of an ethnic or minority group, often legal) set off a chain reaction of anti-Semitic feelings around the Pale of Settlement (land set aside for Jews by Catherine the Great in 1792, eventually becoming known by that name ). The 1881 assassination of Alexander II was rumored falsely to have been committed by Jews, which spawned 22 pogroms over the next 3 years. In Russia there were an estimated 1,326 pogroms killing approximately 250,000 Jews.When the pogroms became increasingly violent in 1903, his family moved to Geneva, where they settled in 1906, and then to New York City in 1914. He had contracted tuberculosis, and died in 1916. His funeral attracted 250,000 mourners, making it one of the largest funerals in NYC history.

Winter is cold here, my plants are all dead, my sidewalk cracked,

since I spread on too much ice melt/salt, people stay inside more, but it's not so bad, really. I even have new next door neighbors from California, and continue to reconnect and make new friends (but I haven't forgotten you!) I hope January is the beginning of a better year for all of us, everywhere. May Covid-19 and all its variants soon be a thing of the past. Two years is more than enough!

                                             Happy New Year 2022

And I hope you, too, had a nice holiday season and are enjoying a healthy, happy start to the new year 2022.

 I enjoyed Christmas Eve at my daughter-in-law Fernanda's parents' home close by in Orem with some of my grandchildren and some of her relatives. Hannah, Nick, cousin Nick, Hannah and Simon.

Marc (who does not have spiky green hair!), cousins, Uncle Carlos, Aunt Vania, Parents Gil and Sandra, and Fernanda

New Year's Day playing games, looking at photos and eating

As I did this 1000 piece puzzle entitled "Love one Another" I reflected on the wonderful people I am fortunate to know and love, and all those I hope to meet and know better in 2022.

My yard is a winter wonderland sometimes! I include the mountains as part of my backyard.

I attempt to shovel at least my front walk to prevent ice buildup. Oh, for California weather! I do enjoy walks nearby in the snow though.

            My street just a few days later...  still cold, though!

It was such fun to see so many former Palo Altans at a wedding open house for Tyler and Anna (Arnett)Downer in Springville. 

Matt and Katie Steiger, Brandon and Jennilyn Woolff, Grace Downer, Tyler and Anna, Miriam, Deanne and Jim Welch, Janet Asay, Dave Hatch, and son, and Cory and Heather Williamson.

I was so sorry to be unable to attend Aaron and Christina Miner's wedding in Phoenix. Mission leaders Todd and Sister Andrea Miner were able to make a quick trip from their mission in Cameroon, Africa, to attend the marriage of their son. (with son Spencer and family).

                                               *******

Even Utah is resuming more restrictions since last weekend with the Omicron variant of Covid which has affected especially children worldwide. As we commemorate the Reverend Martin Luther King and the non-violent Civil Rights movement he led up until his assassination in 1968, I pray we will never see the rights of any race so restricted again. I am moved every time I watch films or listen to recordings or reflections on the sacrifices, martyrdoms, ugly persecutions, as well as brave leadership of so many men, women, and children of all races, but especially of Blacks in our country, South Africa, and elsewhere. We are all beloved children of God and need to see each other as such. There is still a lot of work for all of us to do for all to have equal opportunities for education, jobs, housing, just treatment in all aspects of life.

I recommend a series of talks and visuals presented by Stanford University King Center:

https://news.stanford.edu/2021/01/13/stanford-celebrates-martin-luther-king-jr-day-four-day-festival/