Grateful Friday

 A delayed post, but we had a good time in Starr Valley last weekend.  We were exhausted and still recovering from our other trip, but fueled by Maverik and podcasts, we made it.

I always feel a degree of trepidation when we open the door at The Home Place because what if there is a mouse in a trap?  I almost always have Adam go first.  He opened the door and I asked if there were mice in the traps.  He said no, but it smelled bad.  He was not wrong, but it was a chemical smell.  We realized that it was the unknowingly super caustic tablets Adam had put in the toilet tanks last time we were there.  We have a well and the water is really hard and there is this orange-brown build up in the toilet tanks.  Adam had placed the tablets and the toilet tanks were spotless, but it had also disintegrated the chain in the toilet in our bathroom and the other bathroom was on its way to disintegrating.  I don't think we'll use those tablets again!

We opened up all the windows to air out the strong enough to corrode metal poison.  We cleaned up a bit and made the bed and I was happy to go to sleep.

Saturday morning I walked with Olivia and visited with my dad.  Olivia and Edgar hosted us for lunch.  They served Mexican hot dogs, which are delicious.  Clarissa came over too and it was good to see that girl.  I stuck around with Olivia for a while and used my Tineco mop/vacuum to clean her floor.  They had just returned from Mexico and she was scrambling to get everything ready for Ruben's homecoming celebration after church on Sunday.  I felt like I was doing an infomercial with my mop and Olivia said she wanted to buy one.  I told her maybe I'll quit my job and just go door to door mopping people's floors and getting them to buy one. 

(Also, on Prime Day, Olivia bought one.  So I am a successful saleswoman, unless you count the fact that I didn't get any commission on my sale.)

We also went to visit Hannah.  It was her birthday and Olivia brought her gifts from Mexico.  We looked at Olivia's Mexico pictures and my Chicago pictures and I love that Hannah is our neighbor here.

That evening, Clarissa came over for dinner and we played Qwixx (listening to yacht rock, of course).  Clarissa said, "I am starting to see why you like this music!"  The single time we listen to it is when we are playing Qwixx, but it is like salt and pepper.  They just go together.

Sunday Ruben and Marcos both spoke in church and I enjoyed it.  Olivia accompanied them on the piano while they sang and she was nervous.  She asked me to pray that my mom would help her.  She did great and I'm sure my mom was there.

On the drive home from church, we were bumping along on the dirt road, like you do and one of the most bizarre things to ever happen to us, happened.

A chicken nugget fell out of the dashboard, presumably out of the gin bin.  (I have never had gin, but I call the glove compartment the gin bin because it is short and rhymes.)  The chicken nugget was perfectly preserved (if only the ancient Egyptians knew about whatever we put in fast food!) but perfectly dry and hard as a rock.  We could not fathom how it happened.  My best theory is that at one time, one of us got some chicken nuggets--maybe from Wendy's.  One fell into the bag and we stuffed the extra napkins in the gin bin, like we do and a stowaway chicken nugget was nestled in those napkins.  How it worked its way out onto the floor is another mystery because it's not like stuff is falling out all the time.  As far as I know, this is the first thing to ever fall out.  

And it was a chicken nugget.

I can't make it make sense.

We had a delicious lunch at Olivia's house after church.  Tabor's family had come and Aunt Olivia and Brad and Hannah and Jeff and Jeff's parents, who were visiting.  It was a good time.

Tabor and I had a good cry about my mom.  I feel like we need that every once in a while.

I ate lunch at a table under a tree with Hannah and Olivia and Clarissa and Aunt Olivia and Hannah's girls, Maisy and Laurel.  It felt really perfect (even though I had a bee buzzing inside my dress at one point--Hannah saved me and got it out).

We sang happy birthday to Hannah.

I love these two girls.  Aunt Olivia said they look more like each other than they look like their sisters. They grew up loving each other and were even college roommates and it makes me happy they are now neighbors.

Olivia had us go around and say something nice about the birthday girl.  Someone--maybe Aunt Olivia--said she made everyone feel loved and important.  My dad said, "I thought I was the only one she treated like that!"

It's true.  Hannah is a gem.

So is my dad.  At church a speaker talked about fatherhood and how fathers don't always know the answers.  I thought that is not my experience with my dad.  I told him that and he said, "Well, I'll make something up if I don't know the answer."

Adam and I drove home and saw a wildfire.  I think we're in for it this summer.

I am grateful that it's summer.  We are busy, here there and everywhere (we are, in fact, back in Starr Valley today), but it is good busy.  I love spending time with family and I love this beautiful land that I love.

Chicago: Day 3

There was a flood watch in Chicago and if we got that much rain in Utah, I can tell you we wouldn't be breathing wildfire smoke right now.

We went out into the city, confident in the fact that we were not made of brown sugar.  Adam had his newly acquired Buc-ee's hat and I had packed an umbrella (as an enthusiastic weather watcher).  I was sharing my umbrella with Mark and I am shorter than him and in a Little Red Hen moment, I was making sure it covered me, thank you very much.  He asked if he could hold it and I declined, knowing that then I would be the one partially covered.  I guess this is to say that me being a selfless mother only goes so far.

We walked to Willis Tower and took the fast ear popping elevator ride to the 103 floor.  Like most things on our trip, it did not disappoint!

 We even found our hotel room!

Gathering our courage, we went out in the glass boxes that stick out from the building.

One and a half inches of glass did not feel like a lot of glass.

Not shown in the above picture is me digging my fingers into Mark's arm, like he was going to save me if we fell.  It was completely out of character for us, but we bought the tourist picture they were selling.  We definitely all three have nervous smiles, but I'm happy to have the memento.

The rain intensified

...and we went back to the earth.  Back on solid ground, we ducked into the Rookery, where Frank Lloyd Wright had redesigned the lobby.

There was an eyeglass store and a gelato place there.  How do you just go to work in such a building?!?

We spent the rest of the day at the Art Institute of Chicago.  In my immunotherapy haze, I had looked through every piece of art they had (there were thousands, but I didn't have much else going on) and decided which things were must sees for me.  Mark had other ideas and wanted to show me this or that.  He was very interested in the ancient stuff.  I was interested in it too, but I knew that I had limited energy.  I told Mark that I had to budget my steps.  So we parted ways and Adam and I looked at everything I had earmarked and of course a lot more as well.  Mark would reconnect with us periodically and despite being extravagently fatigued, I really loved it.  Adam left at one point and traversed back to our hotel in the rain to check us out of our rooms.  He is always the hero we don't deserve but the hero we need.  I didn't take many pictures of the art--the pictures on their website are better than anything I could take--but I was entranced by American Gothic and Nighthawks and so many Monets and Van Goghs and Renoirs and too many to name.  I love art museums!

We did take a picture in front of this Georgia O'Keeffe.

I loved it all and I wish I could go back again and again and again and spend time in every part.

We walked back to our hotel to get our stuff that was being minded by the nice people in the lobby.  It had stopped raining, but Adam took this picture of me drying out my umbrella because it was still sopping wet after sitting in its plastic bag in the coatcheck of the museum.  Mark is wearing his Sasquatch Buc-ee's shirt.  When Mark was little, we would tell him that he was actually a Sasquatch and we had traded him for our actual son, Timmy.  Who knows how that started, but Mark will forever be our little Sasquatch.

We took the train to Midway--it was raining again. 

We rented a car for the next day's adventure and ate more deep dish pizza (not as good as the first version).  We stayed at a hotel near the airport and I went to bed immediately.  I can't even describe how tired I was.

Chicago: Day 2

photo snapped from the bus

I loved the architecture boat tour we took in Chicago.  We went with the one associated with the Chicago Architecture Center.  (I did a lot of research for this trip while I was drugged up during my immunotherapy, so I'm glad it worked out!)

The weather was perfect and we sat in the pleasant sunshine and just learned all about architecture.  Neo-classical, art deco, modern, post-modern, contemporary.  Ask me anything.  (Not really.) I loved hearing about the ways the architecture had been shaped based on the needs of the city and I loved the passion of our tour guide.  It was time/money well spent.

Little bit windblown, but I was doing my best.

After the boat tour, we had lunch and explored the Palmer House at Braeden's suggestion.

We spent the afternoon north of the city along the shores of Lake Michigan.

Here's another picture I took out the bus window.  So pretty!

That evening we went to Wrigley Field for a Cubs game.  I enjoyed taking the train to the game along with eager fans wearing Cubs shirts and hats.  Everyone was in a holiday mood and even though I married into a Mariners family, it was fun to be swept along in the excitement.  It was a beautiful night plus I think baseball fields are always pretty.

We had Chicago dogs and left during the 7th inning stretch because guess who was tired?

I took this picture of Adam and Mark outside the game before we left.

Another day of feeling good about all the things.

Chicago: Day 1

I loved our trip to Chicago.  It was beautiful and the architecture and art were amazing and I felt proud of humans in general.

(There was a spate of shootings over the weekend in Chicago and that makes me less proud of humans in general.)

We landed at O'Hare and took the train downtown to where we were staying.  We were on the 23rd floor and it would seem like we would have a view of the countryside from that vantage point.  We did not.  We did have interesting views out the windows though.  This was the view out our bedroom window:

The view out one of the living room windows showed Willis Tower (this was on a different rainy day):

We went to the Chicago Cultural Center and admired the architecture.  There was a Tiffany glass dome and another glass dome as well.

Everywhere I looked it was just beautiful.

At Millennium Park we took a picture by The Bean, because how can you not?

We walked around the park and came upon a Cancer Survivor Garden.  There were plaques with encouragement and I decided that I was doing this very thing:

This is the view looking through the garden from the steps below.  The symmetry was stunning.

We walked along the riverfront...

...and ended the evening at Labriola's for deep dish pizza.  They didn't have deep dish gluten free pizza, but they had a thin crust pizza that Mark enjoyed.  Shannon had told me it was best pizza of her life and it was really really good!

One thing that was the same about pretty much every day of our trip:  I fell into bed exhausted!

Nashville and Kentucky

 Mark and I got up before the sun and flew from Provo to Nashville.  I was exceptionally happy to see Adam.  He had been gone for 10-11 days.  He took us to his office and showed us around.  It was nice to meet several people he works with and everyone was very kind to us.  

We drove to a park where there is an art museum that is a replica of the Parthenon.

The art museum was closed, but I posed with my sister suffragettes.  

I learned that Tennessee was the deciding vote to allow women to be able to vote.  One of the state representatives had been opposed to women getting the vote, but his mom wrote him a letter to "be a good boy" and change his mind.  He cast his vote and now I can cast mine.

We went to the Opryland Hotel and walked around.  It was beautiful.

We ended the (long, but good) day at the Grand Ole Opry.

I used to be more of a country music fan than I am now, but we had a fun time.  There were lots of same world different universe moments in Nashville.  Lots and lots of groups of young women were there, in cowboy hats, fringe, mini-skirts and boots for bachelorette parties.  Lots!  I don't really get it, but it is obviously a whole thing.  At one point, Adam said something about a bridal party and Mark happened to see a neon sign of a bucking horse at the same time and he assumed Adam was talking about a bridle party and they were going to be horseback riding.  So from then on we called the groups Cowgirl Quinceañeras, which didn't really make sense, but had alliteration going for it. 

Saturday we went to Kentucky with the intention of going to Buc-ee's.  We realized we were close to Mammoth Cave National Park and the National Corvette Museum, so we decided to do those things also.

It was fun to introduce Mark to the wonder that is Buc-ee's.

We are shameless super fans.

While we were there, Adam's boss texted him a story about a German tourist discovering Buc-ee's, because she knows Adam loves it.  Adam texted back this picture and asked, "Why would you think I'd be interested in a story about Buc-ee's?"

I hate caves and the very idea of caves.  Adam talked to the Mammoth Cave National Park people, like he does, and they said that they were "wide open."  I went for it.  They were wide enough, but the ceiling was low and I did not like it.  I told Adam that listening to the people at the visitor center was like the time I asked one of my students if the spicy chicken sandwich at the school cafeteria was very spicy.  He said no and it was very spicy and I should have asked a white student who is wimpy about spice like I am.  I think Adam should have asked a claustrophobic person....

I survived it and it did open up when we got further into the cave and I could appreciate how beautiful and remarkable it was, but I was happy to leave.

I thought we were going to the National Corvette Museum because Mark likes cars, but when I saw the beautiful Corvettes from the early years, I decided I like Corvettes!  So shiny and pretty!

Mark drove a race car simulator and Adam went along with him.

There were two cars and a kid who was about 14 or 15 was in the car next to Mark.  He kept crashing into the wall and I was glad that Mark didn't, since he has a driver's license and all.  It made me feel better about him driving around in the world.

Sunday we went to church and drove around the countryside surrounding Nashville, including Franklin.  It was beautiful and exceptionally green.  Franklin was a charming (though they did love the Civil War) little town.  We walked around a tiny bit but then Adam shepherded us back to the car in the nick of time before an absolute cloudburst.

I guess that's why it's so green....

We had another early flight on Monday morning to Chicago.  We flew Contour Air, there were 21 people on the plane.  They took out every other row, so we had plenty of leg room.

Here's Adam using the tray table even though it was a big stretch.

We had a brief (didn't get off the plane) layover in Quincy, IL.

At Quincy, someone from the ground crew replaced the toilet paper in the bathroom and we were on our way again.

On to Chicago!