Welcome Aboard

Aw, who needs pictures anyway? Seems I'm not a very good photographer, so we'll just proceed without them. For starters, Dan and I flew to Seattle, then met up with a group of folks rounded up by Julie and Lonnie for an unforgettable Alaskan adventure, then traveled by chartered bus to a port in Vancouver B.C. for embarcation. No dragging our luggage along with us from bus to ship, the cruise line takes care of all that for the pasengers, delivering it right to our stateroom. With 1 crew member for every 3 passengers, the service is outstanding. Fresh towels daily, chocolates and a list of the next day's activities left for us nightly, and a very polite and friendly room steward assigned to look after us for the entire week, left no doubt that we weren't in Boise anymore. We were realy and truly sailing on a luxury ocean liner, complete with 5 or 6 formal dining rooms, a casual buffet, several swimming pools and other sports and fitness facilities, spa, casino, night clubs, theater, shops, entertainers, and a naturalist to educate us and point out the wildlife we'd be encountering throughout our journey. We particularly enjoyed learning from him about humpback whales, orcas, sea otters, seals, sea lions, puffins and other birds, bears, and glaciers too. We've always been drawn to nature shows on the Discovery and National Geographic channels, but to actually be there in person to see and hear it firsthand is more of a thrill than we had even expected. Think about this: a sailing university! What a concept. I bet we'd see more kids enrolling in college and staying on board long enough to earn a degree if such a program existed. Several of us were brainstorming ideas on careers we could pursue in order to sail the world as we earned our daily bread. Pretty cushy work place that would be.
We picked up a few mementos in Ketchikan, our first port of call, which we were told is usually very rainy. But on the day we were there the skies were clear and the temperature was mild. We were eager for our second port of call in Juneau, where we visited with Dan's brother Robyn and his wife Candy and family for a couple of hours. Neither of us knew the other was booking a cruise to Alaska at the time we were making our plans back in March. We only found out in May, and made arrangements then to meet in Juneau. We ran into them again briefly the following day at our third port of call in Skagway. Dan and I thought our fare of $226 for the two of us on the Yukon Railroad to White Pass was almost as steep as the terrain we traversed, but when we considered that Rob shelled out over a thousand dollars for the same trip for his family, we felt we hadn't done too badly after all. It really was a blessing to have two of my sisters, Jenny and Julie, and brother-in-law Lonnie aboard the ship with us, and then to be able to see Robyn and Candy, too, was just that much more frosting on the big old blessing cake.

I especially delighted in our two days in Glacier Bay and College Fjord. The diversity of the Lord's creations upon this planet is astounding.. I want to know more, to hear more, to feel more, and that means I have to travel more. And Dan wants to, too! He definitely didn't expect to enjoy this trip as much as he did. But on the second day, when he started talking about ways we could tighten our belts and increase our savings so that we could take another cruise to Alaska, I knew he was hooked. Going on to Anchorage, and hurriedly taking in a few of its offerings like the tram at the Alyeska ski resort, the Wildlife Conservancy, the Native Heritage center, the downtown open air market where we found our best souvenir, a reindeer pelt, and listening to our chartered bus driver's descriptions of life in the Last Frontier,, the forget-me-not state, further convinced us to start planning a return trip to the wild and beautiful land of Alaska right away. Hey friends, pinch those pennies and come with us. You know it's true: The more the merrier.

Glacier Bay Holiday

Dan and I, along with Jenny, Julie and Lonnie, and the rest of our group had a wonderful, wonderful time in Alaska last week. I'm waiting for help with pictures of our trip before I post much about it, but I don't have to wait to share this video of a calving glacier in Glacier Bay. It was shot a couple of weeks before our arrival,, but Julie told me it looks exactly like the ones we saw from our ship in the same place on June 10th. Depending on their size, the huge chunks of ice sound like either gunshots or thunder as they break away from the main glacier. Listening to the excitement of the crowd gathered on deck to witness the calving reminded me of a Fourth of July fireworks show. Only this time it was an awesome iceworks display.

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Y'all Be Good Now

And if you are really really good, I'll bring you back a treat. Dan and I head out tomorrow for a fun vacation, leaving Colin and a couple of his friends to hold down the fort in our absence. Heigh ho, we're ready to go!

My Brother's War with CLL

It was intense. He was diagnosed when he was still in his twenties. He fought long and hard because he had so much of life ahead of him. His fighting spirit was certainly not transmitted to me. I couldn't endure what he went through. He died 8 years ago today. His daughter, Lisa, wrote the following account.
Little Lovables

A Week's Worth

Friday: Annual PCP appointment. All good except white blood count. Apparently am out of remission. Darn. Just means closer monitoring for now. Normal range roughly 4.5 - 10.5 or so. My WBC was 16.2. Didn't need treatment before till it was around 60-70. All is calm, all is bright.
Saturday: Rain rain rain.
Sunday: Rick and JoLyn arrived. One of Shane's good friends, Stewart Wayment, soon to depart for his mission in Peru, unexpectedly arrived and was happily welcomed.
Monday: JoLyn's legendary organizing skills were put to good use in Brianna's vacated bedroom. Then Dan and Rick went exploring while JoLyn and I shopped up a whirlwind. Ready for the Alaskan cruise, with brand-new luggage even. JoLyn improved my recent haircut. Mammogram at four o'clock.
Tuesday: Funny call from Greg, describing many fun and hilarious activities with the kids meeting his talented girlfriend, Mae, for the first time. She's a singer-songwriter, guitar-playing, seamstress, cake decorating wonder!
Wednesday: Lovely sterling silver necklace Mother's Day gift arrives in the mail from The Vintage Pearl, hand-stamped with the names of my favorite seven sons. Also Neil's birthday.
Thursday: Lively book club tonight.

Young Joseph

When JoLyn and Lisa were shopping in TriCities a few weeks ago, they came upon a picture of Shane in the LDS bookstore. It's called "I Saw a Light" and the artist is John McNaughton. JoLyn bought it, knowing I would want it, and added it to my tab. She showed it to Rick and asked him who it looked like. "Shane Washburn," was his immediate reply. I phoned my trusty describer, Julie, and asked her to find it online and let me know if she agreed with them. She did and she did. Julie then located another picture by the same artist called "Let Him Ask of God." I now have that one waiting for me at our local bookstore. They're both perfect for a room we'll be redecorating in a sort of early New York/Joseph Smith era theme over the next few months. It's so awesome that the Joseph of the pictures looks like our very own Shane, whose middle name is Joseph, and who's serving a mission in New York at this very time, and, who just completed his first six months in the mission field!

To celebrate, I'll copy and paste part of an email he sent on May 3rd, wherein he shared a persona linsight with us. I consider it a great blessing when we get to learn from our children. He wrote:
My companion has a saying he likes to say every once in a while which is, "You are who you want to be." I suppose much of the
time, I get stuck in a pattern of thought that if I live and float and try to make
good decisions with the things that are presented to me, then things will work out
and I will be good, and good things will happen, and I will float slowly down a river
of goodness. But I have been realizing more and more that what my companion says
is completely true. If we want to become something, we have to work so we can achieve it.
I forget where, but I read a scripture that said that all the blessings we get, and
everything we attain to depends on our efforts. It basically said that we are what
we choose to be through our actions and efforts. My Branch President also told me
that if a person is thirsty, he buys water and drinks the water. If you want a baptism,
or if you want to achieve some characteristic, you go and you start the steps
to develop that particular attribute you want. The "go-gettiveness" is what separates
the awesome people from the good/all right people. There are tons of people that have
the same knowledge, but unless they act, they learn nothing. Elder Crump was telling
me about one of his brothers who returned from his mission. Before the mission he
was kind of lazy and didn't really have anything he was good at. After the mission
he came back, and whenever he saw something he thought was cool he would plan to
start learning how to do the cool stuff, like learning to use a yo-yo
or playing guitar. He acted on all the things he wanted to and as he acted on those
impulses he gained the knowledge to do those things and he developed more talents.
If you want something, you go and you do it. If repentance is making a change in
ourselves, and we are not supposed to procrastinate the day of our repentance, we
learn that we need to, as soon as we see something we would like to change, to start
working on it immediately. If we have a hobby we want to do, or a relationship
we want to build, or a career we want to pursue, the only way to achieve those things
is to seek for them and to act.

I think our youngest is growing up into a fine young man. Which reminds me, Neil used to have a nickname for Colin or Shane when they were small fry. He called whoever it was young Jonah. I think Greg got in on that too. They liked to play with and sometimes even tease their little brothers back in the day. Whether we call him young Jonah, or young Joseph, this stalwart young man is a youngster no more.

Thumbs Up

Thumbs up for my 2010 Mother's Day! Roses and lilies, a yummy steak dinner, phone calls from some very special men, extraordinarily pretty cards, and a surprise gift still on its way. What a great big bouquet of blessings. Thank you, dear family.

Thumbs up on the creative writing skills of Shannon Hale! I enjoyed Princess Academy and plan to read The Goose Girl this summer. But, well, I can't recommend her book, The Actor and the Housewife. When a character has to wrestle that much with whether she's being faithful and true to her husband, the answer in my mind is a resounding no, no, no! Becky Jack, the Mormon housewife, is portrayed as having such a big, big heart and enlightened mind that she can love her husband completely and still talk on the phone almost every day at times, and sometimes all night, go on vacations, and be huggy-wuggy with her "best friend" Felix, the fabulously rich, talented, and handsome actor. He was sort of like a fairy godmother. Need any little old thing? Well, call Felix, or maybe that should be Fixix. Parts of the story were fun, but a lot of it seemed to be a creepy rationalization for emotional adultery at the very least, and maybe much, much more. Although if anyone suggested such a thing in the book, it was only because they were narrow-minded and judgmental. Sorry, this one's a thums down. Anyone else read it? What'd you think? It has mixed reviews on amazon.com, with 4 and 5 star ratings making up a little over 50% of them. Our book club discussion on this one is sure to be lively. Nice clip of Shannon Hale here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gppPUxebM18

And last, thumbs up on a few quotes from a great wife and mother, Marjorie Pay Hinckley!

"Be a Mother who is committed to loving her children into standing on higher ground than the environment surrounding them. Mother's are endowed with a love that is unlike any other love on the face of the earth."

"The family is eternal. Love must be nurtured. It must be spoken. We must put away our pride, our haughtiness, our shyness, our misunderstandings, and with humility say, "I love you. Is there something I can do to help you?" You can never be completely happy under any other circumstances."

"We women have a lot to learn about simplifying our lives. We have to decide what is important and then move along at a pace that is comfortable for us. We have to develop the maturity to stop trying to prove something. We have to learn to be content with what we are."

"Home is where you are loved the most and act the worst."

"Be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

"The trick is to enjoy life. Don't wish away your days, waiting for better ones ahead."

"We are all in this together. We need each other. Oh, how we need each other. Those of us who are old need you who are young, and hopefully, you who are young need some of us who are old... We need deep and satisfying and loyal friendships with each other. These friendships are a necessary source of sustenance. We need to renew our faith every day. We need to lock arms and help build the kingdom so that it will roll forth and fill the whole earth."

"As we got closer to marriage, I felt completely confident that Gordon loved me. But I also knew somehow that I would never come first with him. I knew I was going to be second in his life and that the Lord was going to be first. And that was okay. It seemed to me that if you understood the gospel and the purpose of our being here, you would want a husband who put the Lord first."

"The grand and the simple. They are equally wonderful."

"There are some years in our lives that we would not want to live again. But even these years will pass away, and the lessons learned will be a future blessing."

"The thing about growing old is that when you wake up with a new pain, you can just about count on it becoming a permanent part of your life!"

"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails.

I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp.

I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbors children.

I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed some-one's garden.

I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder.

I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived."

"Elder Neal A. Maxwell once said, "We are here in mortality, and the only way to go is through; there isn't any around!" I would add, the only way to get through life is to laugh your way through it. You either have to laugh or cry. I prefer to laugh. Crying gives me a headache."

"Think about your particular assignment at this time in your life. It may be to get an education, it may be to rear children, it may be to be a grandparent, it may be to care for an relieve the suffering of someone you love, it may be to do a job in the most excellent way possible, it may be to support someone who has a difficult assignment of their own. Our assignments are varied and they change from time to time. Don't take them lightly. Give them your full heart and energy. Do them with enthusiasm. Do whatever you have to do this week with your whole heart and soul. To do less than this will leave you with an empty feeling."

"I know it is hard for you young mothers to believe that almost before you can turn around the children will be gone and you will be alone with your husband. You had better be sure you are developing the kind of love and friendship that will be delightful and enduring. Let the children learn from your attitude that he is important. Encourage him. Be kind. It is a rough world, and he, like everyone else, is fighting to survive. Be cheerful. Don't be a whiner."

"With intellectual curiosity the world will always be full of magic and wonder."