Education Week 2014

We've known each other and been friends for almost 26 years!  I loved being with this great group of friends.  Our children grew up together and we've shared all kinds of experiences over the years.  We've enjoyed many years of BYU Education Week as young moms, moms of teenagers, and now for most of us, Grandma years!  I love this group of women.  They make Education Week extra fun!  A few highlights:

• I realized that when I met this group of women I was the age that Mary is now.  That seems impossible to believe but it is true.  Several of us have daughters that age.
• Attended 30 classes and took 94 pages of notes.  Last time I went to 36 classes and took 116 pages of notes.  Fewer classes, fewer notes but I also have 220 photos I made of the power point slides of several teachers.  Don't know what I'll do with them but I have them.
• Only made 5 goals and I've already completed 2 of them.....the two really easy ones!
• My roommate Jan and I stayed up WAY too late every night and regretted it every morning but there was just too much to say! Felt like we were college girls again. At least it did until we had to drag out of bed in the morning!
• I walked 38.3 miles.  (I love my Fitbit)
• First rain during Education Week in all the years I've been there.  And it wasn't just a little rain.  It was a LOT of RAIN!  
• Favorite tried and true speaker - Michael Wilcox. His topics this year were "Defining Femininity - Portraits from the Scriptures " and "The Way Back to Heaven: The Power of Being and Becoming". 
• Favorite new speaker - Shad Martin. He taught a great series on "Basic Training for Gospel Teachers: Simple Fundamentals to Help You Reach Those You Teach." I got lots of ideas for my year of teaching teenagers at 7:30 a.m.
• Confession time - I ate 8 Mint Brownies and 1 chocolate chip cookie with ice-cream, plus I ate at Chic-Fillet 3 times!  Amazingly I didn't gain any weight.  The 38 miles must have helped with that.
• Another confession - Jan and I rode the shuttle from the Conference Center to the Wilkinson Center.  We weren't planning to.  The driver stopped and asked us if we needed a ride.  Did we look like exhausted elderly ladies?  To him, we probably did but Jan had run a marathon a few days before and I still walk with vim and vigor....at least I think I do.  Taking the ride gave us more time for shopping and eating anyway!
• Enjoyed a fun evening with my Sister-in-laws Tammy and Katherine and niece Jennifer.  Started with drinks and appetizers in Richard and Tammy's Tree House/Gazebo and then went to a new Indian restaurant. Always fun to catch up with family!
• Heard an Apostle, David A Bednar, speak on social media and its potential for good. Truly Facebook, twitter, and blogs are fulfilling the Biblical prophecies to spread the gospel to all the world.
• Funny moment in one class - Shad Martin was ending his session and said something about "young and old" and just as he said old he looked directly at ME.  I leaned over to Jan and whispered, "Did he just say 'old' and look at me?"  Bad thing was that he heard me and said, "No I didn't just look at you and say old."  Well, actually he did look at me and say 'old' but he was going to say it anyway....he didn't look at me and THINK 'old' 
• Jan and I already have a plan for Education Week 2015!  Can hardly wait!!!!

Bayern and the MLS All-Stars

Bayern Munich came to Portland to play the MLS All-stars.  We couldn't quite bring ourselves to pay for the tickets to the game, after all we are not big MLS fans but we do love Pep Guardiola, the Bayern coach.  He was the coach at FC Barcelona.  I have long admired him for the classy way he conducts himself on and off the field!  Instead of going to the game, Scott and I went down to watch Bayern's open practice.

Here he is -Josep 'Pep' Guardiola.  He started playing in the Barca youth system when he was just 13, playing for 17 years, first with Barca B and then with the first team.  During his years wearing a first team Barca jersey he played in 479 games over 12 seasons and won 16 trophies.  His first year as coach of Barca he did the seemingly impossible and won the Spanish League Title, the Spanish Super Copa, and the Champion's League. First Spanish team to do so!  Pep is the youngest coach to win the Champion's League.  After 4 seasons he left the club, spent a year in New York on a sabbatical from football and then took over as coach of Bayern Munich.  One of the best records he holds as FC Barcelona coach is that he was the first coach to beat fierce rival Real Madrid 4 times in a row!  We really enjoyed watching him coach his team at this practice!

Scott especially enjoyed watching the drills.  I am sure the high school boys he coaches in Boise will be doing similar things!  Or trying to do them!!!

Here they are holding hands and moving forward while keeping a ball moving, sometimes by kicking and sometimes by heading it, competing with the other groups to reach the end line.  Just an amazing levels of skill and these are not all the first team stars! Many of the stars for Bayern were on the German World Cup Championship team and they were not at this practice.

Probably the most famous player we saw was Polish star, 25 year old Robert Lewandowski.  

I think he must spend a lot of time in the weight room!

The game ended with the MLS All-Stars winning 2-1, which was not supposed to happen! Plus in this game that was to be a 'friendly', there were some decidedly unfriendly hard tackles. Pep was incensed at the ref and at the MLS Coach and definitely let his displeasure be known. First to the referees.

Then to the MLS coaches by shaking his finger at them as if to warn them that he did NOT want to talk after the game. 

And finally walked off without shaking the opposing coach's hand.

We have debated this at length here at our house.  True the tackles were hard and not in the spirit of a 'friendly' game.  Bayern will start their season in a few weeks so getting an important player injured in this game would have been a senseless tragedy.   Even taking that into account, we all agree that he should have shaken hands with the coach.  Not a classy move from a man who has always shown such class!

Birthday - The Good and the Bad

First the good - I had a lovely lunch with friends at Skamania Lodge complete with this yummy dessert.

Well one bad part of this - instead of a chocolate cookie underneath, it is an oatmeal raisin.  Don't you think that is one of the biggest disappointments of life?  You are totally expecting a sweet chocolate chip and discover a sticky raisin!  It wasn't too bad this time because I could disguise the taste of the raisin with ice cream, chocolate sauce and whipped cream.

More good stuff - George got me the camera I have been drooling about for months!  I think he got tired of looking at it every time we went to Costco or the mall! A wonderful gift from my sweetheart!  I'm so excited about it!

Really only one bad thing - On my very birthday I got a letter with these ads:

Yep, I am being invited to try state-of-the art hearing aids!  How depressing is that?  Probably even more depressing that sometimes I think I need them!

Friends from All Over

When George was laid off from HP we were both shocked.  We had always thought that he would retire having only ever worked at one company - Hewlett Packard.  Moving to Portland was not something in our plans but it has been wonderful in so many ways.

One of the fun and rewarding parts has been making international friends.  The first company George worked for was an Indian company.  Every week we had lunch with one of the young Indian engineers.  He is the age of our boys and I had to catch myself to not say things like "It is raining so drive carefully."  "It's cold.  Where is your coat?".

This year we have gotten to be friends with one of the Japanese men who works for XIP and his adorable family.  They are moving back to Toyko next week.  We had a fun night playing mini golf and going out to dinner.

The two children have spent the last four years in the US so they speak English with absolutely no accent.  The chatterbox little girl told me that she doesn't like to speak Japanese.  Boy is she in for a shock!   They watched almost all the World Cup games so that was fun to discuss also, although we differ in our choices of favorite players! 

I am sure we will visit them again in Tokyo!