Happy in Eagle, Idaho!

It's the people I miss most when I think about Portland.  And it is the people that have made me happy here in Eagle!   Yes, life is all about PEOPLE!

I miss my walking buddies from Portland and I miss Scott.  It was fun to have him drop in occasionally for a meal or soccer game.  He was also an indispensable help with getting the truck loaded for our move here.  We literally couldn't have done it without him. I hope he knows how much we appreciated his muscles!

Yes I miss Portland but being here means that we get to spend time with Matt, Johnny, Monica and Isabella.

Matt has been a huge help during our move.  I don't have any pictures of him moving boxes or helping me break down those boxes for recycling or hauling things out to the curbside.  I couldn't have gotten things organized without his help.

 Maybe this photo will give you some idea of the number of boxes we have gone through. There are boxes that hold broken down boxes and all the complete boxes you see are stuffed with packing paper.  I can not believe how much packing paper was used on our move.  The professional movers who packed the kitchen items for storage used a single piece of paper for each plate and glass.  That is a lot of paper. 

I wish I had taken a photo of the garage when it was stacked with full boxes.  We had boxes brought from Portland and boxes that had been stored for 8 years.  The amount of STUFF we have accumulated during the last 43 years is staggering!  6 full car loads have been donated to Deseret Industries and we still have so much.  I have instituted a rule for myself, for every one thing I buy, I must get rid of 3 things.  That might help.

Life in these 3 weeks that we've been here hasn't all been unpacking though.

John's family went to our Ward Fall Festival where a very happy Isabella got to experience her first horse ride. 

We enjoyed a fun night at a pumpkin patch which included a train ride! 

We celebrated John and Monica's birthday.  Yes, they were born on the same day! 

And got to celebrate Isabella's birthday twice....once at our house . 

And a 2nd celebration at her house!

She is warming up to us!  George got to be her patient as she played with her new doctor kit. 

We got to go to the Boise Zoo Halloween event with a cute little tiger! 

And we watched her on her favorite - the Carousel! 

And can I just add that my Christmas cactus is wildly happy in all this Boise sunshine!  I've had it in my Lake Oswego apartment for probably 5 years and after 3 weeks in Eagle, it is blooming like crazy! There is a lesson to be learned, "Bloom where you are planted."

Mission Accomplished

I have accomplished one of my goals. No all my boxes aren't unpacked yet!

But I did manage to finally finish reading War and Peace  -  all 1273 pages of it!  I started in just as we left on our trip to Russia at the end of July and finished it last week.  I think this move took away some of my reading time or zapped my energy so that I wanted to just relax with TV and not a book.  Now that I have read it,  I can certainly understand why it is considered one of the greatest novels of all time with some of the most unforgettable characters ever.  

I learned a lot about Russia history and the Napoleonic wars.  Typical of me, the war parts were not my favorites.  The story of the people were what caught and held my interest. There is a great love story!  Actually several great love stories! Michael Wilcox says that every man who reads War and Peace falls in love with Natasha.   I can understand that as I fell in love with her myself. She just brims with joy through most of the book.  And when she has her time of sorrow, I ached for her.  And rejoiced at this sentence:

 "Natasha's grief begam to be covered over by the impressions of ongoing life, it ceased to weigh with such tormenting pain on her heart, it began to become the past, and Natasha started to recover physically."

A few of my other favorite quotes:

"Pierre experienced the feeling of a man who has found what he was seeking under his own feet, while he had been straining his eyes looking far from himself.....Now he learned to see the great, the eternal, and the infinite in everything, and therefore, in order to see it, to enjoy contemplating it, he had naturally abandoned the spyglass he had been looking through over people's heads and joyfully contemplated the ever-changing, ever-great, unfathomable, and infinite life around him."

"In all the days of that anxious, memorable week, there had been that extraordinary autumn weather, always astonishing for people, when the low sun gives more heat than in spring, when everything glistens in the rarefied, clear air so that the eyes hurt, when the chest feels stronger and fresher inhaling the fragrant autumn air, when even the nights are warm and then in those dark, warm nights the sky, frightening and gladdening, ceaselessly pours down golden stars."

“You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with divine love.” 

“We love people not so much for the good they've done us, as for the good we've done them.” 

“Pierre's insanity consisted in the face that he did not wait, as before, for personal reasons, which he called people's merits, in order to love them, but love overflowed his heart, and loving people without reason, he discovered the unquestionable reasons for which it was worth loving them.” 

Don't be intimated by the 1200 pages.  Truly it is quite easily readable. Tolstoy's genius is apparent on every page.  Considered one of the first, historical fiction books as it combines fiction with meticulously researched history, Tolstoy himself didn't consider it a novel.  His goal was to blur the line between fact and fiction to get closer to the truth. 

 At first, I had trouble keeping the characters straight with their Russian names and nicknames so I went back to the principal characters list many, many times.  Believe me when I say that it was worth the all the effort.

Portland Broadway

For the last several years we've had season tickets to Portland Broadway.  Our seats were great and we've enjoyed a range of shows from "Kinky Boots" to 'Phantom of the Opera'.  Phantom was even better than the performance we saw in London. Last week we attended our last performance at the Keller Auditorium and saw "Waitress".  Excellent music and voices but too vulgar for our tastes. 

Our tradition has been to grab a quick dinner at a sandwich shop right across from the auditorium.  Lots of people have the same idea but, unfortunately, they don't realize that the shop closes at 6:30.  George and I are a bit mean as we love to sit and watch all the people come marching up to get dinner before the show to find that the restaurant is closed!  The most we counted is 19.  Frustrated, disappointed people who look at their watches, check the closing time on the door and sometimes even try to open the sliding door to get in!  Never works!  Probably tells you something about our sense of humor! 

Now we'll have to get tickets to Boise Broadway and I'm sure we'll enjoy that just as much. 

Things I'll Miss in Portland

Of course what I'll miss most in Portland are all our good friends.  The people we have met over these last 8 years are what has made all the difference.  Our lives have been blessed by so many.  This post is about 'non-people' things that I will really miss.

Mt. Hood - watching over Portland in all her glory  

Burgerville Onion Rings - Walla Walla sweet onions cooked to perfection and dipped in garlic aioli  

Guide Dogs for the Blind - my Wednesday 'Dog Day' 

The walking path by the Willamette River - right by our apartment 

Lakeridge Ward and Lake Oswego Stake - years of teaching seminary and serving 

Beautiful Skyline of downtown Portland - bridges really add to the beauty of a city 

Portland Temple - impressively large and full of light and truth 

Our cozy apartment - in an complex of 50 buildings I'm glad we've been tucked over in this relatively private, quiet corner 

10 Grands Concert - so much talent on display 

Morning walks - discussions of family, church, politics, music, humor, marriage; so many problems solved 

Lake Oswego Saturday Market - we both loved being able to walk to the market, the grocery store, restaurants and even the movie theatre 

Goodbye Portland!  Thanks for the wonderful 8 years!

A Gentleman in Moscow

A Gentleman in Moscow....and although George fits the bill, I'm not talking about him! talking about the wonderful novel by Amor Towles A Gentleman in Moscow. The story is fiction but it is set in the very real Hotel Metropol.  

When we visited Moscow I was determined to go and see the setting for one of my favorite novels of the year.  I'd looked it up on google maps thinking that George and I would have to venture out on our own to find it.  Turns out, the tour group walked right past it to get to our bus.  Easy!  And it was only a short walk from our hotel!  Perfect!  

My favorite quote from the book "And when that celestial chime sounds, perhaps a mirror will suddenly serve its truer purpose-revealing to a man not who he imagines himself to be, but who he has become."

Trust me on this and read this great book!  You won't regret it

The Hotel Metropol takes up most of a city block. Right now the entry is on the right but I suspect that after a renovation the entry will be just behind that blue bus. 

When I look up at the windows on the top I imagine that as the count's attic rooms. 

The ornate lobby reminded me of this quote from the book:

“After all, what can a first impression tell us about someone we’ve just met for a minute in the lobby of a hotel? For that matter, what can a first impression tell us about anyone? Why, no more than a chord can tell us about Beethoven, or a brushstroke about Botticelli. By their very nature, human beings are so capricious, so complex, so delightfully contradictory, that they deserve not only our consideration, but our reconsideration—and our unwavering determination to withhold our opinion until we have engaged with them in every possible setting at every possible hour.”

Staff only....

Entryway stairs.  It is all quite grand.

George and I just walked in there like we belonged....and no one questioned us.  That might have been because the security guards didn't seem to speak English! 

Sofia's piano - at least in my mind it was! 

"Looking back, it seems to me that there are people who play an essential role at every turn.....as if Life itself has summoned them once again to help fulfill its purpose. Well, since the day I was born, Sofia, there was only one time when Life needed me to be in a particular place at a particular time, and that was when your mother brought you to the lobby of the Metropol."

With my new book loving friend Marla. 

Moscow

I guess I have read and seen too many spy novels because I had a picture in my mind of Moscow as a dark, frightening place full of sad looking people.  I was totally wrong!  It's a vibrant city full of happy, prosperous looking citizens going about their daily life just like in many other cities I've visited.  All over Russia, the people were friendly and accommodating.  They seem to enjoy the tourists and give good service.

I enjoyed our time in Russia - from the small towns along the Volga to the big booming metropolis of Moscow- it's a fascinating place.  If you have a chance to go - DO IT!

Why I Love Cruises

Anyone who knows me knows that I love traveling!  I love everything about it - the hotels, the new cities, the people I meet.  However I will have to admit that after about a week of living out of a suitcase  (which means that I am constantly looking for something) I'm always super excited to get on a cruise ship and unpack.

So Reason #1 that I love cruises is unpacking, even if the room is super small.  For us the measure of 'small' will forever be, "Well it is larger than the compartment on the Silk Road Train." 

Reason #2 - Sunset photography

Reason #3 - On-board shopping 

Reason #4 - Porthole views 

Reason #5 - Friends like Chuck and Nancy Harrington and John and Katherine

Reason #6 - Barbecues on deck on a beautiful sunny day! 

Reason #7 - Our wonderful waitress 

 Oksana  

We loved her so much that we would race to dinner to be sure and be at her table! 

Reason #8 - Also a careful captain who got us out of the storm on the lake as quickly as he could;  a very competent hotel manager who kept things running smoothly; and a really fun tour director 

Reason #10 - A concert pianist who delighted us with Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff music - perfect for cruising along the Volga in Russia!

Reason #9 A Russian professor who taught us Russian history as well as current affairs. 

 #11 - Russian costume night - a chance to be a princess for the evening!  Or I should say a Tsarina!

#12 - All the behind the scenes people who manage the small details like getting all this luggage to the right cabins and then to the right buses! 

Looking back on my list of things I enjoy - this quote seems appropriate! 

'Volga River' Cruise

Although our cruise was billed as a Volga River Cruise, we were only on the actual Volga River for a short time.  To be technically correct we were on the "Volga-Baltic Waterway" for the entire trip.  We started on the Neva River in St. Petersburg.  Next morning we were on the largest freshwater lake in Europe, Lake Ladoga which was as rough as any ocean I've been on!  From there we went to the Svir River and then the Sheksna and after that the Rybinsk Reservoir until finally we were on the Volga.  We cruised into Moscow on the Moscow Canal.  This journey took us through a series of 20 locks.  I am amazed at the ingenuity of men to come up with this solution to river travel from sea level up to major inland cities.

 Depending on the size of the lock and the boats, one or two enter into the large rectangular structure we call a lock. There are moveable ends or gates which operate the lock  The gates are closed and water slowly fills the lock if you are going up to a higher river or water is drawn out if you are going to a lower.

Here we are entering a lock. 

This is taken from the back of the boat.  As you can see, we have just entered the lock and the gate is closing behind us. 

Notice the water level in this photo.  The water level has risen significantly.  It is easy to see the change in water level between the two photos. 

Although this is from a different lock, you can see that we are almost, but not quite, level with the river on the other side. 

And now exactly even,  so the gates are open and we can pass to the next river. 

River cruises are relaxing and the time in the locks added to that un-rushed feeling. I found these quotes which describe a river cruise perfectly.