Samantha Maye is in Arizona celebrating her 14th birthday this week and while she was here she got to sit in the Speaker's chair at the original Arizona State Capitol in Downtown Phoenix. Looks pretty good doesn't she?

Easter Spider

I did not have a charge in my camera so no photos, but I wanted you to all know the Easter Spider made his way back to Idaho after a long time gone. He used so much yarn that it was hard to walk around and some of the eggs had to be hidden outside. He even hide an egg on the golf course. Not sure what the neighbors thought of the kids in PJ's looking for an egg on the golf course, but I think it might give them reason to stay a snow bird a little longer next year.

Did any of you see the Easter spider this year?

Holi Festival

As many of you know there is a Hindu Krishna Temple in Salem, UT.  They have many festivals throughout the year.  This weekend was the Holi Festival, also known as the festival of colors.  It is basically a festival to celebrate Spring.  They used to throw ground up flowers but that has gotten too expensive so they throw colored and scented corn starch.

There is about an hour long ceremony with chanting, dancing, and an explanation of the festival for the thousands of people who are there, not because they are observant Hindus, but because it is a pretty good party.  There is a countdown from 20 and then the colors are shared.  They are thrown in the air, or patted onto the people near you.  Hugging is highly encouraged as peace is a big part of the festival.

 

Rugby

I went to a rugby game yesterday; The Wasatch Cup – BYU v Utah.  I just thought that I would share some pictures that I took.

 

Plants, Plants and More Plants

One day a year the US Botanic Gardens opens their "production facility" to the public. The facility is made up of over a dozen greenhouses with computer controlled climates. Among them are:

• Orchids
• Desert Plants
• Medicinals
• Display plants (the plants they grow for the senators offices

The facility is also a "rescue center" for rare and endangered plant species.

Clay knew a lot more than me, but neither of us knew a lot about the plants we saw ... we did spend a few hours saying, "Oh My Heck, that is SO COOL!" We just wanted all of you to be able to say it too (and frankly we are hoping Chuck will post some comments explaining what we saw).

A frente hay un sauce que llora

It has been an insanely long and very emotional four days since I heard about the 8.8 earthquake early Saturday morning. I have been able to find out that everyone I knew in Chillan and Tome is fine. No collapsed houses, no deaths. Things are still very hard there as they continue to have many aftershocks daily and many cities are under curfews because of looting. There are still a few people whose well being I have not been able to find out about however worrying about a few people is much more emotionally doable than worrying about 100's. Chile continues to be in my thoughts and prayers constantly and I am ready to go down in an instant if there is a need (especially if there were a need to provide OT services) but Chile is a strong country and I think that once the initial emergency is over they will not need massive amounts of humanitarian help.

TerremotoChile – Chilean Earthquake

I just wanted to give an update on the Chilean earthquake. The epicenter was 70 miles from Concepcion, the city where the mission offices were located. Tome, the city where I served for seven months was one of the closest cities to the epicenter. It is about 60 miles from the epicenter. I have heard from many friends in Santiago, Vina del Mar, and Valpariso who are all okay. They did not have power or water for quite a while but they seem to all have it back within 24 hours of the earthquake. These cities are about 300 miles from the epicenter.

I have tried many many times to contact people in Tome but cell phones nor landlines are working. I am horribly worried for their well being based on the news I have heard and what I know of the geography there. The town next to Tome is reported to be 85% underwater from the tsunami. The town across the bay from Tome (Talcahuano) was confirmed to have had a 2-3 meter tsunami do major damage. I have not been able to verify that Tome was hit by a tsunami but it undoubtedly was.

Above is a picture of Tome that was taken in 1997/1998. I don’t know how well you can distinguish the altitude. The area with white houses and dirt is where I lived. It is a neighborhood built on a very steep slope. I am extremely worried about this neighborhood because I think that the steep slope makes it especially vulnerable in an earthquake. You can see the ocean below. The whole downtown area of the city is just above sea level and if a tsunami hit then houses, a friends apartment building, grocery story, government buildings, etc, etc would have been affected.

Lebu is another pueblito that I am very worried about. It is also low lying on the coast. I have not yet heard from anyone there. I can’t remember how far the house where I lived was from the ocean but I think that it is far enough that it would be safe in case of tsunami, much of the town however would not be. It is also a small town where there would be a lot more houses of adobe then in the larger cities. The adobe homes seem to have been the most dangerous. I’ve heard nothing from Quirihue but it is also a very small town with many adobe homes. It is probably 30-40 miles from the epicenter.

I have heard news from Chillan, the first city I served in. It sounds like everyone in the ward I worked in is safe, however there are some people who have had significant damage to their homes. For some reason Chillan does not seem to be as strongly affected as other cities in the area. It is only 60 miles from the epicenter.

This is a typical adobe building in Quirihue. It has no support and would easily fall in an earthquake. If I remember right this is the house of Jose.

Solange & Jeffeey Nico

Clay & Plants

Jon, Joe, Clay's new friend Alexis and I picked up our Bigger Tigger from National this morning. On our way into DC to have lunch at Good Stuff (Spike of Top Chef fame and his mom own it ... pretty amazing cheeseburgers, fries & shakes) we drove by the US Botanic Gardens. Clay was pouting about the fact that he had not been taken there. We decided to remedy the error of our parenting ways, parked and went in.

They were having an exhibit of ORCHIDS ... we notified Chuck immediately via text message, but thought all of you would enjoy some of the pictures. Check out www.usbg.gov. We also learned that USBG has a HUGE warehouse that they open only 1 day per year to the public for tours. You can read more about it here: http://www.usbg.gov/education/events/US-Botanic-Garden-Production-Facility-Open-House.cfm

I also took some pics of the storm damage - the broken tree in the picture is on the grounds of the US Capital. Sadly, this is a common sight all over the area.

Clay takes a turn leading the Orchid exhibit tour. He's got a little Vana White in him.

Orchid exhibit ... breathtaking.

a picture is worth a 1,000 words ... I have nothing more to add to this one.

Sad storm victim.

Joe, Alexis and Clay in the Hawaii exhibit at the USBG.

My first pull up in over 20 years

In early December I started doing CrossFit at a friend’s gym.  One of the things that we do every workout is pull ups.  He has bands that help support your weight.  Even with that pull ups are challenging and it was hard for me to fathom the day that I would be able to do a pull up like I could do in elementary school.  On Wednesday’s I go to recess with my Kindergarten kids and I always try a pull up on the playground to see how I am progressing.  When I tried today I was astonished as my chin crested the bar.  When I got to CrossFit tonight I was anxious to see if I could do a pull up from full shoulder & elbow extension.  I was again excited and astonished as my chin crested the bar.  I was able to do seven before my muscles fatigued.

My first pull up!

 

This was five days ago using the band when I thought that it would still be months before I could do a pull up without the support of the band.

 

This is a sample of one of the workouts we have done.  We did 5 rounds of 1) floor wipers (bench press 65# and then touch feet to each side of the weight bar 5 times) 2) static lunges with 25# overhead 5 times with each leg 3) 5 pull ups.  You try to do the workouts as fast as you can and I did this one in 12 minutes.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho ... It's off to work I go

Looks like I'm done wandering around the country in yoga pants visiting people I love and playing in the sunshine.

I'm going back to work on Monday - working for Customer Value Partners. I am excited to be busy again and looking forward to the challenges they will be offering me.

Very glad I had a chance to practice being retired; I think I'm going to be AWESOME at that when the time comes.

Love,

me

New Year, Lots of Fun.

We started out the new years by snowshoeing up on Mt Rainier with some friends.  We had to put chains on the car to get up to the trailhead  I knew the forecast called for snow but it was just ridiculous when we got up there.  We went out anyway on a well marked trail to make sure we didn’t get lost.  After about 50 feet we were off the trail anyway and playing around in the deep snow.  We ended up staying out about two hours.  When we got back to the car we were pretty wet  (snow here is not the dry stuff we grew up with) and the kids were done and cold.  It snowed well over 4 inches while we were out on the trail.  As always I had a great time and the kids tolerated it.  :)  I wish the weather would have been better but we did have fun.  We were wondering our friends are converts to snowshoeing or if they are cured of it!!