Hurricanes and Typhoons

Watching the television reports of hurricane Irene brought back memories, especially after I communicated with friend of mine who took his daughter back to New York for the start of the fall semester. We start classes on Monday and yesterday I asked him what his status was (text message) and he responded he was trapped until Tuesday afternoon. I've been through two typhoons (that's the Pacific Ocean version of a hurricane and I like the name better) in my life.

Note that there were no
windows, just louvers.

I'll start with the second, since it was less dramatic. I was teaching strategic planning to members of the Hong Kong Olympic Committee when my host told me that class would be over in 30 minutes. My response was, "We still have 2 hours." And he said, "Not now, we have a stage 4 hurricane coming and all public transportation stops in 2 hours." Needless to say, I got done in my allotted 30 minutes and let everyone go. That evening all of the big stores were closed and all of the mom and pop stores were open, including the restaurants. The storm missed us and hit Macau, so the next morning we were back in class.

Some 40 years prior to that I experienced my first typhoon as a youngster living on Guam, in the Marianas archipelago in the Pacific Ocean. It was in 1956 or 1957 - I really don't remember. We lived on Anderson Air Force Base and had a couple stay with us during the storm. They lived in quarters that weren't deemed safe. Our housing was on high ground at the north end of the island and we had no windows - just louvers and screens. Hence, you can imagine that keeping water out was a challenge. Fortunately we had all rattan furniture and carpets - long before it was fashionable.

Guam is a beautiful island in the Pacific. It recovers
quickly from disasters. This is what I remember most -
the beauty of the island.

We filled up the bathtub with water, for drinking purposes and then mopped the floors all night. Finally about 2 am everyone went to bed and got up in the morning and mopped all the water out of the house. There was a couple of inches of water in places, but the storm had passed. Not far from our home was a great outdoor theater that we often went to. It had completely collapsed. I don't have a photo of that, but the photo below is of the gymnasium, or what was left of it.

The gym was really a big quonset hut that couldn't survive
the heavy winds. It gives an idea of the force of the winds.

For us kids it was a real adventure. We had know idea how ferocious a typhoon could be and what damage could be caused. I think of Dennis and Juanita and their family as they ride out hurricane Irene and know they will be okay.

Wordless Wednesday

Birthday Doll 

Pulling the Train Whistle

Teasing the Cat

A Day at the Zoo

One of the fun things of being a grandparent is taking the kids to the zoo. In this case it was all 8 of them. Had we not brought the mothers (and our daughters) along I'm not just sure how it would have turned out. As it was we had a great time.

When you are a child you never tire of going to the zoo. It is a place of adventure, of seeing old friends, of seeing new and exotic friends, and of having new experiences. On this day as we walked in the zoo, a zoo volunteer was walking around with a king snake, which of course the kids had to explore.

Zoos have learned they need to create fun experiences for children. It is the experiences that bring families back. The Boise Zoo has play areas spread throughout the zoo, and the kids absolutely love them. The play areas have representations of animals, and the areas expand the children's opportunity for imagination, resulting in a lot more fun.

The days of the petting zoo are not gone, but are approached differently at many zoos. Boise lets you feed the goats. The kids love lining up to get food for the goats and then feeding them. I think there is more of a feeding frenzy lining up than there is of the goats competing for the food. It's interesting to see the grandchildren feeding the goats, but ignoring the ones they have at home. I guess zoo goats are better than home goats.

Everyone in our little group had a great time at the zoo, on the play devices, feeding the goats, looking at the Tiger, running ahead of mom who couldn't catch up, and playing with their siblings and cousins. The final photos show various aspects of all of the fun we had. It was a great day!

The Golden Eagle nest is just the right size for a gaggle of Eaglets.

Did I mention its more fun sometimes to
watch the feeding frenzy at the goat food
dispenser for the grandchildren and mother?

Chas is all about knowing just how cool
that hat is, especially when standing
next to a penguin (sort of penguin).

Newbies

If there is anything constant in our family it is change. We figured since we, or I had to be in Salt Lake City, we could just drive on up to Boise and check things out. There is a good reason. Daughter 3 is due any day now with her 5th child - Hattie. And Mike gets married on Friday, October 23.

On Saturday, that's today, his fiance Allison (photo below) is going to the Boise LDS Temple to receive her endowments. If you aren't LDS I will only say this is a very sacred ceremony and prepares them for their marriage the following week, which unlike most we see, includes being sealed for time and eternity. We wanted to be present for today's experience and support her and Mike.

Over the past 15 months JoAnn and I feel like we have been on the road almost constantly on family business. It's not really business, but it is support. It includes 3 new babies, a funeral, 1 marriage, a family reunion in Colorado, Christmas in Des Moines, 2 college graduations (note some of these activities are still in the near future), baby blessings, Aaronic Priesthood ordinations, visits to my Dad and Sisters, and visits by families to Las Vegas. There is one common thread in all of this - family. Our move to Las Vegas was truly a blessing. We are now able to share more of our time with all of our children and grandchildren. That is exciting for us. We enjoy these times and experiences. I feel like I know the roads to Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Idaho, and California and the sky-ways to Iowa. They have become common to us.

When we lived in Indiana it was so much more challenging to make these visits. We felt like we missed a lot. Not now and while I know we will slow this pace down, it has been fun.

Calvin Published

First off, anyone who has seen Calvin write would say, "Calvin published?" Actually, he wasn'ta bad writer - got that from his Mom. And yes he is published, but not in the sense one normally thinks of. In the last edition of my textbook I asked daughter 2 to take some photos at a water playground close to their home. I knew Calvin, his brother, and 2 cousins would all be there and I was pretty sure she could get a good photo. Two of the photos appear below. I used them in a textbook on introduction to recreation and leisure for university programs and also on a poster at a previous institution advertising degrees in recreation and park management. I am particularly fond of the photos because the capture the playfulness of our grandchildren and depict how much they did and do enjoy each other.

Calvin points to what is clearly the object of everyone's attention - where the water is coming up NEXT!

Sure enoug, that was the spot - plus a couple others they didn't anticipate.

Mid-Afternoon Break

It had been a busy day in Breckenridge by 3:30 pm yesterday. We had experienced sunshine, rain, sunshine, rain, and of course the ever present gold panning - just out of site in this photo. The streets had been walked, but shops had been shopped, the gold had been panned (more or less), and folk were beginning to gather at a main square. As I came back from an ice cream run I saw them all lined up on the bench just waiting for their photo. It's only 1/3rd of us, but it is all the bench would hold.

Panning for Gold

We are having a family reunion in Breckenridge with almost the whole gang (I think that totals up to 27 people less 1 son-in-law and 1 son). This includes 14 grandchildren ranging in age from 3.5 weeks to 14 years-old. They are all fun to have around. Yesterday, the most popular activity was panning for gold and all of the kids, except the 3 youngest. It was a hoot to watch them having so much fun. They spent hours at it. Donna's Baby was focused on finding the next BIG nugget, so he could retire at age 8. Somehow, I don't think that was going to happen.

Baby and Mac working hard on extracting gold

Bonnie took a novel approach to panning. She decided it was better to submerge the pan and see how full she could get it with river sand. Gold wasn't important, just how much she could get in the pan. And she was absolutely serious about it.

Bonnie's bandage is from a previous, non gold panning incident.

I've placed some additional thoughts below of the group panning for gold. I left out all of the dads who were panning for gold since I didn't want anyone to think their wives were bankrupting them.

When you are looking for gold it is all about being focused on the task.

Little Deano is really focused on the speck of gold

Alexis can smile and pan for gold!

To Mall or Not

I was talking to JoAnn this week and she told me how much she enjoyed going to the mall with the daughters while in Boise. I said, we go to malls here, but her response was, "No, we go to stores, but not malls. There aren't many." She is right, there aren't many malls in Las Vegas, but there are lots of outdoor shopping areas where stores are mixed together. The indoor malls are few and far between. In only know of two, and one is on the strip. JoAnn suggested she just missed going to the mall and really enjoyed it.

On Friday on the way home from the Temple I decided I would stop at Meadows Mall, one of our few malls, and give it a try. I walked in through Macys, looked at overpriced clothing that I wouldn't wear anywhere, then walked through miles and miles of cosmetic counters, women who were ready to do makeup (or whatever) and finally out into the mall. I was hungry and thought I would look for the food court. Okay, I'm not what I would call a discriminating eater when I'm hungry. No food court. At least I couldn't find it. Obviously this isn't a real mall.

Undeterred I continued my foray through the mall. JoAnn told me that Dillards had lots of new Fiesta dinner-ware, so I gave it a try. As I walked in the store I was met by those miles and miles of cosmetic counters, women's clothes and no household goods in sight. There was an escalator and I escaped up it only to find more women's clothes. It was an effort to find the down escalator. Thank goodness for signs and arrows. Dillards failed me, now what? Obviously food wasn't going to be part of my mall experience. I decided to just sit down for a few minutes and relax. No seats in the mall! Now I really am beginning to question the wisdom of coming to this mall. There is a child's play area with seats, but that's it and it was a madhouse.

Finally, as I walked back into Macy's I found a seat. Not really a seat but a bench and anyway, I'm done. I'm on my way out, if I can just get through those cosmetic counters one more time.

As I drove away I was thinking to myself, "It's a good thing JoAnn has daughters to go to the mall with, because it's not going to be me." Ask Krissie about the time I took her to the mall in Bloomington. It's definitely NOT a guy thing - at least this guy!