My Grandma on my Dad's side passed away in March. I've been trying to figure out how to blog about it and not miss anything. We lived about 30 minutes away from her growing up, and she taught almost all ten of us kids to play the piano. That meant roughly 45 minutes of quality, uninterrupted one-on-one time with her each week for about ten years of my life. Plus all the other Sunday afternoon visits, sing-alongs at Christmas time, hugs, kisses, laughs (so many laughs) . . . You can't blog that! You can't forget it either, so I've decided it's okay that I can't blog it. So just a few things to sum her up. First, I have searched my memories, and have discovered that I don't have a single one of her that is negative. Sure there were plenty during my awkward growing up years that where my behavior is cringe-worthy, but she was just sunshine and nurture and safety for me.  She had a great sense of humor and could tell a story like nobody else I...

The first time our family met Brother Grove was at Christmas. We went caroling here and there around the ward with the choir, and his house was one of the ones on our list. We went around back, knocked on the basement apartment door, and greeted him with a song. He asked us to sing White Christmas, and then talked for a minute or two, mostly about his recently departed wife, Beverly. He seemed so sad. So Nate and I decided, heck, we have no family close by to visit, so we'd better come back and see this guy sometime. So that's what we did.  We showed up at his door unannounced, with kids in tow one Sunday afternoon, introduced ourselves, and he invited us inside. The first few visits were pretty awkward. But we kept on going back, and he kept on welcoming us. We became good friends. He had the craziest stories about flying the F4U in World War II, meeting his wife on a bus when two jerks took her sandwich, growing up in Kansas, hippies, black panthers, teaching at Weber S...

One thing I've learned about Nate is that he's got to get his outdoors fix. He loves to be outside "puttering around" in the yard, as he puts it. Also, he really enjoys running, and is persistent at it. That's all pretty normal, I think. But Nate, as in most areas of life, goes above and beyond when it comes to the out-of-doors. He's gotta get his adventure on every so often in order to be a cheerful human being. He has a long, long list of death-defying outdoor adventures he wants to do, and is always scheming up plans to knock one or another of them out. Echo Canyon in Zion has been on his list for the last couple of years, ever since he hiked above it to Observation Point. And 4th of July weekend, by some miracle, the stars aligned and he and I got to go do it with Bri and Mason. Ready for the hike in! Bri's copious back sweat. (We all matched.) Lunch #1 at like 10:00. There's nothing more tasty than smushed pbjs on a big hike...