Pear Blossoms

I've been doing a lot of walking lately. Everywhere there are pear blossoms. I have one question. What do they smell like to you? (I already know what my sister, Shauna, would say!)

Katie Henderson's Senior Recital

Look who's finished with school. Katie performed her senior recital this weekend in Logan. She was beautiful, the music sublime and the location perfect for an evening of wonder and awe.

She chose the Episcopal church for her venue which was perfect acoustically, especially for the 17 minute unaccompanied Bach. Why don't Mormons get to gaze at stain glass windows all through church? A church could be true AND beautiful.

Here is the view from the balcony.

Here is Katie in action in a time elapsed shot.

Of course the real show started after the recital. We brought Kat with us from Orem and the two of them jammed while the little ones shook their booties. (Marco was slightly distraught that he forgot his drum and started banging on anything he could find.)

CONGRATULATIONS, TO KATIE AND SAM. (Sam is also graduating.) Now they are finished with school, they are packing their bags and heading to Tennessee for the summer. I talked to Katie yesterday and she told me that in stead of buying a cap-and-gown and attending convocation, the happy couple opted for a matching set of USU sweat suits and Aggie blue ice cream.

Good luck in the deep south of Knoxville. Hopefully, Katie will find loads of Bluegrass and Old-time fiddling to sit in on while she is there.

No news is GOOD news.

I know, I know -- it's been weeks since a post. But I am pleased to report that no news is good news. We have been lounging in sunny Vegas and outside enjoying spring. Well, nearly spring. Would you believe we had SNOW this week. A sudden blizzard blew threw town yesterday. Isn't it nearly MAY?

I have been thinking on my long morning walks that it is time for a party. June is awfully warm here in Utah and my folks have that nice little place in the mountains of Colorado. Who's up for a road trip? I think I will be at the cabin for a couple of weeks in June and I want to know who wants to pop on in while I'm there. Bring the kids -- we have plenty of room. (Erin, I would even let you bring a mother in law. Maybe she'd get eaten bear. Think about it.)

So email me at andipitcher@aol.com if you think you want to go fishing with us. Here's a link to last years summer's Moms-Gone-Wild tour threw Colorado with Whitney.

WHO'S IN?

Family Home Evening Ideas for Children

Family Home Evening for Dummies

I was talking to Kirsten a little while ago and the idea of FHE came up. We talked about how scriptures are a little over a three year old's comprehensions and many of the "Ideas for FHE" books resemble a different church than she and I might attend. So, how do you teach little people gospel ideas with out going nuts because of the "manual"?





This is what we do ...



First, I get a kid to go ring the doorbell profusely. This is the sign that FHE is ready to start. I try to use this when it is time to have family prayer too. It's a good way to get little kids excited just about ANYTHING. Have them ring the door bell - like a real grown up - and they will be totally into it.

Next, we start with the standard song and prayer. The core of FHE is always stories. We have a big box of all the standard church graphics of stories from the scriptures and gospel ideas. You know the art I am talking about. It's not perfect, but usually not offensive. (Sorry, I am a bit of a snob when it comes to "church" art. If Marsha Ellis would paint all of the stories of the scriptures I would buy them all and teach my kids with those!)

Marco lets each kid pick out 2 or 3 (it always ends up being 7 or 8) of their favorite pictures. Warning: It is decidedly more difficult to find the girl pictures, but they are there and Zina is always good at digging until she finds them.

Then we just sit around and tell stories. I know it's not a novel idea, but it works. We as parents get to decide if we mention whether the "good guy" chopped all the arms off of the "hungry guys" -- uh, I mean, "bad guys". In our story to our three year old, they merely had a nice talk about stealing instead of just asking for some sheep. (My pet-peeve of my mission -- to this day -- is the chapter in the Missionary Guide on Charity. The MORE effective example of charity in this book was the story about chopping off arms. What was that all about? All of the teachings of Jesus and they pick the worse story in BOM. The story about starving peasants that were just trying to feed their families. Maybe the king was greedy and just didn't want to share. Did you ever think about that? But I digress ...)

I also like to do a game of "Go Find" using random things around the house as a "Just like the gospel" scavenger hunt. "Go find" something in the house that is just like the star that the wise men followed. This is a really good exercise to build talk writing skills in the future.

Last week one of our stories was about Joseph and Potiphar's wife. He went to jail and used a neat trick of interpreting the dreams of Pharaoh as his ticket out of there.

"Go find something in our house that is just like Joseph's Coat of Many Colors."

Next Xanny "went to jail" and had to come up with a good trick to get him out of there. Did you know he can whistle? It's a talent.
Zina's trick for getting out of jail is the BEST. She can touch her tongue to her nose. It's genetic, she inherited this skill from my mother.

Then we just end with ... well, another 7 stories. Works every time.

In the name of Jesus Christ, AMEN.

My friend, Cindy, has reminded me that I am behind in my blogging. (Pressure, pressure!) Here's to catching up. I called my friend Carolyn last week to see if I could introduce her to a couple of friends. How do I describe Carolyn? First I would say she is her own Person. After a divorce she legally changed her name to Carolyn Person to declare she belonged to no man -- she was her own person.

My life seems to be full of independently thinking women, so I decided that a couple of us should get together. Cindy and Emily joined me for tea and dark chocolate fudge at Carolyn's as we marveled at her house, handy-work and stories. I felt like we were somewhere in between being sister missionaries and small children visiting our dangerous grandmother. Either way, it was great to get a preview of what lies in store for a couple of my most talented girlfriends.

Carolyn is an amazing fabric artist. (One day I will introduce Carolyn to Ginny, the other over the top knitter friend of mine.) Below is a wall hanging she said she whipped out between husbands. It is portraits of all of the wives of Henry VIII with a one word description of their demises. (BTW - I poached these two pictures off of Cindy's blog. Thanks.)
"Divorced, Beheaded, Died, Divorced, Beheaded, Survived." Carolyn's daughter-in-law, Marsha, is a friend of mine and told me she hung this as decoration at Marsha's wedding as a cheery wedding decoration. Welcome to the family?

As you can see, she is quite the collector. Her house should be a museum of menageries. There is everything from stuffed lizards to Tibetan mandalas to spears of the Masai. The effect is hypnotic. Every corner is carefully packed with a dozen surprises.



Here is Emily contemplating all of the treasures.


Emily art directed this shot of Cindy taken via double mirrors. (That's not a mirror image? Strange.)


This is a shot of a poster advertising "Brigham Young: the psychedelic years" Maybe this most closely resembles what is floating around inside Carolyn's brain. What ever is in there, it is sure beautiful and was a lovely place to visit. Thank you, Carolyn and we will be back for more fudge and stories soon!

Art Chase

I spent last Friday in downtown Provo for their gallery stroll and art chase. The streets were full of people who crawled out of their winter caves to enjoy art and street performers. The evening that tempted us all with the feel of spring. (We can dare to dream winter will end some day before July.)

It was so fun to bump into people I haven't seen in a long while. In attendance were the Mark and Elizabeth Englands ...

Chris Foster on guitar ...
Ino of Finland and her sister Sada ...

Baby Ocean :) ...
Jenelle Wride, sister-in-law to my sister...

Kristen who used to live with Marsha and Jeff the dentist ...

Assorted hipsters and friends of Cindy ...(Ruel, Damien, Mike Kelly's giant painting.)


One of my favorite stops on the Art Chase was the Coal Umbrella Vintage Boutiques and Vinyl.

These nice people run the joint and they have one of my favorite pieces of art in town. This is a giant wall canvas of a boxer and a tiger. It's probably 8 feet by 12 feet and cover the wall over the stairs. If you haven't been in, be sure to head down to 2nd N and University to check it out.



Random Gallery Stroll participants enjoy some sweet paintings and roasted marshmallows. The city had gas open fires set up with marshmallows and sticks at each of the galleries. What? Did you think they would serve wine and cheese? We're Mormons!




The whole evening was rather festive. I bet you all the saxophone player's tips that we see YOU at the next Art Chase.

Today is Picture Day

Somehow I got roped into taking ALL the school pictures for my kidlette's preschool. (How often do you get the chance to say, "Today I shot 97 children at a preschool." Sorry.)

All I can say is you never know before snapping the picture, which kid is photogenic and which one is going to look like a deer in the headlights.
Case in point ... Above we have instant charisma and charm. Below is definite DDITH (a dear-deer-in-the-headlights).

It is the same thing every time I have a random photo moment with people everywhere. I always think, "Oh, he's going to be great to take pictures of!" and then I look at the back of the camera and find myself double checking my camera settings. Nope, it ain't the camera!

Some people have just got it ...

... and others have to work at it a little harder.

(Sorry, Zina. Of course it would be the photographer's kid that has a bad picture day.)