“Made You Look!”

Dear family and dear friends,                                                                            14 April 2011

One of my favorite journal moments came last summer at Bear Lake, encouraging an enthusiastic eight year old with a hot chocolate diary

 to write sundry events of our reunion and his time away from his mother.

He looked up after writing awhile and announced. “I can't write anymore, I have to go and LIVE something to write about!” Most days we get so caught up in living that we forget to capture the beauty and goodness around us that happens on the way.

As our neighborhood is preparing for a pioneer handcart trek

planned for early July, preparations include walking together each Saturday morning, adding ½ mile each time (we are approaching 7 miles this coming week.) We learned Tuesday while making bonnets with the Young Women that Brigham Young encouraged the pioneers to set their sights on the valley (or the “Promised Land” rather than fix their vision upon the sagebrush, stickers, ticks, and other annoyances accompanying the 1000 mile cross-continent walk. I appreciate the advice...but I also am glad to resonate with the thrill of a home-from-India twenty year old at my side looking up and exclaiming at the beauty of “our little mountains,”

our vision on the way! Utah brought rain, snow and hail to Amber's first day home—quite a welcome for April 7th.

[This shot, April 7, came when all helped Maria hunt eggs early to answer a request to go to prom.]

While we are thinking about prom--let's fast forward to 16 April and see stars: 

(day activity--thrift store costume to spice up bowling)

(Sister fixit via youtube)

date too little

pinning on boutonnier

getting results

ready for music a la capitol

all on a full moon!

Two days before prom, I dodged flurries of white running from our newly- resuscitated Corolla car to my Regional Family History Center volunteer day, which brought recollections of a Laurene “look!” moment just we zipped out of town on a Spring Break saga (bound northwest to Washington.) I had been asked prepare the history center’s monthly display.

see FH display virtual tour

         Beach towels, sunglasses, reunion regalia, and current and aged photos had been scoured from home and Grandpa Larry's potpourri collection, piled together with David Gee's illustrated child's book, “The Fishing Grandpa: A True Fish Story.” An online newspaper article about Grandpa Ivin's brother Merrill who served as prosecuting attorney in the Nirenberg Trials rested on a copy of Mom and Dad's wedding scrapbook and Uncle Laurence's collection of Gee family history pioneer conversion stories, packed next to the porcelain doll to set atop Sister Chadley’s doll story from the ward Pie (or Pi) Night talent show.

          My only missing utensil for the display was a packet of 3M hooks earlier purchased to plaster grandchildren and grandparents in a moveable way on rag-rolled walls. I knew I had those things, but where were they? Up early, early at 4 am, looking, looking--those elusive hooks, refused to unveil their face. It took fervent but occasionally faith-barren prayers, followed by a detailed treasure walk led by little hints (“do the laundry, take out the recycle”...) then, sitting right next to the recycle bin sat a pile of 3M hooks staring back!

It sometimes takes prodding to actually see. How often can a person look past needed items, wondering where those silly things might be—they must be in a SPECIAL place!

Hence and hereafter, we are avowed to follow Amber's encouragement to LOOK—special place or no!

 Other advice Amber resolved to follow in India, came from a song accompanied by Kristen that Maria, Zach, and I presented at the ward talent night--You Never Walk Alone (from Carousel.) Maybe this daughter will change her mind, but until then,

we are enjoying pleasant treks, padding over paths near our “little” mountains,

 looking right and left to document hidden signs of springtime,

grateful to look in our hearts for happiness that sometimes hides.

Blessings to you, and Namaskaramandi! (an Telagu Indian “hello!”) from friends featured in that “hot chocolate” diary. A happy new May to you, after counting down days, we have recently celebrated our New Zealand missionary grandparent landing!

To get a flavor of "anticipation" try this link:

New Pooh Great grandchild waiting to see...if my great grandparents might like me...it is all up in the air

 

                         (See the homecoming in person!  Click on this link: )  The Gees Fly Home

                                

Love to you, the Kaysville crew

“Spring and Summer Sauntering”

31 August 2010
Dear family and dear friends,


I have not dropped off the map, exactly.
I am and have, however, been perusing maps in efforts to keep up with the reaching and stretching of family members.

After our "come-along" gang conquered half a dozen dead or dying front yard quaking aspens

and while my youngest brother's family was adding a wonderful nearly two year old member

to join their lego club menagerie, the cousins sensed a noticeable glow about Kristen. Soon we learned from Kristen and Zach that their little family would grow.

Kristen, Zach, Amber, and Maria joined us in Spring City early April, where our friends Su & Mike shared their mobile-home view of the valley as we watched conference and played games together. A few days later, Val acquiesced to Maria’s wish for a more exotic spring break, where she learned (uphill, barefoot, in the snow) to drive a stick shift to help drive to Burbank, California, where he could worked and we could play. Visits to Santa Monica Beach, The Getty, the Huntington Library,

with singing fountains at a nearby eatery, culminated in a peace-filled Saturday morning to remember Grandpa Starkey's Cheshire England family.

Maria then found a friend along a costal pier. The visit connected us with Cousin Michael via hike to the Griffith Observatory and Korean barbecue at a farmer’s market.

Having left only minor bumper paint with a tight U turn in a narrow squeeze and chalking up merely one red-orange light (still awaiting the infamous mail-order traffic tickets) the copious miles we covered generated gratitude for our nearby less-traveled Legacy Highway.

Maria helped me drive home;
Val stayed and returned for further bolt testing.


Later in April, we watched Zach and Kristen march in cap and gown to Pomp and Circumstance with friends from Kristen’s Food Science Department
after an invocation from Dallin Dance, valedictorian and son of dear friends from Bellevue.




Kristen finished up another class or two, arranging flowers with Sister Amber, who chose to stay spring and summer terms and lived three blocks away.

Interspersed between Kristen’s human development and technical writing courses and Amber’s classes to explore careers and edit/circulate BYU’s Leading Edge science fiction magazine,
the Starkey and the Gee families gathered at Grandma Pearl’s childhood home in Paris, Idaho during the third and fourth weekend of June. Happily for us, an eight-year-old grandson came and joined for the second (Gee) reunion, staying in Kaysville for another week to share a 4th of July parade, fireworks, and a grandpa’s offer of swimming and learning to fish. He also helped Grandma bury Maria’s goldfish that expired during Maria’s visit to Washington, where Maria assisted an aunt, made new friends in Tacoma with BYU’s Especially for Youth program, and checked out Woodland Park Zoo, bonding with Sammamish cousins.

As Zach’s plans for graduate school were postponed; joyfully, in June, he was offered and accepted a position with Goldman Sachs at their U of U campus in Salt Lake. Zach’s training included a visit to New York City and allowed a happy, pregnant companion to join up to experience Mary Poppins and a variety of interesting sites together prior to returning in time for a U- haul move (with many appreciated helpful hands) north to Sandy in early August.

Upon wrapping up summer grammar and usage classes, Amber joined Maria, Val, and Laurene on a Delta flight east; then navigating toll roads from Orlando to Tallahassee, Florida, we found an amazing three month old Spencer, who glows and smiles any time his hands are clapped together. Between farmers and fish markets, lap swimming, beach bumming, walking Tallahassee tree-filled trails and trying our hands at Lanae’s Ethiopian lentils, shrimp, and grouper, our time was celebrated and cherished. (Thank you to persistent Patrick for patient and prompt suitcase repair!)



Val returned early to his Kaysville Boeing home-office to certify an airplane and specify bolts, top priority. Since before the June reunions, Val has wrestled pain from three herniated cervical discs.

So when daughters campaigned to visit a newly opened Hogwarts castle in Orlando, he happily and easily passed on any roller coasting.

Now, it is their mom who continues to watch the room spin upon reclining! An end of spinning is not in sight,

with beginnings of AP classes for a Darting to Davis Junior and a budding anthropology major who is presently charting the whereabouts of Visakhapatnam.
Can you say it three times fast?
Or can you find it on the map?

For Kristen and company, an autumn trip to Washington approaches (to celebrate Brianne’s bringing us a 6 pound 9 ounce Zoey in July)

and anticipating her upcoming cousin William Hinckley Archuleta to arrive early November.


Apologies with no explanation, for falling off the map!



May your course be charted, true, and filled with fruitful destinations! Blessings to you, the Starkeys