Mercer Island

Guess I better post before March is over. We have had an exciting month visiting the Schneiders in Seattle. Oliver drove us down from Edmonton and we had an absolutely wonderful trip. We stayed overnight at the Redds in Calgary - we were able to leave early in the morning, arriving in Mercer Island around 6:00 pm. Coleen/ OJ were our tour guides the first week. They took us to McCormick / Schmick restaurant for a lovely dinner. A memorable trip to the Olympic National Park followed later in the week - beautiful scenery / good hikes.

Aaron/ Patti visited the 1st weekend. We all took a cruise across Elliott Bay to Blake Island where we toured Tillicum Village to see native American culture - crafts, dances, costumes, a smoked salmon gourmet dinner. We returned home in the pm - A/P went shopping. C/OJ/P/E drove to Tacoma to an amazing concert by the 5 Browns - 5 Mormon siblings who studied on scholarships at the Juilliard School of Music. 5 grand pianos on stage, courtesy Steinway. They play classical music - modernized. They perform together, separately - solo, duets, trios. Tremendous sound. The audience gave them standing ovations, but they only played ONE encore. Guess that is all their fingers can take. They live in Alpine, Utah - they have performed around the world. All are married and in their 20's.

OJ left for Edmonton. Coleen for LA so we 'house sat' enjoying walks to the library via Ellis Pond where we would sit/ watch the ducks 'showing off' in the water.

We have done much reading at our leisure. I have also watched some DVD's, done some quilting. The days go very quickly and are most enjoyable. So far we are OK - have not trashed the house. I takes quite a bit of know-how to operate all the technology, but we use only the bare minimum.

We were so excited to get 3 exciting news: Mikyla's mission call;A/P engagement; Spencer's post-doctoral fellowship at U of T -all in that order. We could hardly believe it - thrice blessed. Congratulations to all.

We had a lovely visit from Janice - she came down Sunday-Monday. We had a good visit catching up on family news. She interviewed Grandpa about family history. We all enjoyed hearing these interesting accounts of the family especially East End - Banff days. Janice did not really know much about her mother's family. We all went to Crispy Creme for doughnuts and a hike to Tiger Mountain before she returned home.

This week, we have been alone as Coleen flew to SLC/Provo to be with the D/R and meet up with OJ who came to SLC to go to March Madness with Jim/Peter/ David.

This week Coleen will drive us to Victoria. So another chapter begins.

This has been a l-o-n-g communique, hope you can 'endure' to the end.

Love to all

G and G