September

September is always a busy month with school revving up and normal routines finding their groove. It seems like Geoff's work picks up speed every fall too. And then we have TWO birthdays to celebrate in September! Thankfully all activities are in person, albeit masked, but we'll take it.

Tennie has two jobs this semester, one working as a T.A. for a Race & Ethnicity class and another working at the Bean Museum, both on campus. She walks 15 minutes from her little house south of campus to the bus, rides the bus to campus and is on campus all day long between classes, work and studying before heading back home on the bus at the end of the day. She LOVES Arabic most of all. Did I mention she writes articles for the BYU newspaper? Not all that the students write gets published, but we're waiting for any and all that do. It is fun to see her name in print.

Adele has a 25 minute walking commute to class. She nannies for a little boy on Friday mornings for a few hours, has picked up a few movie set gigs, which always provide long hours, takes pottery classes in Brooklyn on Sunday mornings that she got for trade by creating some social media films for the studio, and fits in concerts and museums and picnics with friends wherever she can. 

Ceci has some demanding classes mixed in with her fun ones this semester. She brought home this fun project from her ceramics class.

She is part of the Ethics Club (kind of like debate) and Enviro Club where she volunteered to help clean up Red Butte Gardens one day. She is doing a three-month film apprenticeship at a place called SkyHop, which provides some fun side projects. Her days are full and focused. Here she is with a film camera on her way to do some filming for a short project.

Cousins Kate & Eli were baptized early in September and we gathered with family to celebrate the occasion. We had a family birthday party for Geoff and Ceci later in the day at a park with games and cupcakes.

Geoff spent a week in LA for a YGL gathering, then came home for a celebratory birthday dinner for him with Ceci and his favorite pumpkin muffins.

He and I went on a weekend biking trip for his 50th birthday. He has wanted to bike the route from Boulder to Escalante for a long time, so we figured it was a great way to celebrate his good health and strength at 50.

We stayed in a little Bed & Breakfast in Boulder and fell in love with this little valley. How have I grown up in Utah, and lived her as an adult for almost 9 years, and not visited this part of Utah?! It is so beautiful. We woke up early on Geoff's actual birthday and he set off on the 25 mile ride.

And I have to include this picture to represent that Geoff is an animal whisperer. All animals love him, and wherever we go we stop to engage with dogs or cats or any living thing that is around (observing ant hills is not uncommon).

The ride didn't disappoint. It was breathtakingly beautiful. It had about 3-4 miles total of steep, advanced incline at three different points, but he made it feeling strong (and tired!) I drove the route, passing Geoff along the way, and in Escalante I rode my bike about 7 miles toward him until we met up and we rode the rest of the way together.

We stayed in a cute little place, relaxing most of the afternoon.

We drove the scenic rode back to Boulder where we visited a friend of Geoff's who has a home there and visited an indigenous village museum before heading home.

His family left all kinds of kind texts on his birthday:

Geoff is a very lovable person.

The next day we celebrated Ceci's birthday. She skipped school and slept in. We spent the afternoon in Sundance, Geoff made a treasure hunt full of riddles (Ceci loves riddles) and had yummy Indian food for dinner. It was a low key but great and beautiful day.

She received lots of love from family too. Here are the texts from Geoff's family (a tradition for everyone to say what they love about the birthday person...)

Nikki

Ian

Ingrid

The day after Ceci's birthday Geoff and I flew to Maine. Geoff is on the board of a company that owns a ski resort in a small town and they held a retreat for board members. We spent a few days in Rangeley, Maine, which was so charming. It was a bit drizzly the days we were there, but it was still amazing with the leaves at the beginning of their peak. Nothing like fall in New England. I miss it. One day we hiked to the top of the ski mountain and at the top you could see in all directions despite being in a cloud. It was amazing. I loved it there.

After the retreat we spent the weekend in Portland, Maine walking the streets of the old port and driving down the rugged coast a bit.

We heard about a beach were there is surfing (unexpected in Maine!), so of course we made a stop to check it out. One of us was really wishing to be out there...

We flew through New York to get home and I tried to reach out and touch Adele from a distance. It was hard to be so close and not see her.

And those were the biggest happenings in September. It was a great month.

Summer

Ok, summer is a little meatier. It was busy with a lot of comings and goings. Still, I'm just giving a high-level summary.

Adele had her first hosting opportunity when her high school friend Alexa visited NY with her family and Alexa stayed the night with Adele.

Geoff and I set off on a two-week road trip while Ceci went to NY to stay with Adele. It was very strange to spend so much time on our own, not worrying about our children being okay at home. We drove down through Havasu Lake, Arizona, through Native American reservations and desert land, through Joshua Tree National Park (which was very beautiful) and on to Palm Springs (which is very over-estimated, in my humble opinion, but maybe it was the 120 degree heat that jaded my experience!)

We made our way to Carlsbad, California where we escaped the scorching heat wave of Utah, Arizona and Palm Springs and experienced unseasonably cool weather on California's coast for the rest of our road trip! But cool was okay by me (a little disappointing for Geoff), and we still spent loads of time at the beach with me deep into good books and Geoff playing all day in the waves. We ate well and talked for hours and hours over the days and drives. After about five days in Carlsbad we made our way north along the coast, driving through all the beach towns and deciding which ones would be worth visiting again. I had never been above LA along the 101, so it was fun seeing the landscape and experiencing the different towns. We accidentally discovered a small town, due to there being no available hotel rooms anywhere near our planned stopping point, except for ONE in a small town called Cambria. The hotel forced us deep into the old town part and what a find! We LOVED it, both town and mystical beach. Geoff did a bike ride from Ventura to Montecito, and while he rode I explored Ojai.

I also fell in love with Santa Barbara, and particularly the small towns of Montecito and Summerland. Who knew California had its own Rivera?! From there we made our way up the coast, stopping at small private beaches, visiting the Hearst Castle area (unfortunately it was closed due to Covid) and on through Big Sur, then on home. It was a LOT of driving, but it was full of fun discoveries, including how great this new stage of life is going to be!

An amazing internship fell into Adele's lap for the summer with a female, activist, film-maker who threw Adele into real deal production, everything from finding actors and actresses and working with their agents to securing locations, which entailed figuring out state laws and insurance policies. She also managed the other interns and kept things moving. During Ceci's visit, Adele worked on her internship responsibilities and Ceci plowed through two independent study courses, and on the side loved hanging out with each other.

A few weeks after we returned from California and Ceci from New York, Adele came home for six weeks, since her internship was remote. It was so fun to have her home! We went Forest Bathing, did a drum circle in a salt cave, went on hikes and built campfires and ate s'mores. Her soul drank in home and Utah's nature and Salt Lake's smaller size. She continued to work on her internship when there were tasks to do. Ceci secured a job on the weekends as a hostess at a small cafe nearby, so in between her and Adele's work schedules, we took advantage of the long, summer days.

Meanwhile, Tennie and her friend/roommate Jane went to visit Jane's home near Laguna Beach, California where she rediscovered her love of surfing and had a great time with Jane's family.

Geoff's family did a five-day campout for its "Blackberry Days" this year in Teton National Park. I must admit, I wasn't very excited about five days of camping with loads of people (including lots of small kids) in, what was now, very smoky air due to fires in California and Oregon. I like my sleep. Plus, everywhere in the US it seemed we shared the place with everyone in the US. My goodness people were on the move this summer! So I waited for Tennie and we drove up a few days into everyone else's fun. Approximately 5,000 pictures were taken, but I'll only share a few, and not even the best ones...just ones I happen to have. I had never been to Teton National Park before and can't wait to go back when the skies are clear. Jenny Lake was otherworldly. And overall the camping turned out to be really fun!

We came home for two days, unpacked and repacked and headed to McCall for 10 days. Ingrid and family were there for a couple days, and Em and Bailey overlapped with them for a couple days, and the rest of the time it was just us reading at the beach or on the dock, swimming and bike riding, eating acai bowls and ice cream and spending time in the forests. It was very relaxing for all of us.

When we got home from McCall, Adele flew to Los Angeles for a week to be on set for the filming of the project she had been working on. An entire book could be made about her experience there, but I'll sum it up with her gaining some experience at all levels and in many different roles and situations on set. The days were insanely long and grueling, but she did it and gained a LOT of experience in the process. The film-maker was so impressed with her overall summer work that she wrote her a long, detailed and very complimentary letter of recommendation. One picture of a tired Adele and a fellow-intern, new friend, Olivia, on set.

When she got home, the five of us went to Bryce Canyon to hear the Utah Symphony play. It was an outdoor performance overlooking a portion of the canyon at sunset. It was amazing and probably the highlight of my entire summer. After the performance we drove into the closed park, pulled over, layed a blanket on the side of the road and looked into the black sky to watch the Perseides Meteor shower. The sky was so dark and the stars so bright. Another summer highlight. The next morning we did a beautiful hike before heading home.

We fit in a few Sundance outdoor concerts, Ceci filmed a short movie (Adele had filmed hers when Ceci was in NY) and they hosted their second annual Ruffian Short Film Festival, and then sadly we sent Adele back to NY. We moved Tennie into a new house for fall semester and she and Geoff took a quick trip to Carlsbad to surf and hit the beach one last time before the end of summer.

My brother Nate moved to Alaska and married a woman named Shelly on August 14 (I got to attend by Zoom), Ceci started her junior year of school with a schedule full of fun classes like journalism (writing for the school paper), French 3, interior design, guitar, ceramics and more. Tennie is starting her junior year, also writing for the BYU paper in her journalism class and continuing on with Arabic, and Adele is settling into her classes, looking for a job, planting herbs on her fire escape, and trying to find ways to make friends in the enormous pool of people in NY when her school doesn't have a campus and everyone wears masks. After a much needed break over the summer, Geoff is back full-throttle at work and excited to move forward. And I must admit it is nice to have everyone off and with a little quiet time at home! 

And that is a wrap on summer.

Spring

I must admit that I'm losing steam with capturing life here on this blog. Maybe it is because we're all in different directions, or because I find myself not being committed enough to pull my camera out, or because I want to give my attention elsewhere. But here I am eeking out the most basic summary of two seasons in 2021. I'll start with Spring.

Ceci did all of her driver's ed drives and tests and is finally an official Utah driver! At 16 years and 8 months, Ceci was the youngest of her sisters to achieve this accomplishment.

Adele finished up her freshman year and solitary, distanced dorm-life and moved in to her first bonafide New York apartment in the East Village! It was quite a search, and then the process of getting in an apartment is, as my NY friend Nichole put it, "like pulling your pants down." We exposed all of our entire lives to secure that place. Only going through the French bureaucracy to live in France for a year beats it in hours required. Geoff flew out to help her move and get settled and would have moved in permanently if her roommate, Elena, hadn't shown up. May she never move again.

Geoff's family came in town for Britt's babies' blessings. It was nice to be able to gather outdoors again with the warming weather.

Tennie started Spring term and took a more mellow GE class: flower arranging. She sent me regular photos of her creations. This was a photo coming home having gathered lilacs (a May flower I LOVE).

Obviously there were a lot of other goings-on, but none of them noteworthy enough without a picture.