2010 Christmas Card

Another year is coming to a close and we are looking at each other and saying, ”Is it December already?"

The most notable event for us was Gentri’s guest appearance on NPR’s Morning Edition Sunday Puzzle segment. Heber was shamelessly working on the word puzzle during church with little success until Gentri leaned over and with one glance at the puzzle declared the solution. “Deep Cleanse” can in fact be rearranged to spell “Space Needle”. We are now the proud owners of a Diamond Edition Scrabble board which spins and everything, and of course, the highly coveted NPR Weekend Edition lapel pin.

We are still working on our graduate programs at Utah State but are happy to report that we will both be graduating in May (so happy!). We will finally have the couple graduation shot we’ve been waiting for, oh, and lives and free time. Heber says he’s heard of these things called “evenings” and “weekends”. We are looking forward to discovering those.

In August we were able to visit our families in Oregon. There is no greater dining experience then the hippy farm in Corvallis. Hopefully we’ll be able to go back someday soon. In one week, Heber made perhaps the most perfect macaroni and cheese ever created and put together a day of glass blowing at a large shop in Washington, making one incredibly happy wife. Several beautiful pieces were created.

Over Thanksgiving we went to Turkey, yes, ha ha, the real Turkey and no we did not eat turkey on Thanksgiving. We loved the kabobs and bazaars but we’ve had enough world traveling for a while. We do have a bit of Turkish Delight left over if you want to try it.

Heber has been working hard at being an engineer for Space Dynamics Laboratory solving documentation issues and writing code in TCL (pronounced “tickle”) to test their new ATM SONET (pronounced pretty much like you’d think) system which, despite the name, has nothing to do with banks or music. He enjoys thinking up new acronyms for things and laughing with coworkers when they both show up in a matching ‘Navy ShirT and khakI paNTs’ (iNSTINcT). Who says engineers don’t have style?

Gentri has kept herself busy in her graduate program in instructional technology, and has learned all sorts of new things like what a div tag is, and eliminating the “you oughta wanta” syndrome. She has also been teaching gospel doctrine this year and is excited to move on to the New Testament. Gentri has spent the year dancing and performing with her Irish performing group, Inishfre, at exotic destinations like Almo Idaho. She is excited to add singing to the performance as she is planning a duet for Celtic Night in March. When she’s not having fun doing those things she plans conferences for the Intermountain Center for River Rehabilitation and Restoration, or in Heber speak, ICRRR.

As we come to the end of another year, we remember how important all of you are to us. We appreciate your friendship and support. We wish you a happy and healthy new year!

Love,

Gentri and Heber

The Magic

Christmas has come and gone. It almost doesn't feel like it has passed already. It was a little bittersweet this year.

This was the first year without Grandma Lois. My grandma passed away a couple of months ago. She always made Christmas a magical time of year. I can remember many Christmas Eve's gathered around her Christmas tree and unwrapping wonderful things like down pillows and Holiday Barbie.

Even though she was gone, she still, by some miracle, made Christmas happen.
Her tree was set up in the living room just like all the years past and tucked under the tree were presents for every single person in our family, right down to the youngest great grandchild. She took the time to purchase and prepare a little magic before her time came. I nearly broke down just looking at the love.
I think it's because I come from a line of women like Grandma Lois, that I want to make the holidays a little magic for those around me. I want to take the extra time to make homemade treats even though its a bit of a hassle. I want Santa to visit (even though Heb and I are old) and for special traditions and family activities to occur.

It just reminds me of the first Christmas Heb and I were married. We were at my parents and on Christmas morning, his presents were wrapped with care and set out as if "Santa" had visited. He turned to me excitedly and said, "Santa came." As a youngest child, it wasn't quite as magical for him.

Heb, Uncle David and I

I know that I'm getting a bit old for the magic. It may be to the point that I'm now part of making the magic at Christmas. But if I can carry on even a little bit of Grandma Lois' love for the season, it will be well worth any extra effort.

New Notebook

I just bought a new notebook.

Do you know what this means? Well, a new big project is underway and I am so excited about it. When I start something new, I always buy a new notebook. Something about having a place to keep all my thoughts together on the project.

It's for my creative project for my program. I'm going to do it with the Utah State Library, which couldn't be more perfect because I love libraries. Not just kind of like, but love them. It brings me back to running to the library across the street from my elementary school to read books with Grandma Barbara. I can still smell the book smell as I write this. I used to sit on the little step stool between the shelves and just read. I'd take my ten penny candies from the Bluebird and spend happy afternoons. I think this is why reading is such an important thing in my life, oh and penny candy.

I won't bore with too many more details. Just a month ago, I was with friends talking about something with school and got the complete glazed look. You know, the one where you have completely lost them. No fun folks. I used to tease Heber about this when he'd talk about school and now it's me doing it. Kind of sad. I'm going to try to avoid that so I'll just say this, It's going to be great, just what I was looking for. Finally a project that could make a big difference.

The Reason to Vacation

Us outside the bazaar

Hello lady. Want to buy? You German? Chinese?

Yes, these are all things people asked us in English. I'm guessing they have a fairly limited English vocabulary but bravo for trying. That is much better than any of my Turkish skills.

I love to shop. I vacation to shop. Heber doesn't agree but it is really one of my favorite things about traveling. I don't need to buy a million things or spend a lot of money but finding that small item that will always remind me of that place is important. Like the pearl earrings I found in Florence, I wore them on my wedding day and they hold such good memories.

The shopping in Turkey was unlike anything I've seen. They had their small shops (like the picture of Heb below) but the craziest experience was the Grand Bazaar. Hundreds of years old and hundreds of shopping options under one roof. It went forever, shop after shop.

Me and Kim shopping. Loved having a shopping buddy that liked it as much as I did. Miss you!


I have to admit that I liked the Spice Bazaar much better. Smaller and not as easy to get lost in. The best part was the smell. It permeated everything but was so spicy and colorful.

Shopowners ready to tote their wares.

One thing I dislike about shopping is the pressure pitch. The feeling that you can't leave and here's where the carpet salesman came in. I saw way too many of them. Hebs and I who went in absolutely never wanting to buy a carpet almost did. That's how good they were. Each of them had their own little show, complete with apple tea.

This is how the carpet's made and why ours is totally worth the thousands of dollars you could spend.

As part of each and every tour, you'd stop at a carpet salesman or a leather dealer. They did a whole fashion show there.

That's right, people completely serious walking a runway for just Heber and I and an Indian tourist as we tried to keep from breaking out into laughter. That took some serious self control. I've just never seen anything like that. Wow.

I just have to say how nice it is to be home and to shop here. Little things like the item having a price tag and not having to haggle to a price where I don't feel like I'm being ripped off. It's good to be home. Can I say it enough?

The Wall of Wishes

As I've written in earlier posts, whenever I vacationed with my father, we always stopped at the local church to take in a service. I've been to churches all over the world and witnessed faith in many variations.

Every morning and several times throughout the day in Istanbul, we would hear the singing voice of the imam at the mosques throughout town as he called his people to prayer. The first morning we both woke at sunrise to the singing. Heber turned to me and asked if he should get up and do something, like to show respect. Jet lag can do some crazy things (I can definitely attest to that).

What it sounded like.


This was the view from our hotel room.

One of my favorite mosques - the Blue Mosque



It was so interesting to see women and men practice Islam. We saw women in the headscarf everywhere and the occasional burka. I didn't feel uncomfortable about women having to cover (ok, a little about the burka's. It's disturbing to see but the scarves, no problem), instead, I felt their faith and respect to Allah as they wore the colorful scarves. I wondered if I could show my faith in such an outward way.

Hagia Sophia with what people looked like there (VERY few Americans but no problem for blondies)

In a quick visit down to Ephesus, we visited the site that some believe was the home of the virgin Mary during her later years. I'm not sure if it was because we had been in a bustling and noisy city for the past 10 days and it was woody, peaceful scenery but I felt very peaceful there.

Below the foundation with a church built on top is a wall where people hang their wishes or prayers to Mary. On the wall were thousands of items, each one left by an individual with their deepest desires and hopes for their life. I left my prayer on the wall, the one that I yearn to be answered.