Credo in Action

About 3 years ago, Paula and I were asked to organize a program for the youth of our Stake between 18 and 23. Our Stake President, Steve Dalton, named the program Credo, latin for "To Believe". It has really been a great experience with many great young people to interact with. Recently the group was convinced by our friend Jean Mecham to come to Rainbow and do a project clean up. What a blast.

Jessica Sellers, our deaf friend from Farmington Ward days is all grown up. A member of Credo, she was the photographer for the day. This was the only shot of her! Not bad either!


A virtual army was here, and cleaned from top to bottom. The house actually seemed to love the attention.


With all the windows, it was plenty to keep everyone busy for more than a couple hours!


Is Mandy worried that her reputation as an excellant broom sweeper will result in more calls?


Chris certainly seems impressed with her skills!


Meanwhille Dave is clearly not worried that the canoe is going to drop on his head as he appears to be falling asleep cleaning the stairway!



About 14 feet up, Gary Haroldsen was demonstrating his prowess at window washing.


Sis McDermott tells us that this is a rare shot! Hmm. I wonder what that means!


Rays were excited to be using the car wash rags for a little larger job!


Three women who definitely know that housework with an army is the only way to go!


The new (to us) table got a great workout. The food was excellant!


Thanks to all for the help. It was a great crew and a fun time together.

Paula's Piano!

Paula has always wanted a Grand/Baby Grand Piano. I have always wanted to get her one. It all sounds very mundane, but this is really a pretty rich story. Bottom line.... we got one!



In this picture it is being played by Oregon ER doctor Ron Potts, who recently won a major prize at the Seattle International Piano Comepetition and will soon participate in the Bosendorfer International Amateur Piano Festival in Vienna in May. He was very impressed with the piano.

We thought about a used piano for years, and Paula looked at many books and studied the best piano's. One kept jumping out at her. It was called an Estonia, a very obscure but extremely high quality piano. One day Lotof of Michelle's piano's in Portland had a display at Costco. Within hours we had ordered a new piano to be custom built in Estonia for Paula!

That was almost two years ago. The piano was delivered to Lotof's studio last June, as the Rainbow house was just coming together. We decided to wait until it was finished to take delivery. Meanwhile, Paula had a full complement of electronic attachments added to enhance it's use for teaching and enjoyment. None of it has affected the pure tone and richness in any way.


Lotof, shown here in his showroom, studio is an interesting guy in his own right. He is from Israel, a very accomplished pianist and quite the salesman! Last Thursday night, he and the local Vice Consul for Italy here in Portland hosted world renouned pianist Gianluca Luisi at the studio. He had brought Luisi from Italy to teach a number of Master's classes in the area, and he did a small (about 30 of us) concert at the studio! By the way this guy is unbelievabe. I haven't figured out how to upload a video from the interenet to this blog yet, but you have to check out this guy at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY2sSEA_lEE. Incredible.



Super nice guy as well. He had never played an Estonia piano before, so Lotof asked him to sit at ours and play a bit. He seemed to love it, and played for a long time. He was very gracious, and talked with Paula at length about the piano!



His hands move so fast and lightly it is like watching a magician! Still photo's cannot capture the beauty. GO TO THE VIDEO!


Soon I hope that this will be grandchildren at the keyboard with Paula next to them or standing as she is here helping them to find enjoyment in the piano! We are going to have to remove the front railing on the house to get the piano in, and I will surely post pictures of the piano in the house.



A super fun guy, a super evening (which I went to reluctantly) and a fun family heirloom to look forward to enjoying for generations.



Finally, a picture of Ron Potts, the local ER doctor really enjoying the Estonia! He is in his 70's. I was thinking maybe it is never too late to learn, until he told me he had been playing since he was 4 years old.


Aw shucks, maybe it really isn't too late! Peace out. Grandpa

Bingo is NOT just for old people!

A couple of weeks ago, we had the opportunity to attend the annual Groner School bingo fundraiser. Nic and Hailey had bought the VIP package! That's right, a table up front, special parking spaces and $10 in free junk food! What a deal!

Mr. Merrill, Nate's 6th grade teacher was the caller. He took the job dead seriously

Of course Nic was the first to think up a new use for the marker pen that everyone gets to keep track on their cards. Nate is not picking his nose, he is guarding it.


However, the only ones slow enough to be got by him were his own little twin babies.


First was Ava, followed by Bree, both of whom were oblivious to the goofy look.


Hailey and Caitlan were feeling pretty smug that they had avoided the marking.


Until.....

Caitlan's reaction was priceless... first


then...


and finally.....



Hard to beat this kind of fun!

Eddie's Blessing Day

We love coming to visit family, and especially days like today. Blessing a new baby is one of the great traditions of the LDS Church, and the fact that it is such a family affair makes it really fun.

First, just a word about this great little town and the home we have here. We call it the Parrish House in that the renowned artist Maxfield Parrish once owned it. His home was actually across the river in Plainfield/Cornish, a home called the Oaks, but he bought this home we think for a love interest that never worked out. I don't even know if he ever occupied it, but it is the kind of home that he would have loved to paint and I would like to think own. It is sure beautiful in the snow.


Back to the day in honor of Eddie. Chelle's little ones were looking great. Eddie's outfit was great. It was given to Chelle by her brother Chinh and his wife Tami years ago, and she had been saving it for this occasion.

We had a pretty good snow last night, and Windsor Worx, which Brig and his brother Jordan run, have about 20 or so contracts to keep driveways and parking lots clear of snow. So about 5 this morning, Brig left to go plow a number of the locations and by the time church was starting, was nowhere to be seen. Finally just in time he came looking tired but all dressed up in shirt and tie, and gave a very thoughtful blessing to little Edmund Richard Larson.


After church, everyone got together here at the Parrish house for dinner. We of course had to try and get the obligatory family photo's. Maddie and Anders had another idea however. Out of 30 or 40 we took, these are the best!


Here is where the story needs a little further explanation. In this next picture, notice Brig's right hand wrapped around Maddie. Yup, looks like a mechanic who just got done changing the head gasket on a leaky 63 Rambler. Turns out that minutes after the blessing at church, one of the apartment tenants called about a leak, and Brig had gone directly from church with his dressy clothes to change out a pump! Ah the life of a landlord!


It was really fun to have both sets of Grandparents here for Eddie's blessing. This is Steve and Cheryl Larson, Ed's paternal grandparents who were dutiful in keeping church clothes on for pictures. They have moved here from New Mexico. Huge shock weather wise, but they lived here for many years. We actually had a 20 below zero morning on Friday. That was without any wind factor. Yes I did say 20 BELOW!


I had actually changed clothes already to shovel the walks and driveway so folks could get into the house, but got caught for a picture nonetheless.



It was a big crew, but besides cook the food, get the place ready and organize the event, Grandma Vial had time to be the Grandma to everybody. Is this a classic or what, Paula laying out the crafts for the gang!


She even had time to do some serious loving on Eddie.


I really think he likes her!



Finally, today's quiz. Who belongs to each of the beautiful head's of hair in this picture?



We love it here at the Parrish house. Hope you can join us here someday soon! Rich

Virginia to Vermont

Traveling with Paula is fun no matter what we are doing. Even if it is just hanging around, we have fun. She has been a great sport about my courthouse photo adventure which made for a fun few days with Chris and Kenni and road trip from Buena Vista to Windsor in our new (to us) FJ Cruiser, aptly named by Chris as the Cheese Block!

On our first day in Buena Vista, we went to a presentation by author Jason Wright, of Wednesdays Letters, Christmas Jar and Covering Charles, all current bestsellers. Paula bought them all at the book signing, had them signed and then promptly read them. A couple of days later one of our first stops was the county seat of Woodstock Virginia, where accross the street from the courthouse was the pharmacy featured in the book Wednesday's Letters! Boy was she excited!



Later that night I just didn't want to give up. I wanted to get a few more courthouses, so I pulled out a 1.8 50mm lens and tried a few shots in the dark. I didn't have a tripod with me, so I had to do these all handheld. The Nikon 700 will allow us to shoot at 6400 ISO without serious degradation. There was literally no direct lighting on this federal courthouse but even cropped it came out pretty well.


Confident now, I tried this one and was pretty happy with it also. No flash and again, just indirect lighting.


Before going on however, a few shots from the Virginia courthouse hop. I had recruited some help with Chris, Kenni and Paula. Here are Chris, Kenni and of course, dog Kelso.


Here is a shot that Paula took of me taking a picture of the courthouse accross the street from the balcony of a financial planning firm. The lady was really nice to let me upstairs for the shot.



Chris really likes a woman with a big lens.


Something that Chris pointed out is the proliferation of confederate statuary in front of virtually every courthouse in Virginia. They range from the simple:




To the more elaborate complete with a guy on top.... in a Confederate Army Uniform,


To the almost absurd statements which seem to ignore the fact that the nation was almost split apart over the conflict and thank heavens the "patriots" of this monument didn't win!


Meanwhile, as we got closer to NYC, the paranoia over a guy with a camera seemed to get completely out of control. The following picture is of a county admisitration building which I thought was a really interesting picture. As I was taking this picture, I was approached by a uniformed officer and informed that I was breaking the law. According to this guy, it is a federal crime to take a photo of a public building. When I asked him what law he was talking about, he informed me that I was being belligerent, and took my camera. I then demanded to see his superior officer, who after some negotiation finally gave me the camera back and ordered me to "move on" . Fortunately, I had already gotten the courthouse shot next door, so mission accomplished. I still don't think there is such a law, but I think I will make up some credentials for future use.


We are now in Windsor, Vermont staying at the "Parrish House". Windsor is a great little place, and we are really glad for all the family here. This is a shot down Main Street from in front of the "Inn" the family is getting ready to open. See www.snapdragoninn.blogspot.com.


It is cold here! A few minutes ago I was out in the car and it was 3 degrees! The Connecticut River is frozen solid.


The bridge in this picture is really fun. The longest covered bridge in the county, it was built in 1866.


It is a good example of the history that makes this area really fun. In case you can't read it, the sign reminds us to walk our horses over the bridge or be fined $2!


So here we are in the snow with the grandkids and the opportunity to learn some more history and see some fun stuff. Paula is really having fun with the little ones. Anders is a true goofball!


Finally a few random photos from the last few days:


Timber Frame!


Stairwell


Ice


Any guesses?


How about this one?

Peace Out! Rich