In 1944. On an island in the Pacific. Killed by a Japanese sniper.

We could hardly have a richer life.  In just the past year some of the highlights have included a 6700 mile, 4 1/2 month road trip where we camped on our beautiful public lands and hiked 540 miles in grasslands and deserts.  We have cycled about 2000 miles all over the state of Washington, including our annual STP with Jules.  We went on a cruise to Alaska---the best part being what was almost our personal dance band to which we danced for hours every night.  We attended my 50th high school reunion.  We spent a lot of time with our children and families.

Since we have returned from this latest road trip we have made improvements to the house, have planted dozens of flowers, and are feeding and enjoying the birds that live in Washington State this time of year--birds that sing so loud to us early every morning that we have to close our windows in order to sleep.  It is beautiful here.

Of special importance, in just the past two months we have gone to Disneyworld with two grandchildren, gone to one grandson's play (Little Shop of Horrors---it was great!), gone to another grandson's baseball game and watched him pitch, catch, and hit, taught one granddaughter chopsticks so she can play it at the talent show this week, sang Happy Birthday to one grandson yesterday, barbecued with two little boys who call us aunt and uncle, and watched Vicky teach another granddaughter how to sew a dress from scratch (she's actually hard at work next to me as I write this).  All these little lives we get to be a part of.

In short, life is good.  Awfully good.  Blessed, in fact.

These are the kinds of life experiences Guy Alley never got to have.  He also never got to be there when his children were born, or see them off on their first days of school.  He never got hired for his career job.  He never got to grow old and worry about his health.  Or maybe even fall in love.

He died before he could have any of these experiences.  In 1944.  On an island in the Pacific.  Shot by a Japanese sniper.

Guy was officially a "first cousin once removed."  In other words, he was my father's cousin.  That's close enough for me to think of him as a cousin.  He was family.

I did not even know about him until recently when I was going through some papers that my parents had saved.  There was a folder about him, information that was saved for a purpose I'll never know since my parents are deceased.

Here he is as a young boy.  He is the one on the right.

As an adolescent.  Again, he is the one on the right.  All of the names were on a piece of paper attached to the photo.  On the back of the photo someone thoughtfully made a note that the dog's name was Rusty.  

In uniform with his mother, sister, and a brother.  Little did they know the heartache to come:

 

His obituary.  You can see that the above photo was probably the only one they had of him in uniform, so it was cropped and put into the newspaper.

Like most Iowa farm boys, he probably volunteered for the Army, like my father did the day after Pearl Harbor.  He would have been 19 years old.

Guy missed out on so much.

Also in the papers I found was a note to my father from someone in the family who indicated that another soldier in Guy's squad saw what happened to him.  Guy was killed by a "Jap Sniper."  Another man in his squad had been hit and Guy went to rescue him.  The sniper was later killed.

He went to rescue him. Instead of being there when his children were born, or reading to grandchildren, or snuggling up with his wife on a cold winter's night, Guy's last act on earth was trying to rescue a fellow soldier.

Memorial Day is not Grill Hamburgers Day.  Instead it is a day for remembering who it was that made it possible for me to be here today listening to Vicky teach our granddaughter how to sew.


Statler Brothers:  Silver Medals and Sweet Memories

Today also marks the death, 48 years ago, of the most decorated soldier in WWII--Audie Murphy.

Audie Murphy was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, killing 240 German soldiers and saving many of his country-men's lives.  He was about the shortest hero imaginable--standing only 5 feet 5 inches.  He went on to a successful career in films.  However, he was a damaged man, living much of his life by himself, with a loaded gun under his pillow.  He died in a plane crash, too young for what he gave us, at age 45.

Two 50-mile rides on the Burke-Gilman Trail

One our philosophies about cycling is to have several different rides we enjoy.  In addition to the several different Whidbey Island rides we do, we go all over the state to ride.

Last week, for example, we went to the Tri-cities and rode the Inland Empire with Jules.

This weekend we went to Seattle and rode twice on the Burke-Gilman trail, doing 50 miles each time.

This ride is an old stand-by.  We have done it dozens of times.  The key to enjoying it is to not make it all we do.

One of the best parts of the Burke-Gilman is that one goes through many different types of areas.  From where we usually start we ride along Lake Washington, through Bothel, along the Sammamish River, and then along Lake Sammamish.   Another good part of the ride is that it isn't hilly.  Now, before you think that "not being hilly" means easy, it doesn't.  It is just a different way of riding, a more constant pedaling.  Doing that is almost like cross-training on a bike.  On a flat surface one can take it easy or one can go all out.  Both days we went all out, for 50 miles each time.  That is very hard work, as hard as riding the hills of Whidbey Island......only different.  Different muscles, and different aerobic demands.

On our first day's ride we were "accompanied" by Jules.  When we say accompanied, what we mean by that is that we saw him at the start and at the finish.  He's so much more accomplished that we are that this is the best way to do it.

It doesn't matter. I still feel like I am "riding" with my son.  I want him to be stronger than me.  Why would I want anything different?  It's really special.

A nice woman offered to take our photo at our lunch spot on the first day:

And I got this one of Vicky at our lunch spot on the second day:

I have such good memories of riding with Vicky and Jules on this trail.  These past two days have added to those memories.

Six year anniversary of our first data at Buck's American Cafe and Noreen's Dance

Our first "outing" together was to Buck's American Cafe in Everett, and then to a dance at Noreen's.  So, every year we celebrate this first "outing" by re-doing it. 

It was not an official "date."  But it was. 

These yearly celebrations mean a lot to us.

Vicky know that I have always wanted to own a real barn.  So she got me the next best thing:  Pillow with pictures of barns on them.

And I got Vicky another "engagement" ring, because the one I purchased, hurriedly, six years ago had lost two stones:




Always a terrific desert.

Another Mother's Day for me!

After our Mother’s Day party after the Inland Empire bikeride, I thought that Mother’s Day was over for another year.  Then Candice arrived with Marina and Stella and treated Dan and me to dinner at our favorite Whidbey Island Mexican restaurant, Patron’s.



Stella wanted to play the chopsticks with Grandpa for us after dinner.  They are really good!



The next day flowers arrived from Emily, Sean, and the boys.  What a surprise!  They are absolutely beautiful.  Thank you to all our family for a very special Mother’s Day that just went on and on.....

The Lupine Lady

May 17, 2017

Marina was excited to show us her science project.  Stella enjoyed looking at pictures with Grandpa on his computer while Marina got set up to give her presentation:




Marina did her speech and demonstration.  And then we got to see the final result...she held up an ice cube with a little matchstick.  I don’t remember the scientific reason that this works, but at the time she explained it quite well. We were all amazed!

Stella brought over her very favorite “ever” backpack.  She was upset because it had torn and was unusable.  I explained how she could sew and patch it up.  Stella determinedly set work with the sewing machine and proudly fixed her pack.  We were quite proud of her.











The girls still like to sit with me and have me read to them.  So I got to read them my very favorite children’s book about the Lupine Lady.  She travels all over the world and has lots of adventures, but as she gets older she remembers what she had been told as a child...to make the world a little bit better.  So as she takes walks she flings lupine seeds in all the fields and in springtime the whole countryside is blossoming.




It is a beautiful book and story. Marina and Stella have a bit of the Lupine Lady in them and make our world more beautiful, as all our grandchildren do.

A lovely spring with our Granddaughters

One of the first things we always do when we get home from a roadtrip is have a Stellarina Birthday Party.  And since they are girls and like pretty things to wear, we get to take them clothes shopping for their birthday present.  My favorite store to find dancing dresses and sun dresses is Target, so we headed off on a ferry trip to the mainland.

First Dan took all his “girls“ out to lunch at Subway, where we could each order our sandwich to our liking.



At the checkout Dan took a picture of our granddaughters eager to get home and show Grandpa what they had picked out.


They insisted that we sit at the far end of the living room so they had a full length runway as they modeled their new outfits.








The girls made cupcakes for their birthday cake.  Marina couldn’t keep her fingers out of the batter.







For Christmas we had given each of the girls a gift card to the local craft store.  Marina used her gift card to buy Fimo clay. She showed us the miniature food (including sushi), beads, and flowers  she had made by shaping, painting, and baking the Fimo.

Very imaginative and detailed work:



I spent all last winter making blankets for the girl’s beds.  They had picked out the yarn they liked best...both chose the same yarn, so I added a purple border to Marina’s blanket.





The first thing the girls wanted to do when they visited us and had an afternoon for projects was to start making jewelry again.  Stella said she had broken some of her bracelets and necklaces and lost lost of the earrings she had made.  Spring with Marina and Stella is underway!



They said that will keep their blankets “forever”.  Later, their Dad said that they sleep with them every night.

The Deception Pass Marathon, one of Candice’s races as a race director, was scheduled for the same day as the Tulip Pedal bike ride that Dan and I did, so on the way home, wee stopped off  for a surprise visit.  Marina and Stella were playing on the beach and it was wonderful to watch them play.

Mother's Day weekend...in Webber Canyon, Paris, and Whidbey Island

Living in the PNW can be awesome in ways that makes the gray days and drizzle all worth it.  These past few days have illustrated that.

On Friday our favorite bird finally arrived for the summer--the Western Tanager.  This beautiful bird is yellow like a Goldfinch, but is a bit larger.  The other feature that sets it apart is it's bright red head.  During mating season the red is really brilliant.

So, finally, all of our favorite birds are here.

Then, later on Friday, we drove to Eastern Washington with Jules.  We stayed at one of those AirBNB (sp) places that was really really nice.  It was one half of a duplex, with the owners living in the other half.  They went to extraordinary efforts to make it comfortable and fun.  They will get a terrific review from us.

UPDATE:  The owners provided a photo they took as we were heading out for our ride:

The reason we went there was to do an organized bike ride, the 4th time we have done this together with Jules.  The ride is called the Inland Empire Century.  In the past, Jules has done the entire century while we did somewhere between 50-75 miles.  There are some great features of this ride, the best being the 6 1/2 mile climb up Weber Canyon to the area above the Columbia River called Horse Heaven Hills.

This year Vicky and I did 54 miles and Jules did 65, not anywhere close to the number of miles any of us are capable of doing on organized rides.  And it was absolutely exhausting....and exhilarating.

The reason for the shorter miles for both of us is that there were 25 mph headwinds.  Headwinds really take it out of you because you don't get any break.  The first half of the ride, 27 miles, was straight into the teeth of the headwinds. 

But headwinds when one is climbing 6 1/2 miles up Weber Canyon is another level of taking it out of you.  It took us an hour and 15 minutes to do this 6 1/2 miles, pushing and pushing against the wind, with occasional gusts that were so strong that they actually stopped us, and we had to work to keep the bikes upright.  But we made it, all three of us (Jules was doing a different route so we weren't with him at the time), and none of us had to stop to rest along the way.  We felt great going up that canyon.  And whooped and hollered and high-fived each other when we made it. 

Then we had another 7 miles against the headwind to our lunch and turning around spot.  This beautiful area consists of flat fields in all directions, almost no vehicles.  We always enjoy it. 

Here am I eating our lunch after 27 miles, after the 25 mph headwinds, and after the climb up Weber Canyon.  At this point we knew we would have the winds at our back for the final 27 miles.  That was a relief:

And here we are after climbing Weber Canyon.  You can see how much wind there is by how much our jackets are billowing:

Here is a photo of Vicky heading down Weber Canyon.  Quite something, isn't it?

After returning we found a fun little pub to have a well-deserved dinner, and then crashed for the night.  We all slept like logs.  Imagine that.

The next day was mother's day.  We got up early, celebrating the mothers in our family, and Vicky being celebrated. 

We drove to Seattle, did a quick clothing change, had lunch with Jules, Jessica, and Adam, and headed to the Paramount Theater in Seattle to see a performance of An American in Paris with Jessica and Jules.

It was the best performance we have ever seen.  The dancing was truly awesome (it wasn't Gene Kelly, but if that is what a person is looking for you will never enjoy dancing).  It was the best dancing we have ever seen, and we have seen a lot of professional dancers.  The singing was great, the sets were stunning, the choreography was beautiful, and the story was happy.

After the performance, even with stopping at our family's home to retrieve our bikes and having a 20 minute wait for the ferry, we were home in two hours.  Two hours.

We live on this isolated five acres on an island, and can be home from a performance in Seattle in two hours.  That's one of the best parts of living on Whidbey Island.

After we got home Candice and the girls arrived and we had dinner with them.  I am writing this entry early the next morning, and they are all still asleep in the other room.

Vicky got mother's day greetings from Ian and Adam, and from Jules and Jessica.  Emily, Sean, Soren, and Sebastian called and sang to her (and have something arriving for her today which she is excited about), we got to see Candice, Stella, and Marina (who took us out for dinner), and Owen called so Vicky got to talk to him for a long time.   Oh yeah, almost forgot:  I got her something too!

And I thought a lot about my mother, who died three years ago while we were visiting her for Mother's Day.  I was at her side, Vicky and me sleeping in her hospital room.  She died with people who loved her holding her hand.

This morning the birds woke us up, as they do this time of year--they are so loud when the dawn breaks that we have to shut our windows.  It's an glorious sound, and we love it.

And, of course, it is raining once again, bringing us back to reality.  This spring has been unusually wet, even for PNW standards.  We may do the STP this year in an Ark instead of on our bikes.

Baby Juncos were born this morning!!!!

Feed me!

This is their childhood home:

Cycling through tulip fields and beer: A fun break from our Whidbey Island cycling

We have had some difficulty cycling this spring.  There has been a record amount of rain, making it hard to find times to get out.  But we have done our best, and have accumulated a fairly large number of cycling miles.

We enjoy our Whidbey Island rides, as they are hard and hilly.  We also have done a couple of organized bike rides.  Those are fun for a different reason.  Primarily they are fun because you are riding with a large number of like-minded people.  Of course, our favorite organized ride is the STP (Seattle to Portland), the ride we focus our training on.  We basically need about 1400 miles on our bikes before we can do this ride and have fun on it.  That means riding almost every day--some serious discipline.

So far this year we have done the Tulip Pedal ride in La Conner:

And the Bike N Brews in Seattle, with Jules:

This coming weekend we are traveling to the tri-cities to ride the Inland Empire with Jules.  It is one of our favorite weekends of the year, and favorite rides.  We go up a long climb in Weber Canyon to Horse Heaven Hills.

We do these other rides for variety and to do them with Jules.  Otherwise, there is no place where it is more beautiful to ride on a daily basis (which we do) than Whidbey Island.  And if you enjoy cycling up hills, come here:  YOU WILL GET HILLS!