The End of January

January has been an eventful month! Here at Holden (where it is warm and sunny today) the college students are half gone and we're looking forward to a couple quiet days after the bus goes with the rest on Wednesday morning. Thursday will be a Stop Day, which means everyone eats on their own (kitchen gives people food) and there's no work. A very nice thing to do for a very hard-working staff. We still do Vespers in the late afternoon. We had one other Stop Day in the Fall, but this is probably the last opportunity. We do them when there's no boat and the numbers are low.

The first event of January (alluded to in the first 2010 post) was a trip to St. Paul and Luther Seminary where Nancy received the Faithfulness in Ministry Cross, which is like a distinguished alumna award. When we got news of the award in the Fall, we made train reservations right away, which sounded like good fun to us. The train picks up passengers in Wenatchee, which makes it an easy travel option here in North Central Washington. But then came the deep freeze in the Midwest. Amtrak suspended the Empire Builder for three days, which ran right into our departure time. Everything was just too cold for the trains to work! So we put a second mortgage on the farm and bought last minute air tickets. We flew in and out of Wenatchee. Weird to fly into Seattle without going home. (Amtrak was superb in every regard about this, and we'll get a full refund.)

The time in St. Paul was wonderful, made extra special by the presence of so many from the West! Sheryl Schmeling, Wally and Eileen Powelson, and Pam Russell came from Seattle, John and Joan Beck from Portland, Mary Rowe and Mert Johnson from Oakland. Heather Spears was there from Iowa, and Meridith and Jay Wardle tag-teamed it from Edina, MN. Larry and I stayed with Greg and Mary Steeber, and they hosted most of us for dinner on Wednesday night. Larry and I took the whole bunch out to dinner at The Signature Cafe on Thursday (award day). The award ceremony itself was followed by a luncheon. All in all it was a grand time, and I am so thankful for and humbled by all who came all that way for it. Here's a picture of the group in the Chapel of the Incarnation after the award ceremony:

Besides the transportation change, there were some apparel glitches as well. Nancy had ordered a dress. We finally tracked down the late package at the Chelan Post Office the day we left. When we stopped at our friends' apartment in Leavenworth, to which we would return after St. Paul, she tried it on and Larry about fell over he was laughing so hard. It's been returned. But Larry discovered that his black shoes, which he thought were in the green car and were probably in the red car or maybe in Leavenworth, were nowhere that we could ascertain. So, faced with wearing his size 15 Sorel boots with his slacks and sport coat at the award event (it would have been SO mountain), the first thing we did when we landed at MSP was to go to Nordstrom at the egregious Mall of America and find him some shoes. He, being shoe challenged on many fronts, actually found a really nice pair of shoes that are very comfortable to wear. The uses of adversity.

After St. Paul we flew back to Wenatchee on Friday and stayed in Leavenworth a couple nights. (The boat up Lake Chelan only goes on M-W-F in the winter.) On Sunday night we stayed at Campbell's Resort in Chelan, our local historic lake inn, and had a very nice room and meal. This was a gift to us from some Faith members when Nancy left there in August. We'd recommend Campbell's for a nice night's stay on your way in to Holden.

Tomorrow you'll hear about Nancy and Carol Hinderlie's splendid trip to Texas.

Here's a picture from outside The Signature Cafe after dinner on January 14: