A Valentine's thought

I've journeyed a bit down the road of life, and I want all of you children and grandchildren to know that one could not have a better traveling companion than your mom and grandmother.

She may fall asleep along the way. She may send you down the wrong road--no, wait, that's just when she's with you in a literal car. In the metaphorical journey down life's highway, she never steers you wrong, and she's fiercely vigilant when it comes to those she loves. And her heart is a very big and generous and inclusive one. She just wants every chair filled, no one to miss the train--whatever metaphor you wish to use--so that everyone arrives safely home at the end of life's journey, secure in the arms and the love of our Heavenly Parents.

And that's my Valentine's tribute to her and my Valentine's wish to all of you.

"We're back in the saddle again"

More than a year has passed since I last posted here. There are a variety of reasons, I suppose. For nearly six months during the first part of the year, I devoted much of my discretionary time to compiling the book Diary of a Boy, which I gave to my children on my 62nd birthday in July. It chronicles the first 16 years of my journey through life.

In the months since then, I have been working on the next two volumes of that journey, my final two years of high school (the gift for my 63rd birthday) and my first year of college (for my 64th birthday). And doing various other things.

Our out-of-state travel diminished this year compared to last year. In the fall of 2010 Claudia and I completed the marathon Primary sacrament meeting tour, including being there for grandchildren in the Eldorado Branch in Illinois, the Mulkiteo Ward in Washington state, the Brockett Ward in Georgia, and a couple wards here in Layton. Five separate Primary programs.

This year we were as committed to such programs but attended only one out of state. We caught some here in Utah and one in Illinois. Chris and Camilla moved from Everett back to Bountiful, so we didn't need to go to Washington. We very likely would have flown to Atlanta to see Peter say his few words, but that program was the day after Paul and Eliza returned home after visiting us here in Utah for a whole month. And what a wonderful month it was!

This year's road trips have been relatively short ones: to southern Utah a couple times to visit Kay and Karen (including an August trip to see him sustained as bishop of the Hurricane 11th Ward), to Lava Hot Springs (including a scenic drive home on a road less traveled), and to Nampa/Boise a couple times to see family there, attend a weddings, and participate in a Cleverly family reunion.

Meghan Reporting

Hello Cleverly Family! This is Meghan writing. Let me fill you in on some things that have been happening lately. Well if you haven't heard my dad (Michael) has been shaking, thirsty, and unexplained sudden weight loss. They thought that he might have diabetes but we have determined that he doesn't. He went in 2 days at LDS Hospital. He had to drink radioactive iodine. It has been discovered that he has Graves Disease as well as a hyper active thyroid.

And today we got a call saying that while Jacob was in gym playing fishy fishy cross the sea he went from standing up to on the ground. We think that he slipped because he doesn't have good tread on his shoes. He hit his head really hard. My mom and I were in Bountiful about to take the twins to the dentist for the first time. A really nice neighbor picked Jacob up from school and was going to take him down to Bountiful where my mom would then take him to the doctor. So, Grandpa Dean had to talk to the people at the dentist, so he, my mom, the twins, and I were there. Then my mom left to go take Jacob to the doctor. At first he couldn't remember his name but then he did. But didn't remember anything that happened. So after the dentist Grandpa Dean took us to his  house. My mom and Jacob had to go to Primary Children's Medical Hospital. We just got a call from my mom saying that they were in the E.R. there and Jacob was going to have a Cat Scan. Poor Jacob. We are waiting for more details.

Thanks for everyone's help!!!! What an exciting time!
~meghan~

Across four time zones

I read something in a supplement to this morning's paper that caught my attention. "Apparently," it said, "one of the inescapable rules of life is that children won't stay put" (Roger Aylworth, in Mormon Times, Oct. 3, 2009, 8). It's true when they're little. And it's true when they're grown up and start moving all about the country.

Our family is now spread across all four time zones of the lower 48 states. A daughter and her family live in Georgia (in the eastern time zone), where our son-in-law is in his second year of pharmacy school. Another daughter and her family live in southern Illinois (in the central time zone), where our son-in-law has become the head of the emergency room in the hospital of his boyhood home town. Five of our children, together with their families, still live near us in Utah (mountain time zone), where they keep busy with the routines of daily living. And a daughter and her family live in Washington (Pacific time zone), where they own and operate a Great Harvest bakery.

No one lives in Alaska or Hawaii yet, although our oldest daughter and her family are leaving in a couple weeks to go visit Hawaii. They have gone there every fall for the past several years to attend a conference on the island of Maui. This past weekend, when I mentioned my plan to go with them next year, they advised me that this year was their last time to go off to that tropical paradise. Bummer. And I've never been to Hawaii. Others of my children have. And some of my grandchildren.

Hawaii is one of four remaining states I have yet to visit, along with Alaska, Wisconsin, and Maine. So, with those four states still to visit—along with children living in Georgia, Illinois, and Washington—there are still some good road trips out there beckoning to me.

The birth of our eighth child

Twenty-five years ago today I made a simple, one-sentence entry in my journal: "Our eighth child and sixth daughter was born today." No other details or explanations.

"Since the birth of our eighth child," I observed two weeks later, "I have thought a lot about the importance of names. Interestingly, for the first time in our career as parents, we didn't have a name ready for this new little one, so she was named by committee."

A couple more weeks beyond that—on the next fast Sunday, November 4, 1984—I elaborated a little in the father's blessing I gave her: "Mary Elizabeth, you have recently been in the presence of our Father in heaven and now come very welcomed into your family and help to fulfill that scriptural teaching that children are an heritage of the Lord and happy is that man or woman who has his quiver full of them.

"You have been given two special and sacred names: Mary, after that hand­maiden who was described as highly favored of the Lord, who had the great and unique privilege of bearing and rearing and teaching and nurturing the very Son of the Most High God; and Elizabeth, after her cousin who, in her advanced age, was privileged to bear and rear and teach and nurture that prophet who prepared the way before the Lord and whom the Master Himself declared there was no greater born among women. These women were good and were full of faith and kept the com­mandments of God and are saved with an everlasting salvation in His kingdom. You are given their names that you might remem­ber them, and in remembering them be like them: that you too may be good and full of faith and keep the commandments and be saved in the celestial kingdom of God."

Fortunately, the historical record is not entirely silent on Mary's arrival into this world. I published at the time a quarterly newsletter for the descendants and relatives of John Marvin Lange and Barbara Jean Fraughton entitled Die Lange Zeit. The Family Bulletin Board in that fall 1984 issue reported:

"Mary Elizabeth Cleverly, Dean and Claudia's eighth child and sixth daughter, was born at 10:37 on Monday morning, October 1, in Bountiful's Lakeview Hospital. She weighed in at 7 pounds 1 ounce, was 19 1/2 inches long, and had lots of dark hair. She is Grandma and Grandpa's eleventh grandchild and ninth granddaughter.

"Claudia had gone to the hospital that morning by appointment to have the baby induced. Though she feared the labor would be longer and harder, it only took a little over an hour and a half.

"Mother and baby came home on Wednesday, October 3, to greet all the eagerly awaiting older brothers and sisters. Grandma and Grandpa had generously come from California to help out for a week and were able to stay until Mary Elizabeth's first week birthday the following Monday, October 8. Their timely assistance was much appreciated."

The birth of our first child

This is my 100th post on Interstate 50 since I first began blogging back on Christmas Day 2005. This post chronicles the arrival of our firstborn child.

September 2, 1973, was a fast Sunday. We had been to church on campus, where I served as a counselor in the presidency of a BYU branch. Fall was beginning, students were returning to school, it was the first Sunday of the new school year, it was a holiday weekend, and we were about to become parents. It was an exciting time.

Claudia was eight months along, expecting our first child on October 5, and everything seemed to be progressing as it should. She looked cute being so very pregnant. Two weeks earlier—on Friday, August 17—she had graduated cum laude from Brigham Young University with a bachelor's degree in elementary education. Following her graduation, we rode back to California as her parents' guests for a week at Laguna Beach. Our apartment there perched on top of a cliff overlooking the vastness of the mighty ocean.

But now we were back in Utah and looking forward to a new school year. We were both out of school, but our ties to the university continued through my employment on campus and through our associations in the branch. Just the day before, on Saturday, I had completed and mailed the first issue of the Cleverly Newsletter, a quarterly newsletter for my parents' family that I would continue to publish over the coming decades in quarterly, monthly, even weekly formats.

Sunday afternoon we were home from church, and Claudia had prepared our Sunday dinner. We sat down to eat around four o'clock in the afternoon. I noticed her squirming in her chair and asked what the problem was.

"Oh, just constipation," she replied. A bit later she was feeling worse and called her doctor.

His first question was, "Are you in labor?"

"Of course not. I'm not due for another month." From the way she described how she was feeling he couldn't tell what was wrong.

"Maybe it is constipation," he concluded. He pre­scribed some medi­cine, but be­fore we could even think about finding a drug store that was open, she was feeling so bad that I called the doctor again. He told me to take her straight to the hospital and he would meet us there. We drove over to the hospital in Marshmallow, our little white Volkswagen. It was only a few blocks from where we lived.

At 5:17 Claudia was wheeled into the labor room with contrac­tions at eighty seconds. Not bad for not knowing she was having contrac­tions. I was sent down to admit her to the hospital, and when I returned she was in the delivery room having a baby. I was allowed to be with her, even though we'd had only three of the six required prenatal classes.

Our son was born at 6:30 in the evening. Michael Adam was seventeen and a half inches, six pounds seven ounces. A month and three days early. Claudia's labor had been extremely short—two and a half hours from start to finish.

The instant the doctor laid the baby on her stomach, Claudia said, "Let's do it again!"

For a few hours I was allowed to stay with her in the recovery room. There was little sleep for either of us that night.

Nineteen years later, as Michael was preparing to leave for his mission to Brazil, I spoke in his missionary farewell of that first night: "Nineteen years ago . . . Claudia lay in a hos­pital bed in Provo with her firstborn son in her arms, just hours old, counting his fingers and toes, as I sup­pose new mothers do, but even more importantly thinking ahead, among other things, to this very day. She was planning in her mind the future course of his life, envisioning his serving a mis­sion, looking forward with an eye of faith. And so what does she spend the next nineteen years doing? The kinds of things the Lord's prophets have told parents to do to get their sons ready and worthy to serve missions. She has acted in faith, seeing with her eyes the things which she had beheld with the eye of faith."

The next day was Labor Day, even though Claudia had done her laboring on the Sabbath day. On Tuesday her mom flew in from southern California to help out for a week and a half. Our new little son was the Langes' first grandchild. Claudia and Michael Adam came home from the hospital on Wednesday.

The birth of our second child

In honor of Rebecca's birth more than a third of a century ago, we share this account of her arrival in 1974. Happy birthday, Becca!

In late July 1974, the day after I had a wisdom tooth pulled, Claudia's parents came from southern California to visit us in Provo. Her father came to attend the ninth annual priesthood genealogy seminar at BYU. But the real reason was that their only grandchild, Michael Adam, happened to live at our house. Claudia was great with child. We were not venturing far from home, not knowing whether our second child, like the first, might come five weeks earlier than expected.

At her weekly doctor visit, about three weeks before the August 19 due date, the doctor told Claudia the baby could come at any time. Based on that comment and our experience the previous fall when Michael Adam was born, Claudia's mother decided to stay for the birth of the baby. Her father drove home. He had to return to work.

And so we all waited. And waited. And waited. August 19 came and still no baby. We tried all the old tricks—taking castor oil, driving across railroad tracks—none of them worked. Claudia's dad, alone in California, was probably tiring of peanut butter sandwiches every day.

On Sunday evening, August 25, we went to church in the campus branch where I was serving as a counselor in the branch presidency. I was conducting sacrament meeting. As part of the service, we were inviting members from the congregation to speak impromp­tu. I called on Claudia, and she came forward and started by saying she thought I had done it just to get the baby coming. Unknown to me then, she was already feeling slight con­trac­tions. She shared a beautiful experience from her semes­ter in Europe when her group held a sacrament service on the beaches of Thessalonica, Greece, on the Sunday of April con­ference.

Anyway, back at home after the meeting, Claudia let us know she thought she was finally having a baby. That was good news to her mother, who by now was anxious to return home after four weeks at our house.

We walked around the block—Claudia, Michael Adam, and me—and then she came home to take a hot bath. I guess the walking and the bath help it along. We started timing con­tractions at four minutes, but soon they were only two minutes apart, lasting about 30–40 seconds each. Then sometime around 10:15 at night we went to the hospital.

We had pretty much concluded that this second baby would also be a boy. This was in the day before ultrasounds were used to give parents advance notice of what flavor was coming. After a not too difficult labor, Rebecca was born at 2:24 in the morning of Monday, August 26, exactly one week short of her older brother's first birthday. She weighed in at seven pounds fifteen ounces—almost eight pounds—and was twenty inches long.

I wrote in my journal: "Our first daughter and second child was born this morning at 2:24. She is healthy and her wonderful mother—my beloved Claudja—pulled through it all in fine form. The ex­perience of having a child born, and being there to see it happen, always arrests my thoughts and arouses deep emo­tions that I cannot express. Once again, life seems a miracle so sacred, so divine that I'm amazed that our loving Father so freely shared its powers with us, especially as we see its abuse all around.

"Rebecca comes very welcomed into our home. Just as surely as Michael Adam came to us a week short of a year ago, her coming was also planned and prayed for this time."

With the doctor's having said three weeks before the due date that the baby could come at any moment, and then Claudia's going a full week after the due date, she felt like she had had a ten-month pregnancy. Her poor mother had had to wait six weeks before she could return home to California after Rebecca was born and established.

The birth of our third child

In honor of Rachael's birth more than a third of a century ago, we share this account of her arrival in 1975. Happy birthday, Rachael!

Nearly a month short of Michael's second birthday and a few weeks short of Rebecca's first birthday, our third child and second daughter was born in Provo's Utah Valley Hospital. Rachael arrived at noon on Thursday, August 7, 1975. She was a big one—7 pounds 15 ounces, almost eight pounds. She was 20 inches long.

"All is well with Claudia and the baby," I wrote the next day in my journal. "Since I returned to work today, Claudia was not ex­pecting me to visit during the afternoon visiting hours. But I took off work and surprised her. She was so happy."

On Saturday evening, August 9, we went to the Dixon family reunion in the Payson Park. Even though she wasn't there, Claudia was the talk of the reunion for having just had a baby. We'd had two since the previous year's reunion. At that reunion, Rebecca hadn't been born yet.

"Claudia and Rachael came home from the hospital today," I wrote on Sunday, August 10. Home was a little brick house on 300 West in Provo, where we occupied the main floor and rented the basement level to four single college students. "Michael Adam seemed pleased; Rebecca less so, which surprised me. I thought she'd be too little to even know what was going on. It is good to have Claudia back."

Claudia's parents were visiting from southern California, her mom to help out with the new baby. Or, more accurately, to help out with not-quite-two-year-old Michael and not-quite-one-year-old Rebecca.

On Monday I had gone to work in Salt Lake City. Late that afternoon, August 11, a brief thunder­storm hit Provo and moved north along the Wasatch Front. Claudia was sitting in our front room nursing four-day-old Rachael. Michael Adam was next to her patting the baby. Rebecca was on her way to the kitchen looking for her grandma, who was putting clothes into the dryer. That's when the lightning struck a tree overhanging our driveway, only ten feet from where Claudia was sit­ting. It sounded like a tremendous explosion. The sound was deafening. In the kitchen the dryer and stove sizzled before the power went out.

When I arrived home from work, there was evidence of shattered tree all over our driveway. For about three days, until the huge tree was completely removed, we had the most popular tree in the neighborhood.

Meeting the neighbors

Our daughter who lives in Georgia is in the process of moving to a new apartment, one that is far closer to where her husband goes to pharmacy school. I think she would not mind my sharing this post from her private blog:

Our new neighbor Terry came over to introduce herself and this was how our conversation began . . .

Terry: "Are you Roman Catholic because you have a lot of children?"

Me: "Actually I'm a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints."

Terry: Blank stare

Me: "Sometimes people call us 'Mormons.'"

Terry: "Oooh, so does your husband have more than one wife?"

Me: "Nope, he's stuck with just me."

Did we mention that our daughter and her husband have two children? Apparently in some circles that is "a lot of children."

The birth of our sixth child

In honor of Camilla's 28th birthday, we share this account of her birth those nearly three decades ago. Happy birthday, Camilla.

On Wednesday, January 7, 1981, I wrote in my journal, "Claudia finished reading Camilla, the biography of Sister Kimball, which we received as a Christmas gift. I finished the book during the holidays while I was sick. If our new baby is a girl, we will probably name her Camilla."

We had actually made that decision a month earlier. During December Claudia and I had been at the Missionary Department Christmas dinner on the 26th Floor of the Church Office Building. President Spencer W. Kimball and his wife Camilla also attended, and we sat at the same table with them. Claudia was expecting our sixth child. She was about three months along, and we decided that evening if our baby was a boy we would name him Spencer and if a girl we would name her Camilla.

It would be another six months before we knew which one was coming.

Monday, June 15, 1981, was Claudia's parents' 32nd wedding anniversary. It was also three days after the due date of our sixth child. Early that day, about 3:30 in the morning, Claudia woke me up to say she was going to have a baby. Her contractions had started about 2:45, so she got up, washed two loads of clothes, showered, and washed her hair so she'd be ready to go to the hospital. We arrived there about 5:00, and Dr. Lewis delivered our sixth child and fourth daughter at 5:37. She weighed 8 pounds 8 ounces and was 21 inches long—our biggest baby thus far.

Dr. Lewis, who was leaving at 7:00 for a fishing trip in Alaska, said it was fortunate the delivery was fast. The baby was posterior, which made the very end of labor harder for Claudia. Also, because of the little one's position, the cord was pinched every time Claudia had a contraction. When Camilla was born, she was all purple and initially had a hard time getting her breathing started. Claudia was put on an IV before delivery but still bled heavily afterward. We were grateful for the blessings of modern medicine which the Lord has provided.

Claudia and Camilla were in the hospital until Thursday morning, June 18. I went to visit her early each morning, and the rest of the family came to see her and the baby each afternoon and evening. On one of those visits, six-year-old Rebecca gave Claudia a note:

I love you Mom. And Camilla. I like both of you. I think both of you are sweet. Here is a poem:

I like
Being in the hospital
With a babby.
The end.

Grandma and Grandpa Lange were in town visiting from California when Camilla was born. Grandpa and I were putting a new roof on our house.

The morning Camilla came home from Lakeview Hospital, all of the children were quite excited. We had a birthday party with gifts for each of the children: a soccer ball for Michael, roller skates for Rebecca, a dump truck for Talmage, and a doll for Anna.

The birth of our fourth child

In honor of Talmage's 32nd birthday, we share this account of his birth those three decades ago. Happy birthday, Talmage.

Talmage was born on Thursday, June 2, 1977. It was a beautiful sum­mer morning. Grandma and Grandpa Lange were visiting us from California. Grandpa had helped us build a brick-and-picket fence in front of our house in Rose Park to help keep nearly-two-year-old Rachael from wandering all over the neighbor­hood.

I was at work at the Church Office Building, and Claudia had gone to her doctor for her weekly visit. He thought she would be having a baby very soon.

Sometime between 10:00 and 10:30 that morning, she called me at work to say she was beginning to feel something, she thought. She was never sure about these things. I had the car and agreed to come home at lunchtime.

A little after 11:00 she called me again to say she thought I should come home right then. I excitedly hopped in the car and hurried home in less than ten minutes. No one was there.

The neigh­bor lady from across the street yelled that everyone had gone in Grandpa's car to the hospital in Bountiful. It was an exciting ride for the children as Grandpa slipped in and out of traffic trying to get to the hospital as quick as he could. Claudia was busy doing her panting exercise to try to keep something from hap­pening in the car.

When I got to Lakeview Hospital, probably not many minutes afterward, I went racing into the hospital, tearing down the hallway, when it occurred to me that I didn't have the fog­giest notion of where the delivery area was.

After helpful hospital people kindly directed me where to go, I scrubbed up and was coming into the delivery room through one door just as the doctor was entering through another. A nurse was pre­paring to deliver our baby and I guess would have done so had the doctor not arrived just in the nick.

In a special Christmas issue of the Cleverly Newsletter sent to non-family members in December, I recounted the official con­clusion of the story:

"Talmage John Cleverly was born at noon on Thursday, June 2, 1977, in the Lakeview Hospital in Bountiful, Utah—about forty minutes after Mama decided she was in labor, about ten minutes after she arrived at the hospital, about three minutes after the doctor reached the delivery room, and about a minute and a half after Daddy arrived from work. He was a healthy 3580 grams, 52 cm long, with lots of dark hair which is now a little lighter."

Talmage was our fourth child, our second son.

When I brought Claudia and Talmage home from the hos­pital on Sunday morning, there were Michael, Rebecca, and Rachael standing in the front yard to greet us. Rachael, of course, was on the outside of the closed new fence we had just built to keep her in.

Ben makes front page of newspaper

Splashed across the front page of this morning's Deseret News [May 16] is a picture of Ben and his mom. It accompanies an article on online schooling.

The picture was taken by Kristin Murphy of the Deseret News. The caption read: "Ben Cleverly, 8, cuts out a drawing of a horse to make a jigsaw puzzle as his mom, Carisa Holden, watches in their Lehi home."

Happy birthday, Claudia

In honor of Claudia's birthday today, I share this tribute that originally appeared as a part of the preface to the book Claudia: An Elect Lady, which we published in May 2005. The sentiments expressed then are still every bit as true today.

The Lord blesses us, collectively and individually, with many gifts. The scriptures affirm that every person is given at least one spiritual gift (see D&C 46:11). Some receive many.

Some years ago Claudia gave a sacrament meeting talk on gifts of the Spirit. She quoted Elder Marvin J. Ashton of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (1915–1994), who pointed out some less con­spicu­ous spiritual gifts that we may enjoy: "The gift of asking; the gift of lis­tening; the gift of hearing and using a still, small voice; the gift of being able to weep; the gift of avoiding con­tention; the gift of being agreeable; the gift of avoiding vain repeti­tion; the gift of seek­ing that which is righteous; the gift of not pass­ing judgment; the gift of looking to God for guidance; the gift of be­ing a disciple; the gift of caring for others; the gift of being able to ponder; the gift of offer­ing prayer; the gift of bearing mighty testi­mony; and the gift of re­ceiv­ing the Holy Ghost" ("There Are Many Gifts," Ensign, Nov. 1987, 20). Just consider how many of these gifts Claudia enjoys.

Claudia is a genuinely gifted person. Chief among all her many spiritual gifts is the gift of charity. I have known few, if any, people who have more consistently felt for, reached out to, lifted up, and blessed the lives of those about her. She has been generous in shar­ing her means. She has been tireless in serving others, particularly her family, neighbors in the ward, children and adults who have been in classes she has taught, the numerous children she has tended through the years. It has been a blessing indeed to be the beneficiary of such Christlike love through so many years.

Just a single illustration of her Christlike thoughtfulness and charity. Last Saturday, between the morning and afternoon sessions of general conference, we learned that Pope John Paul II had died after leading the Catholic Church for some 26 years. She had plenty to do that afternoon, after the afternoon session of conference was over and before the family gathering she was putting together for after the priesthood session, but she took the time to go out and buy a nice picture book on the Pope, wrote a little note, and walked it down to express her sympathies to Stephanie Smith, our Catholic neighbor down the street. And spent an hour talking, crying, laugh­ing with her.

Another illustration. There is a couple in a neighboring ward in our stake who are mildly handicapped. They are the nicest people and do what they can to keep body and soul together. They sell Fuller products, brushes and cleaning supplies, things like that. Claudia tries single-handedly to keep them in business by regularly buying all sorts of products she’ll never be able to use in a dozen years.

It's the same with cub scouts selling Scout-o-Rama tickets. Or the girl scouts selling their high-priced cookies. Or the neighbor­hood school children selling their wrapping paper or greeting cards or tulip bulbs or whatever is the fund-raiser de jour.

"Charity," Mormon taught, "suffereth long, and is kind, and en­vieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but re­joiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

"Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail—

"But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him" (Moroni 7: 45–47).

Aaron arrives

A new little one begins his journey through mortality. Aaron Marvin Challis was born a little after 7:00 this morning (Georgia time) to Paul and Eliza. Today was his actual due date. We understand he weighed 8 pounds 4 ounces. In her initial call this morning, Eliza did not know how long he was.

We anticipate that either Paul or Eliza will post more details, including pictures, concerning the arrival of their new child. Our congratulations to them all.

A new house

Mom and I, accompanied by Rachael and her girls, went this morning to see Pete and Anna's new house in the Sugarhouse area of Salt Lake. The house dates from 1940. It is one of those sturdy, well-built homes with some measure of actual character, such as were built in this area in the waning years of the Great Depression just before the United States became engulfed in World War II.

It appears to be in a lovely, well-kept neighborhood along 1700 East, not too awfully far from Sugarhouse Park. (If you visit the Family Address Book, you can see their actual new address, their new ward and stake, and new Church meeting times.)

They have a deep back yard, a separate one-car garage, and a covered back patio area next to the garage. The three-bedroom house has a finished basement (two bedrooms on the main level, one in the basement) and two somewhat recently renovated bathrooms. The small kitchen has been completely redone in a style that is either reminiscent of (or actually from) Ikea. So totally Pete and Anna.

Mom thoughtfully took them as house-warming gifts some fresh-cut flowers and a large package of toilet paper (always a necessity at any house, especially when things from a previous residence are still being found and unpacked).

They closed on the house on Thursday, moved much of their stuff yesterday, and were finishing moving this morning. Today is Pete and Anna's second wedding anniversary.

I hope either Pete or Anna posts some pictures of their new home because no amount of verbal description would do it sufficient justice.

The circle of life

Just outside my office window I have watched a pine tree grow to maturity through the years I have worked here. In earlier times the tree was much shorter, and the top barely reached my third-floor window. In later years it pretty much filled the window and blocked the view.

Today during lunch hour we watched in fascination as a young lumberjack climbed the tree and with a chainsaw eliminated branches and cut off the top and worked his way back down, cutting sections of the remaining trunk as he descended. It was both fascinating and sad.

The tree is now gone, but we now have an unobstructed view of Temple Square and its magnificent temple.

I remember years ago when Claudia grieved over a large pine tree our neighbors removed. Were that tree still there, we would not enjoy the view out our kitchen window that we have of the Bountiful Temple on the foothills to our east.

What a saint would look like

This afternoon in sacrament meeting, after my dear wife had returned to her seat on the stand, having just delivered a masterful discourse on forsaking sin and coming unto Christ, I kept trying to catch her eye from my unobstructed view on the second row of the chapel to give her a thumbs up on a job well done. She had had the Holy Spirit with her in obvious abundance as she spoke of truths central to the gospel and central to our purpose here on the earth.

As I sat looking at her, as a soloist sang a medley of sacrament hymns and during the concluding speaker, she looked positively angelic in her bright pink dress and with her head crowned with its silvery hair, and I thought to myself that that is precisely what a saint would look like. She is clearly the epitome of what a faithful Latter-day Saint woman should be, filled as she is with charity, or the pure love of Christ, and with her genuine, heart-felt and all-inclusive, all-embracing concern for the welfare and happiness of others.

Did I happen to mention that I love her very much? As our instructor in priesthood meeting observed earlier in our meetings today, when he said he had clearly married above himself, I too am humbled, grateful, and happy to be yoked to such an one as her.

A bit of ingenuity

Paul and Eliza and their little Peter are currently making their way across the country from Utah to Georgia. Two days ago they called from Sidney, Nebraska, to report they had successfully completed their first day of travel. Last night they called from St. Joseph, Missouri, to report completion of their second day.

They were planning to have Hot Pockets for dinner, but the motel where they were staying had no microwaves or toasters in the room or even in the lobby area. So, in a burst of creative ingenuity, Paul took out the iron and ironed their dinner. Eliza said it worked. And thus the hungry travelers were filled.

Bryce Canyon half marathon

Over the course of our lives Claudia and I have made the drive along I-15 from northern to southern Utah many, many times—some of them before there even was an I-15. Most were a part of the regular trips to southern California when Grandma and Grandpa Lange still lived there. Nowadays a trip to California is more likely to be by airplane, particularly since there are just the two of us and not a whole carload of kids too.

In more recent years trips to southern Utah were exactly that: trips to southern Utah, for such things as visiting our daughter and hubby when they lived in Hurricane, or watching various of our children run in the St. George Marathon a couple different times, or more recently visiting my brother and his wife first in St. George and now in Hurricane.

The past two days took us to southern Utah again, this time to the Bryce Canyon area, where our youngest daughter was running a half marathon. We left midday on Friday and headed south through the various familiar counties—Davis, Salt Lake, Utah, Juab, Millard, Beaver, Iron—that I-15 runs through. We took a short break at Scipio and continued on until we exited the freeway south of Beaver on Utah highway 20, which happens to be just twenty miles long as it heads east from I-15, through some mountains, and ends at U.S. 89 of the other side. A pleasant, scenic drive.

With the high price of gasoline (at now over $4.00 a gallon), I decided to employ some of the elements of hypermiling that our younger son uses so effectively to boost his gas mileage in his ten-year-old Saturn. I decided to drive only 65 miles per hour while still on the freeway, even after the speed limit increases to 75 south of Spanish Fork. Most cars were going faster, but I was surprised to encounter an occasional fellow traveler who was driving slower like we were.

Once we were on U.S. 89 we continued south to Panguitch. About seven miles south of there, we intersected with Utah highway 12, the route that runs toward Bryce Canyon. We turned east onto highway 12, and near the intersection of 89 and 12, perhaps a third or half a mile east of the intersection, we found our motel, Harold's Place Inn, and checked in. The entire drive from Bountiful to our motel had taken only four hours and fifteen minutes, including our brief stop in Scipio.

After we had made our original reservation at Harold's Place, my assistant at work (whose grandparents live in nearby Tropic) told me that there were many places much closer to Bryce Canyon and gave me a list of ten other motels to try. I called every single one of them, and none had vacancies for this particular weekend. That is not surprising, given that July has to be the normal height of the tourist season for the Bryce area, not to mention all the additional people in town for the half marathon.

We then drove the seventeen miles or so on to Bryce Canyon. The road goes through the very scenic Red Canyon, and we greatly enjoyed the drive, which incidentally only took us about fifteen minutes rather than the half hour my assistant had suggested.

Near Bryce Canyon we called Mary on her cell phone, and she directed us to where they were camping in the large campground just south of Ruby's Inn. She and Vince had driven down this morning to make sure they were early enough to find a suitable campsite before the campground filled up. There were two other couples staying with them. The husbands were friends that grew up with Vince.

After visiting a while, Claudia and I went to eat dinner at the Ruby's Inn restaurant. We had the cowboy buffet. The restaurant was very crowded, and we heard a lot of tourists speaking German, but the whole arrangement was very efficient, and we did not have to wait long to be seated. After we ate, we looked through the general store and some other little shops trying to find some balloons for the race Saturday morning, but apparently balloons don't sell well in such touristy places.

We returned to the campground, and Peter and Anna had also arrived, and we visited briefly with them before driving back to our motel. The drive through Red Canyon at dusk was also very pretty.

We watched the first episode of the new season of Monk on the TV in our motel room. It was followed by the first episode of Psych, but I fell asleep and did not see much of that.

The alarm on my cell phone went off at 5:00 Saturday morning, way too early for anyone to be up, except that we had to pack up our things, check out of the motel, and drive back through Red Canyon to Ruby's Inn for the 6:00 start of the half marathon. Mary was running with the wives of Vince's two friends. The elevation is above 7,000 feet, and it was downright cold at 6:00 in the morning. (On the drive between Red Canyon and Ruby's Inn we passed a sign saying "Summit 7,777 feet.")

We watched the race start, and then drove part way along the race route and parked to wait for the three girls to come by, and held out our signs that Claudia made many years ago when we watched Anna and Eliza run in the Lake Tahoe Marathon. It was in a gorgeous setting as we watched the sun come up and spread across the intricate red rock formations. We listened to a new Tabernacle Choir CD, "Called to Serve," that Claudia had given me before we left the motel as my birthday present. We were somewhere between miles 4 and 5 of the 13.1-mile course when Mary and her two friends passed.

When the traffic was allowed to continue in an eastbound direction along highway 12 (police officers alternatively piloted east- and then westbound traffic along the half of the road the runners were not using), we continued down through Tropic and beyond to Cannonville, where the finish line was. I say down because the elevation drop from the start to the finish of the race was some 2,000 feet. It's hard to image a marathon route with more breath-taking scenery than this one had.

We parked within a block of the finish line in Cannonville and waited for Mary to come in. Pete and Anna had joined us, and Vince and his two friends were there too.

After Mary finished the race, Mary and Vince, Peter and Anna, and Claudia and I went to breakfast at a restaurant back in Tropic. Pete and Anna treated Claudia and me for my birthday. We all had some sort of omelet, except Anna who had pancakes and scrambled eggs on the side. The service was exceedingly slow; it appeared they were severely understaffed. So it was late morning by the time we finished eating.

We drove Vince and Mary back to their campground, said our good-byes, and we headed for home, a final time through the beautiful Red Canyon, and back to Panguitch, where we stopped to fill the minivan with gas. Rather than travel back along the familiar I-15, we decided to stay on the more scenic (and for us different) U.S. 89. I was glad we did. This route took us through parts of Garfield, Piute, and Sevier counties.

Around Marysville (and just before the battery on my cell phone died) Camilla, Chris, and Sam called from Everett to wish me a happy birthday. Camilla had just returned herself from a week of training at the Great Harvest headquarters in Dillon, Montana. She finished Friday afternoon and drove to Spokane, where she stayed overnight, before waking up early Saturday morning and continuing on home to Everett.

We traveled north on U.S. 89, Claudia sleeping much of the way, until it merged with I-70 heading eastbound. We exited at Salina and continued northward on U.S. 50 until we came to Scipio and rejoined I-15 northbound.

And then on home, with a brief rest stop in Nephi, continuing at our 65 miles per hour. I was very tired by the time we reached home. Claudia felt it took us forever to drive just through Utah Valley.

Interestingly, our return trip from Panguitch to Bountiful took only four hours and five minutes. So, both routes—our more conventional I-15 and the more scenic combination of U.S. 89, I-70, and U.S. 50—were fairly comparable in terms of distance and time.

A season of good-byes

This morning we learned that my Aunt Donna died yesterday. She was the last living child of my father's parents, and thus an era ends, and that generation of our family is now gone. Donna was my dad's youngest sister and was one of my favorite aunts. And she was, as Claudia put it, the keeper of the family stories. She will be missed.

And then this evening all our own family—all 32 of us—were together for a formal family picture. We gathered at our house afterward for pizza and ice cream and cookies and snow cones (Caleb bought his own snow cone machine with his birthday money and was making snow cones for any who wanted them).

It may be the last time we will all be together at one time in one place for a very long time. Chris, Camilla, and Sam leave early tomorrow morning for Washington state. They stayed their final night in Utah at Chris's parents' house, since Chris's mom and dad are driving up to Everett with them. So it was pretty tearful when they left our house. They will be back down in mid-August for Chris's sister's wedding, but by then Paul, Eliza, and Peter will have moved to Atlanta.

I told Camilla, as she was parting, I didn't look at it like I was losing a daughter but gaining an excuse for a road trip.