I subscribe to an email program called “Only in Your State”. I started receiving emails from them regarding the state of Nebraska during the COVID lockdown. I learned about a lot of interesting things to see and do in Nebraska. One of them was the Sunken Garden in Lincoln, Nebraska. Every year volunteers pick a theme and create a colorful carpet of flowers for visitors to walk through. In the late spring they have thousands of tulips. In the summer, they have cleared out the tulips and plants a variety of colorful flowers and plants. I love all of them. I will only make it for the tulips this year, as we will move prior to the summer flowers growing in. In the spring they have lots of flowering trees in Lincoln as well. Last year, I happened upon a historical church called First Plymouth Congregational Church. It has a tall bell tower and a courtyard with lots of flowering trees and benches to sit in the silence. Last year, I was still so raw with Joe’s death. I was taking photos of the flowering trees dropping their petals as the wind blew through them. The scent was intoxicating. There was this chattering noise and I realized there was a squirrel in a tree right in front of me. I took several photos of him and to this day, they are some of my favorites. Well, the squirrel was still there…playing in the same tree. The tree wasn’t in full bloom yet, but he let me take some good photos of him. I didn’t bring my telephoto lens, so you can see how close I was. A robin also posed for me. I thought I would share my last photos of the Sunken Garden in Lincoln with you. Luckily, I was able to switch my account over to Montana two weeks ago, so I am already making a list of places I want to go to when we move there!

After a long day at KCAI with Lily, we started our drive home. It is a little over 3 hours of driving. Michelle clued us in on a tulip festival that was taking place at Fun Farm Pumpkin Patch in Kearney, Missouri. The farmer said that they had had snow flurries that morning. Rich had texted me while we were in KC and said it had been snowing in Omaha. It was late afternoon and even though this place is geared towards families with younger children, Lily and I had a blast walking around the farm. They have over 40 varieties of tulips over 22 acres. They claim to have 1.6 million tulip bulbs and I believe them! It wasn’t too far out of the way back to Omaha and we traveled through some beautiful countryside. I was pretty chilly….40 degrees and a pretty brisk wind that brought the temps even lower. But it was Earth Day and Lily and I walked around the whole place, taking in the farm animals, the collection of antique tractors, the windmill and the acres of tulips, and their country store in a beautiful red barn. They will have strawberries in mid-May, so if you are close, I highly recommend looking them up! If you have little kiddos….they are in for a treat. Lots of playing areas for them. Of course, the fall is their sweet spot with pumpkins and apples. If they do even half of what they do for the tulips, I would mark my calendar to stop by! Here are a few photos of our couple of hours spent freezing our patooties off in the tulip fields. I also included the clouds with sunrays that I had to pull over and photograph as we were traveling the countryside to get back to the highway to head to Omaha.

Our last few days in California with Tim we were in Lake Tahoe. They also had had record snow levels. Driving around town near Heavenly Ski Resort, there entire buildings we couldn’t even see due to the huge snowdrifts. Driving down the roads were eerie with high, high banks of snow on either side. There was a Denny’s restaurant that had part of the roof caved in due to the heavy snow. It was one of several buildings with damage from heavy snow. We were there for 2 full days and Tim and Rich skied both days. I took photos around the Lake, when able. A big storm blew in during the afternoon of the first day and we got maybe 7-9 inches in town with double that on the mountains. I got a photo of the thunderhead moving in over the lake. It was crazy how fast it moved! The wind was blowing so hard that they closed the lifts and they had to come down early. They were fine with that because they couldn’t really see anything with all the blowing snow. The next day was better skiing and they had a good time. We drove back to Palo Alto the morning we were flying home and Tim gave us a tour of his workplace: Stanford University’s training centers. It was really interesting and to say we were impressed with what he does is an understatement. We are incredibly proud of him! We can’t wait to see what his next chapter will be!

We leave Sunday very early to go to Montana for a quick visit. It was supposed to be a house hunting visit but while I was in Houston, we made an offer (second time) and they accepted. We had had this house on our radar for several months. We made an offer back in January, but it didn’t work out. It did this time. We will be living in a wooded area about 10 minutes from Columbia Falls. (population 5,500). The nearest big city is Kalispell, which is 25 minute drive away and has about 25,000 people. The West entrance to Glacier National Park is 22 minutes away and Whitefish mountain resort (the ski slopes) are 35 minutes away. We are so very very excited to move there. So instead of househunting this short trip up, we will be touring our prospective new home and getting the lay of the land. The house is about 5 minutes away from our 10 acres of land. That is for sale, and we hope that now that the sun is shining and there is some snow melting, we’ll soon have a buyer for that. The house has plenty of bedrooms for visitors, and a beautiful room that I call “the cathedral room”. It has cathedral ceilings and windows all along the sides with a stone fireplace at the end. The house is on a little less than 2 acres and even though it has a beautiful front and back yard, there are a LOT of mature trees around us so it seems very secluded. There are peekaboo mountain views, but if you take a short walk, the trees open up and the mountains are looming right there. We are very excited and we have been trying to get our moving plan together. The moving truck is ours on June 12th. We hope to start loading that day and leave within a day or two after that to head to Montana.

I have really been excited about moving to Montana for the nearly 4 years since we decided to take the plunge and move there. I will miss a lot about Nebraska…especially the people. However, the tree we were gifted after Joe’s death will be hard to leave behind. We already have plans to plant another at the new house….but Joe’s tree started blooming this week. I have shared a few photos of that with you.

I know, I know, I still have to finish up my photos and stories from our California trip. HOWEVER, I am cramming a lot of little trips in before I leave Omaha, and I am trying to get those blogged as well. So, they may not be quite in order. You’ll forgive me, right? After we returned home from California, I decided that would be the best time to squeeze in a quick trip down to Houston to see my parents and my brother and his family. I was hoping that I would be able to see the bluebonnets again this year, but every year is different, and I missed the Houston area blooms by a couple of weeks. I did, however, get to squeeze in a lot of quality family time in the few days I was there.

One of the big reasons I wanted to go at this time was to celebrate my mom’s 77th birthday! I don’t think she’ll mind me mentioning her age because after you turn 70, I think each year is a reason to brag! We picked up my dad from his memory care facility to join us for dinner to celebrate. I told my dad who I was and I was standing right in front of him. He started to stand and lean in and hug me, but there was a woman with a much darker complexion that me standing to my right and he was aiming his hug at her, so I swept in and hugged him before he surprised her. My dad just doesn’t see very well. He had to be reminded who I was a few times. It is all very hit or miss, which is hard. I had the wait staff sing happy birthday to my mom in the restaurant. As soon as they started singing, my dad started singing right along with them, which was so sweet. When we dropped him off back at his place, I gave him a hug and told him to tell his wife, “Happy Birthday.” He said, “Okay. I will when I see her!” She was standing right next to me and had just given him a kiss goodbye. Thus is life with my dad. We chuckle about it because it would be really sad if we dwelled on it. He seems to be content and after 3 months of care in the memory care facility, he is somewhat getting into a schedule where he is. He is much more social and spends very little time alone in his room, which I think is good. My mom is able to do the events she likes to do with her church groups and can now quilt all day if she feels like.

My brother, Craig, and his wife, Mayra, have two kiddos: Alex (12.5) and Emily Jo (4 months). I got to spend good time with both of them! Alex plays the tuba and had a band competition while I was there. Mom and I went with Mayra to a local high school to hear them compete. They sounded really good! They ended up in first place! I also got to watch Alex play a basketball game. He played soccer for a very long time and now he has a new passion….and it is one I am relatively fluent in. It was great to watch him play. Mayra and Mom and I tried to find some bluebonnets but didn’t seem to have any luck, so we ended up in the botanical gardens in Houston. I took a bunch of photos of Emily Jo there before she conked out. I also got to sit in the back seat with her and entertain her and feed her bottles as we drove around. I have lots of photos on my camera, but they will be for Craig and Mayra and family. Here are a few photos of my whirlwind 4 day trip to Houston from my phone. Love that Mayra, Emily Jo and I were all in stripes! Totally unplanned! My absolute favorite photo is of my mom and dad walking out of the memory care center, hand-in-hand. They will have been married 55 years in just a few short months. He can’t tell you her name….and sometimes even his, but he loves her so very much and just wants to spend time with her. She has cared for him for the last few years during his mental decline. This is true love in a quick snapshot.

On Friday evening, Lily and I drove down to Kansas City. We stopped in Lee’s Summitt to have a birthday dinner with Michelle, who had a birthday last week. It was so nice to spend time with her and to love on Moose and Jenna. When Joe died, we hadn’t really realized what a big tribe he had. We not only miss Joe…but we sure do miss Michelle, their dogs, and Joe’s friends. It is a giant hole in our lives. As much as I would like to cling to them and clutch them close to my heart, they all have lives they need to get on with. It seems that time stopped for me, but the world around me keeps spinning. I have tried to step back and let everyone go on with their lives, but it has been a very painful process for me…letting go of all the people and pets who made up Joe’s existence. Perhaps that is why this move is doubly hard…as we are moving to a place that has no Joe memories in it. He will just have to live on in my heart and mind from now on. Anyhow, it was a joy getting to talk with Michelle over dinner. We had the best brisket sandwich I have ever had. Lily and I are still talking about it. So here is a shout out to SMOKED – a bar and grill in downtown Lee’s Summitt. The briskwich sandwich is the bomb. Lily also got asked if she needed a kids’ menu again. I always love the reaction I get from the host/hostess when I tell them she is 18.

The next day was spent touring Kansas City Art Institute. We got to hear from the president of the school, all the heads of financial aid, and all the heads of the minor programs at KCAI. One thing that really struck me when listening to the president of KCAI speak (she is amazing by the way), Ruki Neuhold-Ravikumar, is that she applauded the future students for being courageous enough to be creative every day. Many people are creative on occasion, but at KCAI, they encourage students to live creatively every single day. There are about 630 undergraduate students there, with 75 instructors who are all actively artists as well. Another comment that hit home was from the director of student life. He mentioned if you identified yourself as being that “weird art kid” in your high school….to hold onto your hats because EVERYONE at KCAI is that weird art kid. Lily will be amongst her people, and I could feel that as the day progressed and I am so excited for her. This school has been around since 1885 (dorms were rebuilt in 2020), so they know a thing or two about teaching art. She received her schedule for this fall and the scheduling gods have smiled on her. She only has one morning class….one day a week. The dorms are suite-style and spacious. Her best friend from high school is planning on attending as well and wants to be her roommate. All is falling into place. I am so happy for her. The house will be lonely without her though!

If you are local, Lily and the other senior artists from Westside High School will be having their senior art show this week. I have shared the announcement below. We finish out the week with prom. Lily has never gone to a school dance before. I was kind of excited that she was going with her good friend and future roommate since I have mentioned she should at least go to one event like this during high school. I was thinking of prom dresses and how fantastic she would look. Nope. She and her friend are dressing up as anime characters. She’ll be wearing a suit and a blue wig. Sigh. Did I mention she will be among her people at KCAI? I still told her she has to pose for prom photos.

Please stop by and see Lily’s work and that of her classmates if you can. I know it would mean a lot to her! (and she will be dressed up and in a dress that night!) I will get pictures of that as well!

For those of you who know me well, you know that I spent 6 days a week doing some form of dancing class. Whether it be Refit, Dancefit, or Zumba, I am surrounding myself with genuinely wonderful people who love music and love to get a good workout while dancing. I have a bonus group that I have been dancing with for the last year and a half. It started out with just a group of active older adults from the YMCA who wanted to learn choreography for a song or two. It wasn’t meant to be like cardio dance classes where there are cardio moves in it, but literally a dance class for adults. Heather was the instructor (she has a lot of experience teaching dance of all kinds to all ages). I was allowed in as I don’t quite make the age requirement for active older adults at the Y. The first year, there was maybe 7 or 8 of us who performed at YMCA active older adult activities at one YMCA in the Omaha metro area. This year we generally have 15 to 20 performers and we practice at two YMCA locations and perform at them both as well. It has blossomed into a group of adult women of varying ages (we have even had a few men join off and on). We have performed Christmas songs, hip hop, country, hula, you name it. We had our last performance this past week and our last gathering before summer break on Friday afternoon. I came to that practice ready to just have fun…to thank Heather for all her choreography skills and patience with us bumbling around with moves called “the sassy cat” and “stanky leg”. Nothing gets me to giggling more than a 75 year old plus woman asking with a completely straight face exactly how to do the “stanky leg” move. It still gets me giggling. Over the last two years, I have befriended Heather and we figured out we had a lot in common. I will never forget the time she called me 18 months ago while I was traveling on the way back from visiting my parents in Houston. She wanted to know what size tutu to order for me for our first performance. I had literally lived 50 years before anyone ever asked me that question! We often stay after practice and chat for awhile, which has really been wonderful for me, as I am so often alone. When Joe died 13 months ago, these women gathered around me and loved me when I was so completely distraught. Going to these dancing rehearsals have been the highlight of my week since they started back in the fall of 2021.

This past Friday’s practice was a surprise for me! I walked in to a beautiful bouquet of flowers, beautiful shining faces, and a cake that said, “Keep Dancing!” They gave me a beautiful candle called “Joy + Laughter”, some chocolates, and best of all, a dark purple tutu with a matching sequined bow for my hair! I told them that would now be in my camera bag and I would don them when I could and post photos so they knew I was thinking of them. Then we danced and I left feeling so very blessed to have each and every one of these women in my life. I will miss this group so much, but if I am ever in Omaha, I will be crashing a rehearsal! I promise!

Our third day with Tim was spent in Oregon! This is a monumental event for Rich and me. We had FINALLY reached our 50th state! No offense to those from Oregon, but it is just not on the way to anywhere we have been! We had been sitting at 49 states for quite awhile. Now we can proudly say we have been to all 50 states. We had all sorts of pipe dreams of seeing Crate Lake and photographing this deep, deep lake with crystal clear water. Whelp, best laid plans, right? They have SO MUCH SNOW right now. No one can see the lake. We talked to a park ranger (from Des Moines, Iowa, by the way) who had been giving tours there for almost two months and she has yet to see the lake. There was 13 FEET of snow in the park. All the roads were closed…even the visitor’s center was closed (for construction). I had heard about a free snowshoing event they had for two hours with a park ranger in the meadows and forests near the crater. We decided to go for it! All those Dancefit and Group Fight fitness classes paid off because I was able to hold my own snowshoing for the first time….in powder up to by knees, and a pretty high altitude for 2 hours. We had a blast. The scenery was amazing. There were buildings that were huge that were totally under the snow. There is a photo of Rich and Tim racing in their snowshoes and spraying the park ranger who was our guide. At the end, Tim did a snow devil, which is face first into the snow. His beard acted like velcro and he was a riot coming up out of the snow. The trees…were so pretty. The ranger pointed out that we were only seeing the tops of them. The first 15 feet or so where under the snow. It was an unexpectedly really good time and I am so so glad we did it! But now we have to go back in the summer to actually see it!

The Redwoods of Northern California….oh my goodness, they are a sight to behold! We had gone last year to see the Sequoias…which are equally as beautiful, but this was special. Not many people were out and about in the park this time of year, so that was nice. It rains 300 days a year in Redwoods, and we were prepared. We did three hikes in different areas of the park. The first one was in the rain. The second one was in the mud. The third hike was in the late afternoon in Stout Grove in the northern part of the park. It was so quiet and peaceful and DRY. I put quite a few steps in on this day and it was so wonderful. We found a blue bird that was singing to us at the “Big Tree”. It is called a Stellar Jay. He was glorious. I often think that Joe is traveling with me and kind of sending me messages through birds. This stellar jay was that for me. He just kept posing for me. I didn’t bring my telephoto lens for this trip, so he let me get close. It was like Joe was telling me he was with us on this trip to this beautiful National Park. I also have a photo of a banana slug. You will know it when you see it! They had banana slug stuffed animals in the visitor’s center. As chilly as it was, I didn’t expect to see on out and about, but found one on a sign! There were a lot of ferns, a waterfall I fooled around with and made it look like falling smoke….(it’s is one of my favorite shots as it was one of my more technical photos) and a lot of shamrocks. Joe told me once he was going to get a shamrock tattoo for the time he visited Ireland. We quickly concluded that he had NEVER BEEN TO IRELAND so therefore, perhaps he shouldn’t get that tattoo. It was an ongoing joke between Michelle, Joe, and me. I had to take the photos of the shamrocks….because, again, it felt like Joe was with us and laughing. We saw some Roosevelt elk while we were out and about and even saw some sealions basking in the sun as waves crashed behind them. It was a really fun day.

A short week after we returned home from Florida, Rich and I repacked our bags for cooler weather and flew out to California to see our son, Tim. Tim works as a strength and conditioning coach at Stanford University. He was hired there 16 months ago as a temp and they have taught him so much there! He is in the process of looking for a new job somewhere in the U.S. now….hopefully moving prior to when we do in mid June. I know whomever hires him will get a very devoted, knowledgeable, and hard worker. His move is the last piece of the puzzle of our crazy lives right now. We are all anxious to see where he ends up! Either way, it will be a permanent job with BENEFITS, which is huge. He is hoping to leave California and it’s crazy prices in his rearview mirror. We spent 6 days with Tim and it was wonderful. He picked us up at the San Fransisco airport and we took Hwy 1 up the coast of California from there. Here are some of the sites we saw that day. We saw a lot of rugged coastline. One of the places we stopped, there was a whole hillside of succulent plants. It was so strange! We also found a little snake on the walking path in those succulents. ugh. I am not a snake fan, big or small! There was a carving from driftwood of a momma whale with a babywhale. On the other side of it was a bench. There was an older man sitting there (which you cannot see) but his chocolate lab totally had his eye on me and photobombed the photo (which I love). There was a barbed wire fence that someone bent to be two connecting hearts overlooking the ocean, which was also neat. We stopped at Glass Beach in Fort Bragg, but alas, no glass. It used to be that instead of shells, there was piles of smoothed sea glass on the beach. We didn’t really find any. Evidently everyone would take it with them and now there isn’t much left. There is a photo of a seagull on a cliff overlooking the waves crashing below. He seemed to enjoy the view as much as we did!