Favorite Memes #21

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For my sister-in-law Lori...who is definitely NOT an alcoholic but who probably wouldn't buy a *cinnamon* candle but would DEFINITELY buy a *Fireball* candle! LOL

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First One In...Last One Out

It seems appropriate and symbolic even that I was the first one in and the last one out of the lake house for the final time. I was the first grandchild to come to this place... I am the oldest...and I was the last grandchild to leave. I have been a witness to ALL of the eras of this place. In addition, I have always been the designated responsible one. The dependable one. The one you can count on. The one who was supposed to set an example for the others. That hasn't changed. So I stride forward and lead the way into a new era.

I remember with great clarity when the property was owned by my great-grandparents. I remember their store and their home. I knew them. I have personal memories of them in that place. I can walk around their house and store in my mind. The kitchen, the living room with the davenport, the glassed in porch, and the Christmas tree with bubbling lights. I remember their bathroom and the back bedroom. I remember the other bedroom and the steep staircase that went upstairs to the bedroom where my grandma and her sisters slept as young girls. I remember walking in the entrance and knowing that if you turned right you went into the store and if you turned left you went into their home. I still remember how the store smelled. I remember how their kitchen smelled. I went for walks with my great-grandparents and fed the birds with them. I sat on my grandpa's lap and ate bugles and combed his three hairs. I remember walking over from Lilac Lodge for pop, candy, ice cream bars, and popsicles. I remember getting the tiniest little brown bag of candy to eat in the car when we would drive home. My great-grandparents taught me to tie my shoes in their kitchen. I loved them and I knew them and I remember the lake with them there. I remember thinking after they died (which shook my world) that the lake wouldn't be the same without them there. It wasn't. It evolved.

I remember when Lilac Lodge was shared by my grandma with her sisters and their families. I remember being elated after learning that our family inherited Lilac Lodge rather than the store or Pine Knot after both of my great-grandparents passed away. I remember being really worried that we wouldn't get it. I remember the joy of learning that it was ALL ours.

I remember when my grandparents lived and worked in Bonners Ferry. We lived with them for a year right after my mom got divorced the first time when she was pregnant with Kelley. I spent a lot of time with my great-grandparents then and a lot of time at the lake. I remember when my grandparents would load up their station wagon and spend long weekends at the lake. In the summer, my grandma would stay at the lake during the week while my grandpa worked in Bonners. She would drive up on Tuesdays to do laundry and whatever needed to be done at home and then drive back to the lake on Wednesdays. On Fridays my grandpa would drive down. After we moved out of their home, my sisters and I, would stay with them for a month every summer. That was back when Lilac Lodge was still just a summer cabin.

I remember when my grandpa retired and my grandparents built a house next door to Lilac Lodge and connected the two homes with a mudroom and this became their permanent residence. We would still come for a month every summer. Kirk and I call those days in the 1980s the glory days of the lake. But were they glorious? They were to us and perhaps to our cousins but I highly doubt they were glorious to all of the adults. There is no way that the rampant dysfunction that exists now didn't have its beginnings in the 70s and 80s. But in my memory those were wonderful times at the lake.

I remember after my grandpa died I thought that the lake would never be the same. It wasn't. It evolved again. I remember my grandma living there alone. We moved to Spokane from Salt Lake a little less than a year after he died. Those were some very special times at the lake. Just my grandma and our little family. Reilly was a toddler and Kameron just a baby. Kameron took his first steps in the living room with my grandma luring him with a cookie. All the rest of my family...mom and siblings...still lived in Utah and so we had this beautiful time with my grandma all to ourselves. It was then that I got to know her as a person rather than just as my grandma and I got to experience the lake on a different level and with four seasons. I cherish that time. We had many discussions about her vision for the future of the lake house...what she did and did not want to happen... and what would ever induce her to sell. I am so grateful for those conversations. They helped me to make some hard decisions. I have reflected on them many times in the course of the last year. 

I remember the lonely years after my grandma went blind and had to move to assisted living. She spent her days at the lake house while my uncle worked in the basement. He continued the family business that he and my grandpa had started. He would take her back to the assisted living place every night. Tensions ran high with the extended family as to how the lake house was to be regarded. Private home? Family vacation home? Another uncle made rules and proclamations that brought discord and strife. When my grandma passed away, everything changed again.

I remember the home being my mother's and the beauty and style that she put into the place. She put her own special mark onto the house and made it her own. I wish that she would have had more time to enjoy it. I was an owner of the lake house longer than she got to be. I am grateful for the special times spent with her there. I am supremely grateful for the conversations that she and I had about the lake house. Especially our last one-on-one conversation as we floated on the lake and she told me point blank her thoughts. What a gift. That is a conversation that has guided me throughout this whole process. I KNOW what she would have wanted to happen with the lake house because she literally told me in our last conversation. Her words have been a guiding light through the darkness. Thanks Mom!

I know what the lake house has been like with my siblings and myself as owners. Places have energy. We all know that. And spaces hold onto energy long after the events have taken place. The energy of the lake house is negative now. I wouldn't say that my siblings and I are solely to blame. The dysfunction of the extended family has been off the charts for many years. Its contribution is felt. There is too much anger, sadness, guilt, and regret. It's tangible. That place should be filled to the rafters with joy, laughter, love, and positivity once again. It's time.  

I am grateful to have been a caretaker of this sacred place. I have loved it and cleaned it and repaired it and mowed it and weeded it and raked it and protected it and now my watch is done. I couldn't have done better by this property or those loved ones who went before me. I couldn't have taken better care of it. I couldn't have treated it with more respect. I couldn't have loved it more. Of that there is no doubt. 

And so I remember. I will remember. Just as the trees remember my great-grandfather's name and my grandmother's name and my mother's name and mine. The echoes on Echo Beach will continue; only now they are echoes through time. My great-grandfather's voice, my grandmother's voice, my mother's voice, and mine. 

Before I left, I walked through each and every room and said thank you and I love you and goodbye. I too hugged the house as I left. Love and gratitude displaces enmity, anger, and sadness. Love is what ultimately remains. 

First one in...last one out. 

Email from Elder Johnson #29

9-13-21

BBQs 4 Dayz🤘🏼

Heyooo, these last couple of weeks have been a lot of fun and miracle filled as heck. This work truly be the Lord's. Sheeesh. 

I hit 14 months on September 1st which is just bonkers. These months are just over so fast it's wild haha but crazy to see the changes within me over the last 14 months. 

We've seen a lot of success with our area and hitting our goals 🙌 which has honestly been such a blessing and this last week we found 3 new people. Elder Blanco and I were soo hyped. They are all some amazing, amazing, people so we are stoked to be able to guide them on this new journey!

We had 2 BBQs within a day of each other which I definitely wasn't complaining about. haha. One was put on by one of our friends that the other elders are teaching and then the other one was our ward's Labor Day picnic/BBQ and shoooot dang it was a blast. Good food, good people, we love to see it. 

I am soo grateful for the wonderful people that I've met out here so far. Each one of them has helped so much in shaping me into who I am. Elder Blanco and I have been teaching a lot of our friends about God's love and prayer and the importance of building a personal relationship with Him. Because of all the people who have shaped me coming to know my Heavenly Father and His son Jesus Christ it has made the biggest difference in my life and I know it can make a difference in yours. He loves you and wants to hear from you, always.

Have an amazing week, keep being the amazing people I know yall are. I pray for ya every single day.

Love yall❤

-Elder Johnson

Ride the Hiawatha!

Tyler and I have wanted to ride our bikes on the Hiawatha trail for a long time. We've talked about it alot but we've never been able to do it. It's either been too hot or too cold or summer went by too fast and the trail closed. The Hiawatha Trail is a 15 mile mountain biking trail with 10 tunnels and 7 trestles. One of the tunnels is almost 2 miles long and pitch black. The trail follows the crest of the Bitterroot Mountains on the border of Montana and Idaho. It is only open mid-May through mid-September. So when Naomi asked if we wanted to meet up and ride the Hiawatha with them in September we were super stoked! They were dropping Gabe off at college and wanted to swing up this way! It would be an incredible year if we saw them once a year...but....to have been able to see them TWICE in one summer! That is a gift!!

We met them in Wallace, Idaho on a Friday night and went out to dinner. We actually found a cute little café called The Blackboard and had pretty good Italian food. It was a fun night catching up on all that had gone on since we last saw them over the 4th of July. It has been nice having them in Utah. It makes these meet ups so much easier somehow than when they lived in CA.

The next morning we all got up super early to head up to Look Out Pass. The weather was garbage. It was cold and pouring rain. The tickets for the trail are rain or shine. Our CA friends were a bit dubious. LOL. We convinced them to embrace the PNW spirit! We picked up our shuttle tickets and bike lights at Look Out Pass Ski Resort and then drove a few more miles to the trail head.

It was still pouring rain but we braved it anyway and headed out. 

The start

The scenery was absolutely gorgeous!

Heading into one of the tunnels.

Once we got out of the first tunnel...the two mile Taft Tunnel...the rain had stopped and the day turned out to be pretty perfect. Cloudy and moody with fog patches here and there. I think it was even prettier than if it had been a sunny day.

The scenery was breathtaking! Naomi and Kevin were blown away. Here's one of the trestles in the distance.

We had to stop frequently just to marvel!

Double trestles in the distance that we rode on! Stunning!

Me and Na

One the way back my light went out. They don't last long. I did have a back up head lamp but didn't turn it on. I was able to follow the others and their lights and make my way back out of the dark two mile tunnel. It actually was kind of cool in the pitch black.

By the end we were covered in mud and my stomach was hurting from hours of laughing so hard! We had an absolute BLAST!! It exceeded our expectations!!

There was a concession stand at the bottom of the trail and while we were waiting for our shuttle we got what are, without argument, the best hot dogs of our lives! I don't know if they were truly the most amazing or we were just super hungry but they were delish!! We'd never tasted such magic!! LOL.

The shuttle was an old school bus and Naomi and I were back in our glorious Springdell days of riding the school bus together and annoying everyone else on the bus! Some things NEVER change!! We got the crusty looks to prove it. Oh well. Live a little bus people! Enjoy your lives! Laugh!

I will add this photo to the collection that I have curated over the years called "Kevin Sleeps." He has some sweet skills!

I love that we were able to have this adventure together and make new memories! I love that our friendships... individual and as a group... continue to grow. I love that these friendships are going on 38 years as we weave in and out of each others lives. I love our shared history. When I think of the question that Laura Tremaine poses..."Who was there?" these two are definitely at the top of that list. Always. It also felt absolutely wonderful to laugh and be light-hearted! I can't wait to see what these crazy *kids* do next!