On Sunday night, Brandan's siblings who live in Utah gathered at Dan and Martha's house for dinner. We ended up at their old elementary school, Emerson Elementary, for a giant soccer game.
Here are the soccer players. Back row: Abe, Becky, Salem, Logan, Halie, Helen, Grandpa Dan, Sutton, Kaylee and Wade. Front row: Dallin, Gibson, Sasha, Xander, Emma and Niko.
Sofi is working one her honors thesis this summer so we started our day on Monday with a very important task: finding the perfect coffee shop for Sofi to hang out at while she works. We met at her apartment and walked to the nearby shops.
Abe used the pedestrian flags provided to cross a wide street.
Success! Coffee Noir checked the boxes for Sofi. It's close to her apartment, offers delicious drinks and pastries at better prices (can any coffee shop be described as inexpensive?), has plentiful outdoor seating and friendly staff. Hopefully Sofi will be spending a lot of time here in the weeks ahead.
On Monday afternoon we met Ruth and Bill's family for a quick visit at Bill's parents' house. Ruth was also working on arranging flowers for her nephew's wedding so we helped out a little. In this photo, Brandan and Zoey are sewing carnations together to make a long string of flowers. We should have taken more photos of the hundreds of flowers that turned Bill's mom's kitchen and dinning room into a florist shop.
Will played and sang Ophelia by the Lumineers, a fantastic treat for us to hear. And this is the only other photo we took of the Mitchells. From the left are Brandan, John, Bill, Will, Zoey, Abe, Gibson and Helen. Ruth was changing for her nephew's rehearsal dinner and isn't in the photo.
On Tuesday morning we met some cousins and hiked Park City Hill. From the left are Xander, Salem, Sutton, Becky, Maks, Sasha, Nico, Abe, Brandan, Becky, Gibson and Helen. Maggie is taking the photo.
The short hike offered great views of Park City from the top.
Gibson and Niko built cairns with the rocks on top of the hill.
After our hike, we got smoothies at The Protein Foundry, the shop where Salem is working this summer. Drue walked over from his office across the parking lot to meet up with us. Drue and Maggie are sitting at the far table.
Tuesday night we went to dinner at Wade and Steph's before meeting up with Becky and Aaron's family at Cherry Hill. Wade has his own t-shirt press for putting vinyl designs on shirts, He helped Abe and Brandan customize Real Salt Lake soccer jerseys.
This is Abe's finished t-shirt.
Wade also has a vinyl cutting machine to make custom designs for t-shirts. Helen printed out a floral design. From the left are Emma, Dallin, Kaylee, Helen and Wade.
Helen's t-shirt turned out beautifully.
On Wednesday we drove to Pocatello. Becky's dad has volunteered as the graffiti abatement officer for the city police department for the past 13 years, donating hundreds of hours and sourcing most of his supplies at no cost to the city. We have heard about his adventures battling graffiti for years and asked him if we could help paint over some when we came to visit. This is a photo of the trailer and truck he uses which are provided by the police department.
Grandpa scouted Pocatello for graffiti before we came and picked a location on the edge of town for our project. Our first task was to stir the paint. The kids chanted "Double, double, toil and trouble..." while they stirred.
Here's a photo of the graffiti covered wall under an overpass on Garrett Road.
We gingerly walked past this gopher snake on the sidewalk until we decided the snake was dead.
Grandpa showed us his technique. He uses a paint roller to make a frame around the graffiti, then he fills the frame in with paint.
Brandan painted the tallest bit.
Here's Gibson working hard.
Helen climbed up to the other side of the overpass.
Abe was nearly finished with his spot when Becky came by for a photo.
Most of the graffiti was fairly vile and profane. Becky tried to be careful in these photos not to include anything graphic. You can tell from the color blocks on the wall that this is a place Grandpa has repeatedly visited to cover up graffiti.
Helen also painted over some areas on the front of the overpass. Everything we wanted to paint over was within reach with a roller.
Imagine Grandpa's shock to see a photo of his new graffiti abatement assistant, Josh, spray painting a wall in Pocatello that will soon be covered with a mural. Josh is more of a graffiti promoter than a graffiti abater.
After reading the article, we realized that the shop mentioned in the article was open while we were in Pocatello. Curious to learn why Josh would volunteer to work with someone with opposing views to his own on the topic of graffiti (Grandpa), we stopped by to meet him. We met a passionate young man who deeply cares about mentoring youth and building an aerosol art community. Josh is a very talented artist who once was arrested for painting train cars, charged with a felony and nearly went to jail. Because of his experience, he'd like to help other youth enjoy the fun of making art while avoiding calamitous consequences.
One of Josh's successes is talking the city into establishing a graffiti welcome zone. Two parallel pedestrian tunnels pass under the railroad tracks in downtown Pocatello. They are a very attractive target for graffiti, typically the kind of stuff we painted over on Garrett Road. Josh painted one tunnel with rainbow stripes.
He's trying to encourage higher quality graffiti like this, stuff that takes skill and time to create. True graffiti artists take a lot of pride in crafting a statement piece.
There are no rules in the tunnels, but Josh does moderate the content. He paints over vulgarities with an upside down pair of tightie-whitie underwear. He also freely critiques graffiti he feels is lazy or subpar. For example, this is the note he left for someone who scribbled some swear words with a Sharpie. We think there is a place for both Grandpa and Josh in town. Grandpa can keep painting over the unwelcome graffiti and Josh can run his spray paint ministry in locations that want graffiti. We plan to revisit this tunnel next time we are in town and hope to see some awesome art.
After Pocatello, we headed to visit Sarah, Joe and Zina. On Thursday Sarah taught us how to block print dish towels.
Sarah buys her supplies from an English designer who has her stamps made in India. Sarah knows all the tricks to make the project smooth and easy. The fabric paint we used was bright and cheerful.
This is a photo of Gibson putting the finishing touch on his dishtowel: one blue chicken among a line orange chickens.
After we printed the towels, we hung them outside to dry. Each of our kids made a towel and Brandan made 6 towels to give to his team at work.
We met Joe and Zina after work at the Shoshone Ice Caves. Zina had been to the caves for a school field trip, but this was the first time the rest of us had been there. The caves are located in a lava tube in an area where the air flow through the rock lowers the temperature below freezing. Then as water from rain or melting snow percolates through the lava, it freezes. The caves were discovered by settlers in the 1800s. These settlers blasted holes to create better access to the caves and used the ice from the caves for a variety of purposes. By the 1940s, the larger entrances to the caves let too much warm air into the cave and caused nearly all the ice to melt. In the 1950s, a man blocked up the cave entrances again, restoring the natural freezing effect and the ice reformed.
This thermometer near the entrance shows the temperature to be about a frosty 25 degrees. Surprisingly, the temperature was refreshing, not frigid.
Walkways make a sturdy path through the caves. We enjoyed the mix of geology and history of the caves.
On Friday we hiked to Baker Lake in the Sawtooth National Forest. The hike was a treat on a beautiful clear day. We hiked up gentle switchbacks through fields of wildflowers. Helen is near the top of the slope in this photo.
This area was burned by wildfire about 5 years ago. We tried to imagine what these trees looked like when they were green and bushy and consoled ourselves that the burned trees allowed more sunlight to help wildflowers grow.
We were amazed at the variety and abundance of wildflowers.
We ate lunch at the lake. Helen hiked to the far side and brought back a snowball.
Here we are in front of the lake and the very appropriately named Backdrop Peak.
After our hike we drove to Hailey. We visited the famous heart rock tree which we visited many years ago. A flood washed most of the heart shaped rocks away a couple of years ago. The lost rocks are slowly being replaced with new rocks.
Here we are with Joe and a photo bombing dog.
We dropped Sofi off at the airport in Hailey so she could return home to Salt Lake City.
This was Sofi and Abe's last opportunity to hang out together before Abe begins his mission in July. We are thankful for one more family road trip with all 6 of us.
On Saturday we headed home with a short stop in Kuna to visit Joe and Keri's family. We squeezed in a quick photo with all the cousins before Sy left for work. From the left are Gibson, Sy, Hayden, Gage, Kolter, Sawyer, Abe and Helen.
Hayden and Gage challenged Helen and Gibson to a game of Harry Potter Trivial Pursuit. Each of these kids could easily beat the rest of us with their knowledge of Harry Potter trivia.
Meanwhile, Abe played games like Candyland with Kolter. We safely returned home Saturday night night, refreshed and thankful for our amazing week visiting our much loved family.
