News Trend Girls Gone Wild|Actual

I have flown long distances alone with four tiny children.

I've driven back and forth across the continental United States more times than I can count.

I've taught little girls in India how to read and swam in Malaysian waterfalls and driven a motorbike through the crowded streets of Vietnam.

But I have never in my whole life taken a girls' weekend.

Well. Until this weekend, that is. My girlfriend, Anya, and I slipped out of town for two lovely nights and three days in Vancouver, British Columbia.

^ Anya ordered the latte, sandwich and soup, I chose the quiche, baby derkins, ginger raspberry, and the food was as delicious as it was pretty.

^ We didn't eat any macarons but I admired them from afar.

Thankfully, we were very much of one mind about how to spend out time. Priority Number One: Eating. Anya came prepared with a long list of recommendations and tried-and-true favorites, and somehow we managed to walk the line between delicious indulgence and pure gluttony. Thierry Bakery made the short list for our first day's breakfast.

^ Big blue buildings stand shoulder to shoulder, set off perfectly by puffy Canadian clouds.

^ Vancouver Harbor and the mountains to the north.

^ This building bears a cryptic message:

"lying on top of a building...Lying on top of a building...Lying on top of a building/the clouds looked no nearer than when i was lying on the street"

Once we ate, walking around became our priority. (I mean, we needed to digest each meal as quickly as possible to make room for the next.) We wandered through a few gorgeous boutiques and upscale salons, but we did not come to shop. Fresh air and good conversation as we explored the city was a much better fit for our dispositions.

^ Canadian flowers speak their universal language of love in both English and Fran?Ais.

^ Effortlessly chic, the markets displayed not only typical cut bouquets but also on-ekspresi dominan succulents, cacti and lush green urban jungle plants.

The city streets feel friendly and familiar. Though we wandered through the heart of a major world-group city, small markets, open bakeries, and lots of dogs and their humans punctuated our path.

^ The bar at España was an OCD delight.

Our journeys led us forward, time and again, to the next meal and the next delightful restaurant.

And thus I spent forty-eight self-indulgent hours in a blissful cycle of eating, walking, and talking, interrupted only by long hours of reading and soul-satisfying sleep.

This may have been my first girls' weekend but it is most definitely not my last.

News Trend Peace At The Pass|Actual

"Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without." -Buddha

Two surgeries,

One season of meager snow,

A tired old car,

And a sweet dog who needed my company.

These are the reasons why I haven't skied since 2013.

I've missed the physical sensation of skiing.

I've missed the magical snow.

I've missed my friendly and familiar mountain.

But most of all, I've missed the beautiful sense of peace that always fills my soul when I'm at Stevens Pass.

So it was with much excitement and anticipation that my dry spell finally came to an end this week when two daughters and I enjoyed a lovely bluebird Friday.

^ Dudes in blue.

^Riders at top of Skyline look like they're about to drop off a cliff

but there's a whole mountain down there.

^ When a busted board threatened to ruin our outing, we just bought a new one.

^ Looking north from Hogsback...

^ and looking south from Tye Mill, these are the views I drink in as my snowboarding daughters take a minute to strap in at the top of each run.

^ Sunset over Cowboy Ridge. Giddy up.

^ If I squint just right, I don't see the power lines cutting through this insane view.

^ Pretty sure the mountain is wearing a halo.

^ This golden peekaboo view of the sunset is pretty, but when viewed through my amber-colored goggles, this scene was off the charts.

^ Pink clouds soften the sky over Highway dua as it winds east to Wenatchee.

^ Skyline at sunset still steals my heart.

I was not disappointed.

My muscles ached from blissful hours spent careening down icy fast runs.

My eyes feasted on the glorious white snow that sparkled in the sunlight.

My heart filled with happy memories from every corner of the mountain.

But I was a little bit surprised to find that the anticipated rush of peace didn't take my breath away as it used to.

At first, that made me sad.

But then I realized what's changed in the past four years.

I don't need Stevens Pass to calm my heart; I've learned much better how to make my own peace and now I carry it within me every day of my life.

News Trend A Reason For Tears|Actual

"Crying is cleansing. There's a reason for tears, happiness or sadness." -Dionne Warwick

^ Last November, after three and a half years of living and teaching English in Vietnam,

my daughter flew away from that life and headed back to the USA for a break.

Along the way, she stopped to visit her new home-away-from-home, Seoul

"You don't have to cry, Mom."

I took my third-born to the airport today.

She flew away to Seoul, South Korea, where she has signed a year-long contract to teach English.

She already has some friends in Seoul - a nice family she knows from Vietnam, an American family friend, a pair of Korean twenty-somethings she met on an airplane, just to name a few.

She will certainly make more.

^ In Seoul, she saw a few of the sights, including Gwanghwamun gate,

and got to know her way around the city a bit.

"You don't have to cry, Mom."

Her merk new suitcases were packed with almost everything she owns, and labeled with the address of her new school.

Her freshly laundered baby blanket was safely strapped into her carry-on.

Her bags weighed more than she does.

^ South Korea is a land of four seasons, and experiencing cold again

will be a major part of the adjustment.

"You don't have to cry, Mom."

Seoul seems much closer to home than Vietnam.

Seoul has Starbucks and subways and reliable postal service.

Seoul is a direct flight from Seattle and I can fly there for just a few hundred dollars more than a ticket back to my mom's house.

^ This is David. My daughter taught him English for several years in Danang;

now they have all relocated to Seoul and their friendship carries on.

"You don't have to cry, Mom."

But when I say goodbye to her

Her half smile makes her look just like her baby self

She rubs her thumb on her lip just as she did when she was learning to drive

I realize that life is flashing by far faster than any of us can comprehend.

And that is the moment when I do indeed have to cry.

News Trend Singing In The Rain|Actual

"I'm laughing at clouds s o dark up above

The sun's in my heart a nd I'm ready for love" -Arthur Freed

I've been after myself for years to make the trip.

All I needed, I told myself, was one day of sparkling sunshine, and I'd zip down to the Seattle Center to take in the masterpiece of glass + color + light that is Chihuly Garden and Glass.

But the conflicts and delays piled up far faster than the clear blue skies and I kept waiting for that perfect sunny day to make the trip. Finally, when my third-born daughter added this destination to her things-I-want-to-do-when-I'm-home list, the urgency overcame the need for perfect weather conditions.

Despite the gloomy winter skies and classic Pacific Northwest rain, we drove down, determined to make the best of what I assumed was a less-than-ideal situation.

Holy hand-blown glass, I couldn't have been more wrong!

This amazing greenhouse full of rapturous red flowers doesn't need sunshine; its glory is set off best by

the overcast sky,

the colorless landscape, and

the rivulets of rain pouring down the side of the greenhouse

that make the building fairly quiver with light and life.

No doubt this space is beautiful in any weather, but it truly sings in the rain.

News Trend Last Night And This Morning|Actual

Together.

Sometimes, in this life, the people we love hurt our feelings.

They disappoint us.

They break our hearts.

They make us cry white hot tears into our pillows at night and wish we could take a knife and cut every memory of them out of our hearts and forget we ever knew them.

And even when they apologize from the bottom of their hearts for causing us all this pain, and we promise to forgive them, we can scarcely begin to imagine how this relationship is ever going to feel alright again.

This happens, I think, to all of us sooner or later as we travel through life.

Maybe it has happened to you.

Last night, it happened to me.

Apart.

When I woke up this morning, with the crushing weight of that sadness rushing back into my heart, something else happened.

A friend of mine -  who knows nothing about my pain - sent me a message. And in that message, he offered me some general words of encouragement:

Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am.

And in that moment, as those words entered my mind, touched my heart, and began to soothe my troubled soul, I knew that I was going to be alright..

Now you may call this coincidence or good luck or even random thoughts from a friend. But I see these words as the handiwork of a God who loves me with all his heart and knows exactly what I need to keep going. The One who makes me who I am walks through life right next to me and finds ingenious ways to sweetly, tenderly comfort me when I am falling apart.

Together again.

This happens, I think, to all of us when we are open to the idea that God is love.

Maybe this has happened to you too.

This morning, it happened to me.

News Trend Sisters|Actual

One day when I was maybe twelve, I tearfully told my mother, "I wish I had a sister."

"No, you don't," she replied, the younger of two sisters herself. "All you would do is fight."

And I knew that to a certain extent she was right. But what I was really trying to say is that I wanted someone to know me, inside and out, and to walk out into the world with me and have my back.

I never did get my own sister but now I'm a mother of four sisters, so I've become a bit of an expert on the subject.

And my mom was right. Sisters do fight a lot. But they also know each other, inside and out, and I know for a fact that they watch out for each other in the great big world.

News Trend We Still Have Daffodils|Actual

I am writing tonight to tell you that we still have daffodils.

Oh, I know. Some days, it doesn't feel like it.

Lately, I've been finding it difficult to believe that daffodils still have the courage to push out of their dry bulbs resting deep in the dark winter earth, to grow upwards toward the sun, to unfold their yellow blossoms, cheerful and strong, in the spring winds.

We have death in this world. And grief. And a culture that has forgotten how to mourn.

We have broken relationships and betrayals and lies. People fall into darkness and do unspeakable things to the people they love. There is so much pain.

We have stress and anxiety and world full of people who resort to anger without stopping to think what's making them feel so bad, or figuring out how to fix it.

We have hungry children and financially strapped elders and a world full of refugees that need and deserve a fresh start. Veterans and mentally ill and people who have been phased out of work struggle to find their place in a changing world that they don't fully understand.

We have millions of human beings shut away in prisons on the theory that we are safer without them. Or that somehow this will solve the problems that led to their crimes. Or that this is justice. But we do not talk to them, or listen to them. From them, we learn nothing.

We have prideful hypocrites who hijack Christianity and turn it into something selfish, judgmental and mean. People who walk in the light and love of God are swept aside in this ugly torrent of false religion, and struggle to show the world the true face of Jesus Christ.

We have a president who has turned our country upside down and insulted every principle for which America stands. Every day, he injures the people he has sworn to protect, degrades our way of life, and casts doubt upon our collective future.

We have a world where sweet red dogs get sick and die, and their lives slip away right through the very fingers of the people who love them best. And there are a thousand different ways every day to miss them.

All these things are true. I won't deny them.

But I won't give up or give in.

Against all logic, I will push on.

I will do what I can to make a difference in my little corner of the world.

I will love the people that God puts in my path.

I will let the darkness and the indifference and the outright hate flow right past me.

I will hope.

And I will write to you, now and again, to remind you that we still have daffodils.