It’s kind of hard to get my mind back on track for the end-of-semester push after basically being on vacation for two and a half weeks. The start of that vacation was Jake’s visit to State College three weekends ago. I did manage to get some work done after I dropped him off at the airport that Monday morning, but the evening was spent mostly scrambling to get ready. Tuesday morning the 17th I did go into campus to attend Jon Petters’ PhD defense (congrats, Dr Petters!), but that was about all I accomplished before I decided to head out.
On Tuesday the 17th I drove to Ann Arbor in a shade under 6 hours, the quickest I’d ever done that trip. Taking only one stop between here and there sure helps cut down travel time. I was in a bit of a hurry to get there because I wanted to make it in time for the start of Alex’s Bible study with some of the other grad students and young professionals from his church. (I did make it on time, but I had a bit of a close call in central Ohio when the woman in the car ahead of me got pulled over. Phew!) It was cool to be there for that Bible study and to meet so many of his friends from his church. They really seemed like a good group of people. And I got to join them for their usual post-Bible study tradition of going to B-Dubs for half-price wings too. I’d definitely say all that was more fun than sticking around for my NWP class that afternoon. 🙂 Before we went to bed I parked my car on the street in front of Ash & Heather’s house in Ann Arbor that they’re renting out. It sure was nice to have a place to park for free for a week and a half where I didn’t have to worry about getting towed! I did loan Alex a key just in case there was plowable snow before he left for Thanksgiving, though.
Alex dropped me off at the Detroit airport early the next morning, on Wednesday the 18th. I had a short layover in Minneapolis on my way to Spokane, and it felt odd to land at MSP and not go straight to baggage claim. While in Spokane I stayed at my uncle Larry & aunt Marilyn’s house. My cousins Jonathan, Maren & Melissa all live in Spokane too (Melissa & Jeremy moved back to Spokane from Phoenix a couple months ago, but Marci & Marc are still down there), so I got to see quite a bit of them too. 
Jonathan was basically my chauffeur while I was out there, picking me up and dropping me off at the airport, both for my flights and for my rental car that I got so I could go down to Yakima for Tim & Hilary’s wedding. That first night that I was there, Melissa & Jeremy and their kids came over, and Jonathan and his girlfriend Lindsey made Thai chicken pizza for everyone. Mmmm, delicious! Jonathan & Lindsey had rented “Star Trek” on DVD (they hadn’t seen it yet), so I watched it with them at Lindsey’s apartment after dinner. I was a-okay seeing that again, it’s such a good movie!
On Thursday the 19th after Jonathan got back from work, he & I went to an Irish pub in downtown Spokane to meet up with Lindsey and Jonathan’s best friend Craig for dinner and a few beers. And with Craig’s brother being the bartender, service was great! 🙂 The walls of that pub were covered with dollar bills, and I could’ve gotten a dollar bill pinned up there too had I hopped atop the bar and sung a song. I did think about hopping up there to sing “Fight on State” or something like that for a little bit, but wound up chickening out, hehe.
On Sunday morning the 22nd I awoke to snow falling and covering the ground — at which point I was a bit relieved that I came back from Yakima the night before instead of waiting until the morning. After going to church with Jonathan we dropped off my rental car, and then had lunch at Lindsey’s while watching a little football. As an aside, I’ll just say that it felt odd to come out of church before noon and have the early NFL games already be at halftime, or to have the night games end by 8 or 9pm. As far as that goes, while it’d take some getting used to, I think I like Pacific time more than Eastern time (everything starts so late here!), but I still really like Central time zone.
Later that afternoon was the highlight of my visit to Spokane — learning how to make lefse! For those of you who don’t know what lefse is, it’s potato flatbread. Basically, think of it as Norwegian tortillas, haha. Jonathan, Lindsey & I got back to the house as Melissa was almost done peeling potatoes, so I jumped in and helped peel a couple. After they were done I went up to the bedroom and updated my facebook status to say that I was making lefse. I came right back to the kitchen after that, at which point Jeremy, who was on his iPhone and apparently taking a break from Bejeweled Blitz (which he proceeded to get both Jonathan and me hooked on), gave me a hard time and told me, “I don’t think peeling a couple potatoes counts as ‘making lefse.'” I laughed because it’d been maybe 10-15 seconds since I’d updated my facebook status, haha. Melissa was also giving me a hard time, telling me that I needed to do more than peel two potatoes if I wanted to eat any of the lefse. 🙂 Melissa showed Lindsey, Jonathan and me how to mix the dough, and we each took our turns at that. I also learned what a ricer, lefse roller and lefse stick were. Then after Melissa let Spencer & Madeleine roll a few doughballs into lefse, the rest of us took over. When Jonathan ran over to Maren’s place to pick up a second breadboard and griddle, that sped things up even more. We made a lot of lefse, around five dozen. Marilyn was excited that I was learning a family tradition, and called my parents to tell them. Now it’s my job to teach my parents, brothers and my future kids how to make it too. 🙂
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
On Sunday night Jonathan, Lindsay & I went over to Craig’s house to hang out a bit and watch the end of the Sunday Night Football game in his hot tub (he has a big-screen TV right there, best seat in the house!). Then on Monday night, my last night in Spokane, the four of us met up with some other friends of theirs to go to the Eric Hutchinson concert downtown. 
I’d never heard of him before Jonathan asked me if I wanted to go, but I’ve found that I enjoyed his music. It was a fun concert, and he really has a good stage presence. I also liked how he and the other band members all had a shirt and tie on. They looked (and sounded) sharp and professional. Eric Hutchinson’s an up-and-coming musician, who does mostly what I’d call “piano rock,” though he also plays acoustic and electric guitar. Here’s a music video for one of his most popular songs:
For the most part I basically took it easy and relaxed during the days at Larry & Marilyn’s while Jonathan was at work, putzing around on my computer, reading a bit, and chatting with Larry & Marilyn. I also helped out with taking care of Marilyn a few times while Larry was gone at business appointments. Marilyn has been fighting cancer for about three years now, and back in mid-October a CAT scan surprised everyone (including all the doctors), revealing that the tumor in her neck had grown too big and too dangerous on which to operate. They also decided to stop doing chemotherapy treatments, so the prognosis wasn’t good. But she’s hanging in there and still fighting. She has good days and bad days, as might be expected. We’re all praying that God will work a miracle and heal her completely, but whatever happens, God is sovereign. Through her illness she’s impacted many people for Christ, including when, shortly after the bad news from the doctors in October, she & Larry invited all their neighbors over to their house, and Marilyn shared her testimony with them. That was pretty inspirational and glorifying to God! I won’t soon forget that. I’m so glad that I was able to see her and spend some quality time with her over the few days I was there.
It was a good first trip to Washington. I was glad to have the opportunity to hang out with my cousin Jonathan too, and to see Melissa and Maren again. I look forward to other visits to Spokane, including hopefully making a drive there across the Cascades around the time of the AMS Annual Meeting in Seattle in January 2011. I’ve been trying to coax Jonathan to come out for a Penn State football game too, but things haven’t worked out yet. Hopefully it will work sometime before I graduate, I’d love to show him around State College!