Night of Beauty

I have written before about Ardyth's birthday gift to me--an "Activity of the Month." For March, the activity was a beautification event--facials, manicures, pedicures. But we thought it would be good to include the other females in our family, so our "Night of Beauty" was organized for last evening. Everyone gathered at my house about 6 p.m., bringing what beauty products they had, as well as a family staple: FOOD!

First, the food was set out. We had Taco Soup, a great green salad with homemade dressing, chips, crackers, dips, bread chunks with Spinach dip, Raspberry Strippers, homemade baking powder biscuits with garlic butter, peanut butter bars, and probably other things I'm not remembering. With this family, food seems to be all-important at family gatherings.




Once dinner was out of the way, we set out the tools of beautification.




For facials, the steps included:
1. Cleansing
2. Facial scrub to remove dead skin
3. Steaming, to open the pores
4. Applying the facial mask to deep clean the pores
5. Removing said facial mask
6. Appreciating the softness of our skin when this process was done

On to pedicures or manicures. We have a massaging foot bath that was used by those who were patient enough to wait their turn, otherwise there were bowls of very warm water to soak feet in. The massaging foot bath felt very good. There were foot creams, then time to trim and paint toenails. Mine are a nice shade of purple. Too early for sandals in this part of the country, but if I am barefoot for any reason--they do jump right out at you.




All the tools were available for a manicure, including emery boards and nail buffers, orange sticks, cuticle creams, nail polish, etc.



We enjoyed the evening, it's always fun when just us girls get together. We have periodic "Girls Nights" or "Days," just not often enough. Heffalump even came down for this one. Can't wait to see what we do next!

Adventures in Spokane

Spokane, Washington, is a pretty little town. At least, what little bit I get to see of it each year. Our Sweet Adelines region has been holding our yearly convention in Spokane for the past couple of years, and apparently will hold two or three more in the future.

Competition is held at the Convention Center, which is housed right beside the Spokane River. Along the river is a delightful walkway, with statues along the way depicting life in Spokane. The river itself is pretty--not as big of course, as the Columbia River or the Willamette in Portland, but a nice river. There's a set of falls near the Convention Center that are pretty rapid in later months, but pretty tame on this visit. I believe the original name of Spokane was "Spokane Falls." I've not walked the whole walkway, perhaps next year I'll attempt it if there's time, and depending on how far this walkway goes. This year we enjoyed many walks between our hotel and the Convention Center and Headquarters hotel (Red Lion at the Park), because the shuttle buses that were supposed to transport us to and from these places were either late or full. But the weather was great (although a little chilly), so a lot of the time we opted to walk--not wanting to stand around waiting for a bus. I certainly got my exercise in this weekend!

One of these years I'd like to come into town a day early, when my time is my own, and explore. My in-laws were both born and raised here. I'd like to see more of their home town and try to imagine what life was like for them back in the 1920's and '30's.

What an adventure that would be--recreating their adventure!

Life's' Little Adventures

Lately, I've been thinking about this *Adventure* we call life. A couple of people I know are about to embark on a grand adventure--moving across country. Okay, so one is only moving across her state, but when the lady from the Sweet Adeline's chorus I'm a member of told me she was thinking about driving to the Washington DC area instead of flying there, I began to wish I could have a great adventure, myself. But as I thought more about these lucky people, the thought came to me to look for my own adventures in my back yard. So I began to think some more.

Last week I listened to a man at the Clark Co. Genealogical Society as he gave us a run-down on his life, and I thought "What an adventure!" He grew up in upstate NY, lost both his parents when he was pretty young, and embarked on his life's adventure when he joined the Air Force and spent the next 20 years or more, traveling the world. As he told his story I began to think of the other adventures I was aware of that other people have had or are still having:

1. My grandmother, traveling in a wagon train from Marysville, Kansas to Boise, Idaho
2. My mother, driving in a model T from Marysville, Kansas to La Grande, Oregon with her parents and sisters.
3. My gg grandmother's sister-in-law traveling from New Mexico to Idaho with her family in one of the last wagon trains to cross the Oregon Trail.
4. All those pioneers who came west in the 1800's from comfortable homes to the wilderness.
5. All those brave souls who left their comfortable homes in Germany, England, and other countries, boarded a ship and sailed for many weeks in crowded conditions to come to America.
6. Those people still coming to our country from overseas to a world that is strange to them.

And I'm sure you can think of more examples. As I thought about this, I realized that in most cases, they did not think they were having an "adventure." This was "life" to them. How many of us have *adventures* but fail to recognize them as such?

I thought of some of my *adventures* that I did not recognize at the time, not necessarily in order of occurrence:

1. My family's own moves, to and from the Seattle area.
2. Snowmobiling in Yellowstone National Park.
3. Driving across country with my mother, two small daughters and our dog as we returned to her hometown of Marysville, Kansas.
4. The weekend in Las Vegas when my mother-in-law received her Masters degree in Nutrition.
5. Traveling by train to Colorado to visit my dad with 4 year-old twins and 6 year-old son.
6. Our yearly car trip to Colorado Springs to visit my dad--this year will be our 18th trip.
7. Sweet Adelines' annual Regional Competition, this year held in Spokane.
8. The births of each of my six children and how they changed myself and our family.
9. Traveling to Salt Lake City with the Clark Co. Genealogical Society to spend a week at the Family History Library.

I'm sure there are more, but these are the ones which came immediately to mind.

A trip to the grocery store can be an adventure for some people! I have come to the conclusion that we need to look outside the box and realize that our lives are an adventure, whether we ever leave familiar grounds or not. Some day, our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will look on our lives and think that we lived in adventurous times, just like we look back on our own grandparents' and great-grandparents' lives. If we take the time to record our life's adventures, we can share it with them. While it might just be *life* to us, in the eyes of someone else it can become an adventure.

And with a change of attitude, our *life* can become an adventure to us, too! Bon Voyage!