On Becoming 50

It's my 50th birthday.  It's been coming for a while now, and so I was not a bit surprised when I woke up and it was my big day.  I took the day off work because really, who wants to work on their birthday?  I had WAAAAAY too much celebrating to do to be bothered with work. While I didn't do things that might have been fabulous (spend 50 days in Italy, eat 50 scoops of ice cream, have 50 of my favorite people over for food), I was able to do lots of other fabulous things, most of them thanks to Mikayla, that made the day terrific!

Before we even get to today's celebrating, Linda and Gregg Pugmire sent me Crumbl Cookies on Saturday. They were out of town and certain they would not be back in time for my party (Linda was invited), so they had cookies delivered to mark the occasion. They were delicious! It was nice of them to honor my day, and even nicer when they got home on Monday so Linda could come celebrate with me at lunch today.

Oreo, chocolate chip, chocolate caramel, peanut butter

YUM-O!

I got up early to go bike with Maureen (not 50 miles), and when I went outside, I discovered the front lawn was covered with balloons--50, in fact, on little sticks. It looked like we had a balloon infestation that needed to be sprayed. I don't know who put them there, but they were festive and fun and I'm grateful to whoever planted them. Sadly, it was a windy day, and by noon, a great many of them had blown away or deflated, leaving sticks sticking out of the ground all lonely and unadorned.

When I got back from biking, I made honey bran muffins and scrambled eggs for breakfast. Delicious! 

Last week, Utah moved from Orange to Yellow on the Covid-19 quarantine scale, so Mikayla and I went for a pedicure. It was the first time in months and months, and I was delighted to have my feet worked on, my toes painted, and a really great leg massage. I felt pampered! I had my toes painted the same color as my dress, and was tickled every time I looked down at my feet.

Mikayla wanted us to have BIG birthday celebrating--girls weekend, huge party, wildness--but we're just coming out of a two months long quarantine, and she had to temper her expectations.  We did feel that an intimate gathering of friends, eating outside in the backyard, would be entirely appropriate, so in the early afternoon, we had a lovely meal provided by Mikayla and my mom, and visited with many of my favorite people. We had curry chicken salad, bridal shower chicken salad, caprese, and fruit, with peach Melba for dessert. All delish! We should have taken a picture of all of us at the party, but I was too busy visiting and didn't think about it. Everyone brought me a gift, which was unnecessary but fun, and although it was a bit windy (minor gale-force winds), it was lovely to be outside in the backyard visiting while we ate.

Those in attendance: Mikayla, Mom, Aunt Georgianne, Aunt Darlene, Tysen and Ava, Sharae, Sharon, Paula Hamblin, Linda Pugmire, Barbara Niven, Andrea Blad, Maureen Ogles, Janie Rasmussen, Ramona Stice, Stacie Mason, Suzan Nelson, Eva Fisher

After adios and clean-up, I rested and read while gearing up for the next part of the celebrating. I had ordered take out Indian food from Bombay House for me and Kent, and Panda Express for the kids, and we had plans to pick it up simultaneously in two cars, then eat together. Unfortunately, Richard Ledford had an episode, and Kent had to go save him, so I went to get food which I ate with the kids. Kent got home just about the time the birthday parade part of the partying happened.  

Mikayla sent out an online invitation through our neighborhood Google group for people to come wish me a happy birthday. She wrote words to go along with the Pancake Robot song which made for a darling invite! Here is her message.

The cupcake robot is coming to town
He's heard there is a birthday and he's making his rounds.
White cake, yellow cake, or chocolate chip,
Katherine has turned 50; he's gonna flip!

Kate Barrus' birthday is here at last
50 years have flown by so amazingly fast
With her sparkling smile and her contagious laughter
She's gonna serve the world, cause she's the friendship master!

Hello Everyone,
This is a (goofy) virtual invitation to come celebrate Katherine Barrus' 50th birthday tomorrow evening, Tuesday May 19th, 2020 from 7 - 7:30 pm with a drive-by parade. Please come by and say hello and wish Katherine a happy birthday. Cupcakes will be served!
Thanks,
Mikayla Johnsen

Mikayla, Mom, and Ava had all made cupcakes, and as many people drove by to wish me a happy birthday, Mikayla distributed cupcakes. All the DeMartinis came over to see me, including Bryan and his kids, although they didn't get out of the car or take a cupcake which I thought was a bummer. But I was so glad to see them!! Sarah Westerberg also stopped by at the end of parade time which was so great because we visited for quite a while. Neighbors brought me gifts, several sang, and everyone was so kind. And there were cupcakes, too!

Neighbors who drove (or walked) by: Elizabeth Cutler, Shon and Shelly Whitney, Charlene Doman (on her bike), Charles and Heather Helquist, Nelson and Hilary Davis along with Sam, the Banks, the Bradfords, the Bergevins who walked by, Wendy Bird, all the Blads, Brian and Briahna Bushman, Stephen and Jeri Covey, the Drakes and the Fickers who both golf carted over, though separately, Ryan and Elizabeth Elder who also rode their bikes, Chris and Corene Jensen who brought the orange sign, Dennis and Rose Mary Lindberg who walked over, Cinda Morgan, Adam and Meghann Nebeker, Tami and Rachel Oyler who also walked across the street for a visit, Becky Phillips, Gregg and Linda Pugmire along with Sydney, Jason, and Taylor, John and Angela Richards, all the Seamons, Dakin Stovall and the younger kids walked over for a cupcake, Kerrie and Jake Thornock, Robbie MacArthur, Richard and Dorothy Jensen.

Birthday balloons courtesy of Mikayla. 

She was up until 3:00am blowing them up.

I texted to thank her for the balloons that were all over the yard, and she said,

while looking at all the balloons she had, "What balloons? I didn't put balloons in your yard."

But then she came this morning and put up others.

As if Mikayla hadn't already done so much, she topped off the day with a basket full of fun gifts, including a video she put together of 50ish people who said incredibly nice things about me. Family and dear friends included messages that made me laugh and cry and warmed my heart.  I wanted to give the video my undivided attention, so I didn't watch it immediately, but waited until the morning (it was a bad sleeping night), before I went to work, to enjoy it.

It was a wonderful day!  I felt loved and appreciated, almost to the point of embarrassment, almost like I was watching people share nice things at my funeral.  BUT! 50 isn't really all that old (that's my story and I'm sticking with it), so I'm going to continue to enjoy all that life has to offer.


Here are a couple of text messages I received, as well as some very nice things people shared on Facebook.

Hi Hun,

Hope you had a super happy birthday.  You are one amazing gal.  I truly love you and admire you. You inspire me in so many ways.

Becky Phillips

Happy belated birthday to one of the most amazing women I know. I hope it was as truly amazing as you.
Keyaira

"You don't look a day over 32!" said Ford Stevenson. He says all the right things!

Rosemary Bosco said, "On you it looks great!" What a sweetie!

Hey Katherine! Happy 50th birthday! Thanks for being the awesomest aunt ever! From the fun childhood memories (swimming in your parents pool, having Brandt and Blythe visit me and Char at the Scera, sleeping over at your place when our parents were out of town, introducing us to Chicken Run and Wallace and Gromit, having fun books, ping pong wars, etc) and the fun dinners, game nights, family get togethers and parties! Thank you for your love and support for me my whole life, especially with school and a mission. I really, really appreciate it! Love ya and have an awesome birthday!  Annie

My dear neighbor, Elizabeth Cutler, sent me a digital birthday card that starts out seemingly serious. A voice over narrative begins to speak about the North American Black-tailed Prairie Dog and a ritual they seem to be preparing for. Then, a prairie dog pokes up from a hole with a party hat on its head. Then many prairie dogs in party hats sing happy birthday, surrounded by presents and balloons. I watched it three times and laughed and laughed every time. So, so funny!

In the video, Mikayla and her gang sang and danced to not one but TWO songs about me being 50. One was to the music for "Breakfast Burrito" and one was to the music for "Raining Tacos." Words and dancing were hilarious! I absolutely loved them both!

Old Friends

I met up with Paula Hamblin and Lisa Christensen today.  They are old friends--not in the aged sense, but in the years of shared experience and love sense.  Those are the best kind.  I suppose age plays a small part, simply because we've known each other long enough that we're aging, but we're none of us old yet.  We had lunch and talked and talked and talked.  Sadly, it was early out for school, so I had to leave sooner than I would have liked.  But the company was stellar, the talk uplifting, and the time spent together soul nourishing.

Girls' Night Out

This evening I had a date with girlfriends.  About once a month, I go to dinner with Heidi Tanner, Christine Baird, Maureen Ogles, and usually Cinda Morgan, who wasn't with us tonight because of work stuff.  Bummer!  Tonight we added in a movie, one we all wanted to see and figured we should make it a doubly fun evening with both food and entertainment, although we are always entertained when we are together.  We saw Victoria and Abdul, a movie based on the real-life relationship between Queen Victoria and an Indian man named Abdul Karim.  We all liked it.  We went to dinner at a sushi restaurant where none of us ate sushi, but which was still delicious.  It was great fun being together. 

Biking Buddies

All summer long, in the early morning, I have been biking with Maureen, Janie, and Janie's friend Jessica.  The mornings have been nice and cool, though of late.  I love the time to be on my bike, with friends, to exercise and talk and enjoy the beauty of a quiet morning.  We've seen lots of deer and managed not to be hit by a car.  I have had four flat tires, three in one day, but all in all, it has been a lovely biking summer.  I hope to bike outside until the end of September and am eagerly anticipating Goldilocks, an all-women's bike ride, on September 24th.  Here's to riding!

Maureen and me.

Janie, me, and Jessica

To give Jessica a bit of a break, she is standing on the sloping driveway and is not

really as short as she looks in this picture.

A Weekend Get Away

This weekend I traveled to Silverton, CO with Maureen and Cinda to visit Heidi.  Heidi is spending the summer working for her mom and we miss her.  We all needed some time away, and a trip to see a friend is always a good excuse (as if we needed one!).  The drive is long--six hours--but it's beautiful, up into the high Rockies.  We talked and laughed as we went, and oohed and ahhed over the scenery.  I'd never been to Colorado before, and I loved the jagged mountains.

Heidi showed us a good time.  We did shopping on the main street through town.  Heidi's mom, dad, and sister each own a shop and we visited them all.  We stayed at Heidi's sister Teki's house, and ate dinner in one night and out the next.  We played cards and talked and laughed.  We played cards one night with Heidi's mom.  Darren, Simon, and Jack had all been given the word that they couldn't come home and they had to leave us alone.  We did get to see them, however, which was good.  Heidi's got good guys.

Teki has a Jeep that seats five and she drove us up into the mountains, even higher than we already were.  Silverton is at 9,100 feet, and we drove up above the tree line, probably to 11,500 feet.  The canyon we drove up was just beautiful, with waterfalls coming down practically every little ravine.  The wildflowers were in bloom, and the mountains still patched with snow here and there.  We saw hundreds of sheep being driven up to higher pasture.  They made an awful lot of noise.  We saw lots of old mining equipment and structures.  The vistas were breathtaking, and not just because we were at such high elevation.

This weekend was also the running of the Hard Rock 100, a 100 mile endurance run through the mountains surrounding Silverton.  The runners are given 48 hours to complete the course, and have to make check points by certain time cut-offs.  The elevation changes go from 7,000 to 14,000 feet, and the running is not on trails all the time.  It is serious backcountry running.  I was so amazed that anyone would want to do the race.  They only allow 150 people to run the race, but they get over 3,000 entrants to the lottery.  The two men who won--they came in holding hands--finished in just under 23 hours.  I saw the fourth guy who came in at just under 26 hours.  And all together we watched the first woman finish.  She came in at 29 hours, 2 minutes.  I was blown away by their abilities.  It was awesome to see them finish.

It was a wonderful trip and a great time with friends.  I appreciate Maureen, Heidi, and Cinda and our friendship.  They are amazing, fun, bright women and I'm honored to be able to associate with them.  I think we need to plan our next trip away for early September.

To get to Silverton the way we went, you pass up and over the Million Dollar Highway.  It is a scary bit of road.  On one side is the towering steep mountain, and on the other is a steep ravine.  The two lane road snakes up the mountain.  So beautiful, but really nerve wracking.  Just past the top, we had to stop for about 20 minutes.  They were working on the road and because it's only two lane, they have to close one side.  We all got out of the car and wandered around for a bit, stretching the legs and building a cairn by the side of the road.  There were lots of cairns.  This picture above was the view from the side of the road. 

Silverton has an old cemetery on the hillside.  Lots of old stone monuments and old markers that are no longer legible.  It was an interesting cemetery and while Heidi drove us through on Friday afternoon, I leapt out and took pictures.

 

This statue was over the headstone of John Gerard Clancy who died in 2005.  There was a quote from St. Teresa of Avila on it that said, 

"Oh Death, Death I do not know who fears you, since life lies in you."  

 

  

After Friday's dinner we went for a little walk.  We came upon a monument honoring Italian immigrants from Trento who helped settle Silverton.  

I saw lots of Italians buried in the cemetery, too.

Saturday morning Heidi and I were awake before Maureen and Cinda.  We went out to see if any runners were coming in, and as we had about 40 minutes before the next guy was due, we drove up a canyon to see if we could see any wildlife.  We were hoping for a moose.  Or a beaver.  No luck, however.  We did see some deer way up high on the side of the mountain, and we saw a rock chuck, but even though we drove very close to a couple of beaver dams, the beavers were apparently still asleep.  They aren't early risers, I guess.  Just checked the internet, they aren't daytime creatures at all.  They are nocturnal.  We should have been there in the middle of the night.  

I desperately wanted to see a beaver gliding through that clear water.

 

No. 4 guy on left, No. 1 woman on right.

He's Jeff Browning and she's Anna Frost

I saw this sticker on a window as we were waiting for Anna to come in.

That's pretty much how I feel about running.

We wandered around Silverton on Saturday morning and afternoon.  We watched the train from Durango come in.  We shopped.  I helped Olivia, the daughter of a shop owner, retrieve a Lego bow from under the boardwalk.  Then we drove up the canyon.  Pictures as proof.

 

A bystander suggested that Heidi take a picture of my bum.

So she did.

I found it absolutely unnecessary.

And yet here I am, posting it on the blog.

Heidi's bum to come.

All the next pictures are from our drive up to Emma Lake, which is no longer a lake.

In this little glen is a small cemetery.

We stopped to see the headstones.

The road we were driving up to see the cemetery.

Have I mentioned the waterfalls coming down between every ridge?

As we were driving up, we passed several animal transport trucks.

Teki said they were likely taking sheep up the mountain for summer grazing.

As we drove, we saw them, hundreds and hundreds.

They made a lot of noise!

I promised Heidi's bum.

Field of wildflowers.

We drove up above the treeline.  

Elevation between 11,000 and 12,000 feet.

A very large rock chuck that scampered across the mining remainders 

and tucked himself under a railroad tie.

Snow blocking a mine entrance.

I'm taking a picture of Maureen taking a picture of Heidi.

After our beautiful drive, we did some more shopping, making sure we hit almost all the shops on Main Street.  We had a delicious meal together, then took a short drive up above Silverton to a 16-foot tall statue of Jesus that stands on the mountain, called Christ of the Mines Shrine.  It was put there in 1958 in the hopes that there would be a resurgence in mining during a depressed economic period.  It was apparently successful as several new tunnels were started within months of its arrival.  The view from the statue is beautiful, but the elevation at Silverton is so high, even the short hike up to the statue left me breathless.  Heidi had me pull her up the mountain.  

We spent the rest of the evening playing cards with Heidi's mom at her parent's house above their shop.  We played Phase 10 and talked and laughed.  I didn't take any pictures.

Sunday morning we all went to church.  The branch is quite small though there were lots of visitors.  A large family having a family reunion was there and they added a level of noise I'm certain the regular congregation is not used to.  Heidi's mom had asked me to lead the singing which I happily did.  Darren prepared and blessed the sacrament; Simon and Jack passed.  We left after sacrament meeting, sad to be going.  One more day would have been terrific.  It was a delight to spend the weekend with my friends, and I'm grateful for the connections I have with Heidi, Maureen, and Cinda.