Mom.

This past weekend, my Mom came to town, and we promptly set about painting it red.

She was coming into town for her annual “Sisters-In-Law Retreat,” and this year the destination of choice was Palo Alto!  I got to see some aunts and cousins, and we all attended my cousin Erin’s concert.  She is the world’s most fantastic Soprano, and soon to be a PhD in Vocal Performance.  It doesn’t get much more legit than that, I’m afraid.  And as if that weren’t enough, she has a sense of humor that has everyone in any room in constant stitches.

On Sunday, I wowed my Mom by showing her the world of Pinterest.  I'm afraid she has now caught the bug.  She's one of the most creative women I know, and so adding Pinterest to the mix could be combustible.  We also  went for a stroll and saw a guinea fowl running wildly through the apartment complex.  I chased it down to get a shot.

On Monday morning, we went for a three hour morning walk.  It poured rain the whole time.  We walked all through the neighborhood she was raised in and laughed so hard I’m sure we were disturbing the peace.  My Mom was born and raised here, and it’s so fun to see her in her old stomping grounds.  Every few seconds a memory would pop into her head and she’d have us go down a random side street where she’d say things like,

“Oh, this is where I used to ride my bike with so-and-so sitting on the handle bars.”

“You see that house?  So-and-so lived there.  She was this really brainy girl in my Latin class.”

“So-and-so’s Dad planted that tree and now look at it!”

“I used to come here with my Mom and we’d get a few treats and then go to the ballet.”

“I remember when I’d save up some money and come here for lunch in High School and get a roast beef sandwich on egg bread with original spread and pickles, and it was like living in the lap of luxury.”

“See what this person did with their house colors?  What they really should have done is made that white trim a creamier color so that you don’t feel like your eyes are being assaulted by all that baking-soda white.”

“Let’s move to the other side of the street so we don’t get whacked by all those agapanthus leaves.”

“Oh I love what this person did with that winding brick walkway.  It just looks so romantic.”

We ate Cheese House sandwiches, bought See’s chocolates, walked around the local fabric store, and then came home, grabbed some blankets, and watched (what else?) “Downton Abbey.”

I rarely get so much wonderful one-on-one time with my Mom, and it was a perfect weekend.

I’ve never been so sad to drive someone to the airport.

Thanks for such a golden weekend, Mom.

Eaton Park

I just remembered this and thought I should share. In the name of being an Eaton, and all.

On Memorial Day, I got a hankering to go on a hike. There are so many beautiful hikes around Palo Alto, and I happened upon one on the internet that was about 10 miles away from our apartment called "Eaton Park." Seriously. I took it as a sign.

It was about 3.4 miles round trip, and it took us through a dense, lush, hilly forest on a deserted path. It was the perfect way to spend Memorial Day morning/afternoon (and left us enough time to get home so Harry could work on some finals).



The view.



Smiles all around.



Trying to get a cool action shot of me blowing on the huge dandelion. Failing miserably.



Halfway point (which took us into the suburbs, and then back into the wilderness again).



The path was riddled with banana slugs. And I mean RIDDLED. At least they're a pretty color.



All finished.

A lot.

The other day, my friend K from Palo Alto called me just to say hi. It made my day. She also mentioned that if we're going to be away in La La Land all summer, would I mind getting off my lazy duff and updating this silly little internet blurb so that it was obvious I was still alive and kicking?

I told her I would gladly oblige.

Many many things have happened lately, and when I think about uploading all the pictures it makes me dizzy and faint and call out for some smelling salts. But I shall do my best.

We have moved to Santa Monica for the summer. Leaving Palo Alto and all our buddies (just for two months) was really hard. I can only imagine what that will be like in a year when Hal's graduated and we'll be leaving the bay area for good. I can't even talk about that anymore. I'm welling right up like a nincompoop.

In the name of chronological order, I will start from the beginning. And when I come to the end, I will stop.

I ran the Spring Fling 5K at Stanford. Harry met me at 3 different spots on the course (around campus) to cheer me on. It was so sweet of him! He got a few shots of me, and these are the only ones I will post on the internet ("mid-stride" isn't really my proudest camera pose). Harry and I attended a BBQ after and got to catch up with our Law School pals.




At the end of May, we drove up to Marin County to visit the MartinandSuzi chapter of the McOmber fam. We ate delicious barbequed delights, swam in the pool with the kiddies, and topped everything off with ice cream. Plus we got to drive on the Golden Gate bridge and through a long winding highway of vineyards for 2 hours each way. One of my favorite things.







Uncle M had a putting green installed in the backyard. I got a hole in one, and so did Hal! I never knew golf could give my sense of well being/confidence such an outrageous boost.

My beautiful and witty cousin Erin sang in "Don Giovanni," one of Mozart's operas, at the Presidio in SF (used to be a military base, but now all the beautiful old brick buildings have been converted into homes and offices and a concert hall that are right on the peninsula). If I could, I would make sure everyone could hear her amazing (and POWERFUL) soprano voice before dying. Oh, wait, maybe I can.





I love my cousins.

Before leaving Palo Alto, I got together with some girl friends (one of whom I would see for the last time!) and we ate Mexican food and gathered at the Redwood City Center for a giant outdoor broadcast of "Hitch." We all brought blankets and G brought milk duds and red vines. It was so much fun! Leave it to me to blink in a photo where THERE WAS NO FLASH (eye roll).




Also, we went to dinner at Il Fornaio with some friends to celebrate my birthday early, since we would be in LA when it actually happened. G even made me my own lemon birthday cake. True story: this cake is so tasty I couldn't bear to get rid of it when we moved. It's sitting in my freezer in Palo Alto. When I get back, I'm thawing it out and eating it.



My birthday rolled around. We had just made the move to Santa Monica the night before. So we went to the store, stocked up on essentials (milk and cereal), and then later wandered around Santa Monica. We hit the pier, the 3rd street Promenade, and the beach on foot- everything is within a mile of our home. Harry bought me some fun b-day clothes at H&M and we had a blast checking out shops and restaurants. I am one lucky duck.



That night Hal took me to get some sushi and frozen yogurt, and we came home and watched "The Company Men." True to form, I fell asleep for the last 15 minutes. But it was still an excellent movie. And an excellent way to celebrate turning a quarter century. My quarter-life crisis has yet to hit. Pictures of an Irvine family party are yet to come!

A fun part of living in LA is that we have family close by! We got to see Harry's cousins for dinner one night and play the Michael Jackson dancing game on Kinect. Everyone's inner-MJ came out. It was awesome. Harry and Chris delighted us with "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun."








We also got to hang out with Dan (sadly, the stunning Aja was out of town). We ate amazing food and got to catch up (I didn't get any photos, like a dufus)... right across the street from the Scientology Celebrity Center. Oh, LA. I think I might love you.

I've been working from home this summer (for the company I was working for in the bay area). Four hours a day I am sitting at a desk on my laptop, in my "uniform" (read: pajamas). It's been awesome.



Now for some BITTERsweet news. My sister E and her adorable family are moving to UT. It's going to be awesome for them in so many ways, but for me, it's like "The Wonder Years" aired it's last episode all over again. The melancholy will haunt me for months.

All the Eaton siblings gathered at her house last week to help pack up and move (Mom and Dad couldn't make it this weekend). That was actually a lot of fun. I remember once when I was 12, my parents took off to visit my grandparents, and it was just us kids at home. Elizabeth was 18, Mer was 16, and Cam was 10, and we had a blast hanging out together. I remember thinking, "Wow, we've got a good thing going here." This was kind of like that. Only even more fun.

We even spent some time with photo booth to commemorate the late nights laughing at our own stupid jokes.









Merzy called this one "Families are Forever:"


Weird thing about this one... it wasn't planned....


Babies J and I got to spend some QT together. They are just about the cutest and happiest babies I've ever laid eyes on.



If you've read to the end of this, you must be my mother. If you're not, hey, thanks for reading. You're a peach. I will leave you with a little diddy I can't stop listening to.

Imagine Dragons "It's Time" from The Occidental Saloon on Vimeo.

Goodbyes

I do believe Blogger hates me. It ate my last blog post and hasn't given it up yet, so I think it's gone for good. And I don't have the energy to post all those pictures again. Suffice it to say that life has been good and we are eating lots of chocolate chips and watching lots of Friday Night Lights and Downton Abbey, and enjoying the springtime weather (except for the allergies that unceasingly plague Harry's nasal passages).

Speaking of goodbyes, which we weren't, let it be known that I can't stand them.

Another school year is ending for our family ward here in Stanford/Palo Alto/Menlo Park, and it's all shades of depressing.

I was visit taught for the very last time today by these two fantastic ladies.



We all moved into this ward at the same time two years ago. We're all the same age and all graduated from BYU, but never knew each other while we were there. And they have been my visiting teachers since we moved into this ward. They've brought me cookies and always made me feel so loved and made it clear they were looking out for me. They helped us move, mourned with me while I looked for work, prayed for me when I kept getting sick over and over again. And in the next 2-3 weeks, we're all moving away. While Harry and I will be back for one more school year after this summer ends, these two will be on to bigger and better things, like the Bar exam, doctoral degrees, and this elusive "setting up roots in a permanent place" thing that people do when they aren't students anymore.

This is happening all over our ward right now. Women I have become good friends with and have looked up to over the last two years are kissing student housing goodbye and moving with their adorable families to other parts of the country, into actual homes (with actual dishwashers, laundry machines, driveways, garages, and multiple bedrooms). And while I'm so happy that everyone has a bright and cheery future, it's completely crumbling my heart into tiny grainy pieces.

And I'm really bad at saying goodbye to people in these situations. I can't stand it. It's probably not a good quality but it's easier for me to just let all this moving away happen without any big hurrahs. But let it be known that I will continue to blog stalk all my wonderful women and watch their kids get even more adorable and plentiful, and I'll be even more thrilled I got to spend a chunk of my life in their company.

If there's a Menlo Park Ward Alumni Association in Heaven, I hope there's a big party planned for when we're all there someday. I will bring chocolate chip cookies or a bundt cake or lemon bars.

The Secret Garden

When I was but a young buck and a freshman in High School, our family decided to have a Palo Alto Thanksgiving with some extended family.

My first Cross Country season had just barely ended. My sister E has always been a runner herself, so we planned weeks ahead of time to go on a Palo Alto run together. The first night we all arrived in Palo Alto, E and I pulled on our running gear and headed out the door.

Running in Palo Alto is unlike running anywhere else. Most of the year, the air is lush, cool, and smells like eucalyptus. The streets are narrow and tree lined. E and I took haphazard turns down beautiful streets at our own whimsy. Randomly we happened upon a beautiful garden that was open to the public. It was made up of plotted squares with lanes of gravel that ran between them. The garden boasted exotic flowers, bushes, trees, vines, and an enormous vegetable patch. There were bird baths and benches and an enormous white gazebo in the center. That has remained a very fond memory to me—winding through a random garden with my sister at dusk in Palo Alto.

When I moved back ten years later, husband in tow, that garden was in the back of my mind. I didn’t make any efforts to find it though. I think I didn’t want to go looking for it, I honestly hoped I would just hear about it or magically find it. As if I live in a Disney movie or something. Very realistic.

When we first moved here one of the very first things I did was plot a run on Google Maps that would take me from our apartment to the house where my mother was raised (in the older part of Palo Alto). It’s a stunning house with white wood siding and navy shutters with waning moons carved in them and a brick walkway. Every so often I run to the house and back (if I’m feeling ambitious—round trip it’s about 7 miles) and stand outside it. Correction: I stand outside it across the street so I don’t look like I’m a stalker. And then I let the waves of nostalgia wash over me and wish my grandparents were still alive and still lived there. And then I decide that if I ever become a billionaire I’m buying it (from the billionaire who lives there now).

A few weeks ago I was running to the house on a cool, overcast Saturday morning. I was just minding my own beeswax and drinking in the smell of freshly cut lawn when I peaked down a random road perpendicular to the street I was running on. And all of a sudden… there it was.

I found the garden.







I felt like Mary Lennox in that part of “The Secret Garden” when she realizes the key in fact fits in the lock, and the robin led her to the right door.

I immediately called E (got voicemail—and no, I’m pretty sure she doesn’t screen my calls but she is a busy mother of 3.99 children) and left her a wheezy and breathless voicemail that sounded like:

“OhmygoshIfoundthatgardenthatwewentrunningthroughinNovember1999andit’sexactlylikeitwasthendoyourememeberwhatI’mtalkingabout??”

It was completely quiet and deserted, and I wandered through it, snapping pictures with my phone, wandering down every lane, and drinking in the smell. It's the Elizabeth Gamble Garden (I decided I should probably find out the name...) on Waverly and Churchill.

It’s now one of my favorite spots in Palo Alto. I plan on bringing a book here one Saturday and just hanging out on a bench with the squirrels. And I guess Harry can come too.

Life at Stanford

A Typical Email:

Easter baskets, Sarrison style

The Easter Bunny was very good to us this year.

I received my Easter goods in one of these



(Loot pictured below)



Harry received an Easter basket that reflects his true inner self.



A Bad-A Basket for a Bad-A man (we don't believe in actually paying money for the basket part. It's more treats, less basket in this house).

He knows me too well.

I made him hunt for his basket. In this shoe box we live in, it took all of 15 seconds of "Warmer... Colder... Hot! Hot! Very hot!" to track it down.



Apparently the Easter Bunny was a bit dim-witted this year. Both of us wound up with the same album as well as the same Haribo berries.

Luckily now we have enough treats to last us until next Easter. Clint, can you please fill our subsequent cavities?

Don't worry. We can pay you in John Mayer albums and gummy raspberries.