Gav Loves Our New House!

Phew.

She had spent the first part of her spring break on a road trip to her dad’s lake house—I told her friends that all the best design elements were my idea—and then she flew from New York and I flew from Wisconsin to Salt Lake.

Our rendezvous went perfectlly! I landed just enough ahead of her to go pick up my car and pick her up, with the traffic patrollers keeping cars moving outside the terminal very kindly telling me that there were two escalators passsengers could take so she was probably at the one I was not at and sure enough, she was!

We stopped for dinner and an excellent Margarita and then I introduced her to her new home and she loves it!

Oh my goodness, she was running from one floor to another and squealing with delight! And, she likes her room! And the walk in closet.

She slept with me the first night , so we could cuddle and I loved that.

One night we went to see Ballet West and guess what, I have a new favorite ballet company and so does Gav. They did Jerome Robbin’s Glass Pieces and then a new Carmina Burana.

Wow. I think they had a 60-person chorus on stage, they were on the top half, the dancers were on the bottom half and they blew us AWAY. Wow. The curtains opened and the chorus just blasted us (in a good way) with their voice.

And the dancers, wow. NYCB dancers are lissome. These dancers were a little more cut. Beautiful ballet dancers with with an athleticism that had great energy. And ballsy. I remember when I first arrived in New York and went to NYCB and saw two male dancers launch a ballerina into the air toward a spot where her catchers had not yet arrived. The timin was unbelievable. And I was hooked on ballet.

Ballet West did moves like that tthough the whole hour. It was a little like ice dancing, which some classicist might spit on but I love art that grows with the world it’s in.

Here’s Gav doing a Ballet West leap post show.

Wow. It was incredible. Three opera singers —a baritone, a tenor and a flirtatious soprano were also on stage. Blew me away.

What was fun was the next night we went out to dinner with my brother Rob and his wife, Angie, who was actually in the chorus for a previous version of the show. But in her version, the chorus was in the boxes on either side of the stage, not on stage.

Anyway, amazing.

Gav and I had a fabulous day of skiing—50 degree temperatures, lots of friendly ski bums, no crowds and she has decided to become a ski bum. Liked her mama and her sister. Phew. That’s a relief!

Here are some ski shots!

She did a ton of practice driving—I had rented a car through Turo, the Airbnb of car rental, so she could practice. Mine is a stick. And she did GREAT!

Here she is posing next to a moose crossing sign we encountered while we were driving near our pad!

And then we had tons of cozy time, she cooked, we watched a gratifyingly silly and romantic movie, Austenland.

She made it back to school safe and sound.

So today, Eliana, shown below in her spring skiing regalia near a splash pond that were all part of the end-of-season celebrations at Whitefish, is headed off on a ten-day river rafting trip on the Green River. They’re going though Desolation Canyon. A late spring snow storm is nipping at her heels.

”Don’t worry Mama,” she texted me, “I have good gear.”

”I know,“ I texted back, “I just have to stick to the agreement that I signed when you were born, swearing to always fret about you.”

Isn't she cute?