Hiking the Appalachian Trail

This week's envelope goes out to some great hiking pals.  Anthony Joseph, his son and I shared one of the most memorable experiences of my life.  We decided to plan a hike along the Appalachian Trail and during our hike, we stumbled across a "dropped" bear cub only a few days old.

  

We immediately were concerned about the dangers of encountering an angry mama bear but after a few hours watching from a distance, determined that mama was not likely coming back.  There was something clearly wrong with the poor cub and it could not get up and move around.  We debated for so long about what to do.  We knew a ranger station was near by, so after much debate and realizing that either way, the cub would likely die if we didn't take him to the ranger station. 

We wrapped him up and took him to the Rangers where we hope they were able to save him.  The rangers seemed positive that they could help the cub get healthy.   

I enjoyed this painting and like to remember the cute little cub in a healthy state like shown on my envelope.  We hope he made it.  

Daredevil

I remember watching Ryan backflip off a cliff - making it look easy and wishing I could do it.  Although I grew up on skis, I've never been that comfortable when the sticks are in the air.  Ryan was agile, athletic and graceful and it impressed me. 

Just like he is on skis, Ryan and his family run an impressive show in family life - making the most difficult parental maneuvers look effortless.  I did this envelope for one of my life-long friends while contemplated all the reasons I love, miss and admire him and his family.  

Ryan and I met 25 years ago in Russia while serving on our missions and have remained fast friends since then.  He continues to lead me in examples of adventurous and wholesome (and sometimes dangerous) living.  

Nice Ride...

It's a little rough on a 45 year old ego when you're jealous of the 17 year old kid's ride down the street.  Kehler is that kid.  He's got this '68 Bug that is so cool.  I've always wanted one of these classics.  I had a blast painting this special envelope for him.  

I owed Kehler.  See, in addition to owning a sweet ride, he's a genius when it comes to electronics and while here in Baghdad, my family was having some technical difficulties with some home theatre equipment.  Kehler volunteered to run down and trouble shoot it for my wife and had it fixed in short order.  Ever since, I've wanted to return the favor.  I hope he likes this feature with his '68 Bug.

     

Long-Necked Friends - The Best Kind!

There are some people that will always "stick their necks out" for you even when it's inconvenient.  Sandy and Jim Douglas are these kind of folks.  They are the parents of one of my closest friends, and although I've only had the pleasure to visit with them a few times, somehow I feel "adopted" by them because they treated me with such consideration and love during our short visit.  I instantly understood that these are charitable and Christ-like people who would give the shirt off their backs out of concern for their neighbor.  Corby, their son and I love to backcountry ski together and it's not uncommon for Jim to spend hundreds of dollars and hours to work on innovations to make our trips easier.  Jim is frequently lending his truck, trailer and expensive snowmobiles to enhance our trips.  

On our trip last season, Jim fabricated an innovative sled that we pulled behind his personal snow machines in which we loaded all kinds of luxuries that made our yurt trip so much better.  He spent all of his valuable time working on the sled (thing thing could be patented and marketed with a top-mounting ski rack and a dumping tailgate) with no expectation of anything in return.  Sandy invites us to stay at their house before and after our trips as if we were her own children.  

As I contemplated how much I appreciate their generosity, I kept thinking of these fun "long necked" animals and was reminded of how the Douglas family has "stuck their necks out" for our trips.  I realized that this is a characteristic that I hope to always emulate toward them and others.  I hope they like these fun animals that share the great quality of a long neck!   

Old Timer

One of our family's favorite people is Rex Richards.  They don't make 'em like Rex anymore.  He's been a scout master and mentor for my boys and is an all around amazing person.  Rex emulates all the characteristics my boys and I strive for in our characters.  He's an honest-to-goodness cowboy that has invited us many times to go out into the mountains with him and his horses.  Here's some of my favorite things about Rex:  He's one of the best gardeners in town and keeps bees, builds old covered wagon replicas, has amazing woodworking and electrician skills, is an expert knot tier, a great backcountry skier,  and most important, is a sincere father, husband and priesthood holder who strives to take care of and love his neighbor (everyone in town).  

He's taken my boys and me into the mountains with his horses that always lighten our loads on our backs.  He's pure joy to have around a campfire in the mountains and always has a great story to tell.  We're hoping to have him along this summer on one of our backpacking trips.  I deeply respect Rex and cooked up this image out of my memory from one of our trips into the mountains.  

Top Predator

This has been one of my favorite paintings I've done.  I did it for a special friend who recently immigrated to the US from Iraq to start a new life.  He was one of my staff here at the embassy and I've been so impressed with his generosity, charity and loving spirit.  He seems constantly smiling.  We were sad to see him leave our family of employees at the embassy but happy to have him start a new live in the US.  He told me he always liked tigers which I thought was strange because he is such a gentle spirit in person but I think this is a great theme for him because he has so much going for him.  As he makes his adjustments in the US, he'll be much like a top predator in the jungle - unstoppable.  I hope this letter finds him overcoming all of the challenges of immigration.  

I had fun learning how to write his name in Arabic.   

Painting Class at the Baghdad Embassy

The community here at the Baghdad Embassy is very confined and gets a bit restless since we cannot leave the compound and explore the city, so I was looking for ways to help build community and add variety to daily life here.  So I volunteered to teach a monthly art class to a large group.  It's been really fun.  The challenging thing about the class is that I need to teach a painting that can be completed from start to finish in under 2 hours.  Additionally, the class is invited to try different wines during class which can "slow things down".  Anyway, it's been gratifying to contribute this way.  Below are the paintings I've taught over the last several months.

I have been trying to find ideas that allow the class to play with lots of color and use fun techniques like masking fluid.  This was a good one to start out with.  

After the first class, the word about the class spread quickly across the community and from then on, the classes filled to capacity the day the CLO posted about the next class.  

  Many people asked for the paintings to be "locally themed" so I tried to do a few that had a Middle-Eastern theme. 

  This one is actually the painting I'm planning on teaching this week.  We'll have to see how it goes.  I used masking fluid to make the daisies pop out of the color.  This is a super fast and loose painting.

One more variation of this week's piece.  I tried to make this one look like asters.  I painted purple spots then masked the pedals then painted all the color then rubbed off the masking fluid.  Happy with the way it turned out.  Hope the class likes it.  

An Adventurous Spirit Recognizes Another From Afar....

There's a great Russian Saying that goes..."Fisherman always recognize each other from afar".  I've always liked it because sometimes from the very beginning, I know immediately that I'm going to like someone.  Dallas was one of those dudes from the first day I met him.  We met while pretending to know what we were doing on our missions 25 years ago.  I knew right off that he was the kind of dude I wanted to hang out with.  He was down for almost any adventure.  Since the mission, we've only had a few chances to hang out, but it's always a blast.  I've always admired his spirit of "get up and get out there and let's do something crazy".  He's an incredible wakeboarder which is something I've always wanted to be good at, so I painted up this image of an intense "behind the wake" moment.

Recently, Dallas become a dad and this has been so much fun to see how he is instilling his adventurous approach to life in his beautiful daughter.  Hopefully, we'll have the chance to share more adventures together with our families in the future.  

The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers

I love to talk to coworkers about their families - especially to dads about their kids.  A good friend here in the embassy was telling me about his toddler son who loves Winnie the Pooh and Tigger.  I spent the rest of the day singing "The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers, is Tiggers are Wonderful things...they bounce and bounce and bounce....."  I quickly discovered that this is a very difficult song to get out of your head once it's made it's place there.  I drafted out a version of a fun envelope for his son in my head to accompany the music and painted this when I got home.  

More of Man's Best Friend

I got a bunch of requests from friends to do some envelopes featuring their 4 legged family members and really had fun with these.  The McCanns have a wonderful dog that we fell in love with in Moscow.  Zoya is a beautiful mixed breed that they rescued from a Russian animal shelter.  She's such a fun dog so this one felt like we were having had a virtual playful visit.  

The Suggs family are some of my favorite humans so Beau and I share that....

Three Sons - Three Paintings

Although I did these paintings a while ago, I realized that I never posted them and decided that I can should probably post about more than just my envelopes.  My three sons are frequently on my mind while separated from them here in Baghdad.  I decided to do a special painting for each of them and have them framed for them.  

Ethan has become quite a musician and dreams of Bigsby Guitars so I did this painting of a guitar for him.  I loved experimenting with effects of the chrome and light and shadow on this one.  Ethan loved it.  

Dalton is a huge fan of amphibians and recently has become the proud owner of a chameleon.  What fun he is to watch eat crickets and change colors depending on his mood.  His eyes are so incredible.  I did up this painting of a chameleon for him.  

Seth is our resident astronomer.  He loves to get out his telescope and look at the moon and stars.  I love any chance I get to sit under a starry sky with Seth and marvel at the heavens.  I'm excited for the upcoming chance we'll have to witness a total solar eclipse together this August.  This painting was fun and one that reminds me of these special moments Seth and I have (and will) share together.  

It was fun doing these paintings to honor the love between me and my three sons.  Can't wait until we're reunited!   

Paradise in the Grand Canyon

Michael and I love to adventure together.  One of our favorite trips was hiking down to Havasupai, deep in the Grand Canyon.  It's a beautiful oasis paradise in an unexpected setting.  It's been many years since our hike there, but we frequently talk about going back to such a memorable place.  I decided to try to catch one of the scenes from our hike on his special envelope.  I miss Michael and the adventures we've shared.

"Livering" the Dream!

This special envelope is for a great high school friend that has just received a liver transplant and is in the hospital recovering.  His story has been inspiring.  He is such a great family man who is always positive despite his health concerns.  He and I share a passion for bike riding.  I branched out and decided to try a cartoon-type illustration for him.  Took me a while to figure out how to draw a liver....especially when a liver rides a bike.  Anyway, I think about Joe frequently and hope that his recovery goes smoothly.

Cats and Dogs

I think my favorite things to put on these envelopes is animals.  I've had lots of fun with these next two envelopes.  Both for good friends that we met in Russia and are animal lovers.  These are pictures of their specific pets.  It seemed that as I painted these beautiful creatures, I somehow became acquainted with them (I've not met either animal).  I hope they are as nice as they were in my virtual sitting during our painting session!

Crawled out of my imagination and onto my paper...

This wicked looking scorpion has been crawling around in my head for a while and begging to be painted.  I loved the way it turned out on the envelope and decided that it would be perfect for a great friend that is posted in Germany.  Sevak is a good friend who has inspired me with his strong faith, great family values and dedication to his profession.  Reminds me of the tenacity, strength and precision of this desert scorpion.

A Dragonfly for a Mentor

I've been stressing about this envelope for a while and it's not the first time I've started one for this special friend.  Justin is the guy who inspired me to start mailing these envelopes.  He does them too, but on a much more skillful and beautiful level than I'm on.  He mailed me one to get me started and I've been trying to get up the courage to mail him one ever since.  He and I chatted about the process of these envelopes before I did my first few and he inspired me with wise counsel when he advised me to not forget that the letter of heartfelt friendship and love have just as much meaning as the art work.  

Justin likes to paint pictures of bugs, so I decided on this close up of a dragon fly.  I hope he enjoys it.  

Eagle's Eye and Scouting

This week, I've been thinking about a good friend, Sam Tennis who is the son of a mission companion - Peter Tennis.  Sam has earned his Eagle Scout and will be having his court of honor soon so I made him this special envelope.  As I painted this noble bird, I loved doing his eye.  The depth and color I achieved in the iris surprised me and I got thinking about an eagle's vision.  An eagle can spot a small rabbit from over 3 kilometers away!  Can you imagine having that kind of vision?!

As I painted, I thought about what a powerful young man Sam is and the man he is becoming.  I started to draw an analogy in my mind between the values of scouting and the power of an Eagle's vision.  There's some really interesting lessons for the young scout when thinking about the vision of the Eagle.  There are some special eyelids that keep the eagle's eye clean and a special chemical called Isozyme.  The eagle also has a very defined brow that keeps branches and debris out of the eye.  I started to compare these features to the power of repentance and how we need to keep spirits (our most powerful sense) clean from the world.   Pretty cool lessons to learn!  Anyway, I wish I could be to Sam's Eagle Court of Honor and discuss this in person, but this special envelope will have to do.  He lives in Saudi Arabia so he feels like he's in the neighborhood, but not likely that I can attend.  Congratulations Sam!  

It's good to have some buddies that ride sleds....

This year, during a visit home I planned a trip into one of my favorite yurts with my two oldest sons.  I hope to get all three there next year.  As it turned out, we had a delayed start and would have been hiking into the dark if we had not asked a group of buddies that ride sleds to take us in there.  We still ended up getting in to the yurt hours after dark, but it maximized our time there and we had a great trip.  These envelopes are to return the favor for the 4 guys that helped us.

One more cow....for Tanya

Tanya loves cows, and I happen to love to paint them....so it works out nicely.  Tanya is a special friend and the very first Russian I met.  I taught her the gospel 25 years ago but she's taught me much more than I ever taught her.  It's been so much fun to remember and honor all of these friendships.

Pavel the Russian Banya Guru...

Pavel is a good friend of mine who taught me to love the Banya.  One of my favorite memories of Russia is when I visited Pavel in the small village where his Mother lives in and together we built his banya on the banks of a small creek and spent the evening enjoying the unique experience of the Russian Banya "village style" with repeated dips in the nearby river.  Since that day many years ago, we've enjoyed many trips to the banya together but none quite so memorable as that weekend in the country.  I miss Pavel and his great family and the Russian Banya.

The Adventurous Backman Family

This leopard reminds me of our good friends from Moscow The Backman Family - Expert hunters of Adventure.  I've always admired the way the Backman family finds adventure.  They are the kind of friends that everyone hopes to have and hitch along with on some exciting trip.  More than examples of how to have fun, the Backman's were examples of service, love and inclusion for all around them.  We were honored to know them during our stay in Moscow.  We miss them.

The Amazing Honeybee - Society's Teacher

My friend Sergey shares an affinity for the amazing honeybee.  I had fun doing this latest envelope for him.  He remembered a talk I gave when I departed Russia 25 years ago that I gave to friends about what we can learn from bees.  I've kept a few beehives over the last 10 years and the more I learn about the hive, the amazing cooperation and communication that goes on in a beehive, the more I think we should all model our lives after the bee's habits.  This envelope has helped be remember my great friendship with Sergey, my love for bees and reminded me of their lessons for me in family, work and church life.

Birds of a Feather...

Boyce Fitzgerald is one of the most interesting characters I've ever met and I feel privileged to have associated with him for the last few years.  He and I served in the Stake Young Men's organization in the Moscow Stake and I loved being around him because of his many talents and his sense of humor.  He was loved and admired my all of the youth in Russia.  Although much older than the I, he exuded a youthful exuberance for "goofing around" that drew the youth to him.  One of his latest talents that I've loved watching develop is his natural knack for photography.  He has blown me away with some of his photos of birds in Russia.  I decided to theme his envelope with some of my favorite birds.  I miss interacting with Boyce.  

Rock of Faith.....

Another mailing goes out to Russia this week to one of our family's best friends.  Our History with the Marchenko's goes back almost 25 years.  I admire the faith and strength of Dima and his family.  From the first day I met Dima, when I interviewed him for baptism 25 years ago, I felt a special connection to him.  When my wife and I had our first child, who spent the first 9 months of his life in Russia, we gave him a middle name of Dmitry to commemorate our deep and lasting friendship with Dima.  I decided to do a painting of the Kiev Ukraine Temple as a symbol of the solid faith I've always admired in Dima and his beautiful family.

Russia's in my Blood....

This week, I've been working on some envelopes for some friends in Russia.  Despite being glad to finish up our tour in Russia after three years, Russia has a way of pulling you back in.  I don't think I'll ever stop loving and longing for the people and places I've learned to love in the great land of Russia.  I miss these great friends and have had a great time remembering the people that will be lifelong friends for our family.

The Baltovsky Family has taught our family so much.  He is the Stake President of the Moscow Stake and has provided so much selfless service and leadership to the growing church in Russia.  We love and miss them so much.  When I asked him what he would like an an envelope, he told me his "weakness" was fighter jets.  I think he'll like this envelope.  

The Twitty Family was another Foreign Service family that lived near us and with whom we became close friends.  They appreciate the beautiful Russian architecture like we did.  I served my mission in Russian with Chad 25 years ago, so it was especially fun to be back in Russia with Chad.  

Masha Petyhkova is one of my favorite Russians.  She is a true example of faithfulness in the face of really difficult trials.  He last name means "Rooster" so I thought this would be a fun surprise for her to get this custom envelope.