Back to Ohio

At the end of July, Phoebe and I went back to Ohio for my best friend Elaina’s ordination. After years of hard work in seminary, she graduated and got a job as the pastor of an ELCA Lutheran church in Massillon, Ohio! I’m so proud of her, and I couldn’t wait to head “home” to celebrate with her. The date turned out to work perfectly; Mom and Dad Hazelton went home and Phoebe and I followed a couple of days later. The flight from Denver to Akron/Canton was wonderful. Phoebe and I had a whole row of seats to ourselves, and since it was bedtime, she fell asleep for most of the trip. We arrived on Friday morning at 12:15 a.m. (Yes, that’s the middle of the night!) Elaina was at the airport to pick us up and was sufficiently delighted to see Phoebe again. It was only about 15 minutes from the airport to Elaina’s very cute apartment. I put Phoebe to bed on her blanket on the floor in the guest bedroom and had a glass of wine with Elaina. I couldn’t wait to give her her ordination presents: a Luther seal beer mug, an annotated cookbook of my favorite crock pot recipes, and a book I acquired, copyedited, and typeset at work (China and India: Great Power Rivals). (Elaina has a Master’s degree in Chinese history.) We talked for about an hour until we suddenly saw Phoebe standing there. She’d woken up and come to find me, so we both went to bed.

Elaina was working the next day, so she got up and slipped out to church before the two of us woke up. I took a very disoriented shower and got Phoebe up to eat her breakfast—strawberries! We called to talk to Dave briefly and then called Elaina to come pick us up for a tour of her church, Faith Lutheran. It’s a gorgeous old church, and it’s huge! Elaina has a sweet office that she’s already decorated with favorite treasures. And the neighbor out the window has pinwheels in his yard—good for contemplation while writing sermons.

After we saw the church, we went out for a delicious lunch at a Thai restaurant. The food was terrific, and Phoebe loved the waterfall feature. Then we went home to choose an alb for Elaina to wear to her ordination later that night. We planned to meet my dad at the church in Wooster and have dinner together, so Phoebe and I brought our dress-up clothes with us. Mom and Elaina had to be there early to practice for the ceremony. We all ended up eating sandwiches together, which was lovely. Phoebe and I had plenty of time to get dressed before we went upstairs to meet up with Elaina’s family. There wasn’t enough room to sit together, so Dad, Phoebe, and I moved over to the side of the church. It was a beautiful church, but it didn’t have air conditioning. At 7:00 p.m. during this hot summer, it was sweltering in there! Phoebe got really crabby, so Dad took her outside to walk around. That was terrific, because I was able to watch the ordination ceremony.

The ordination was extremely moving, and we still had time to spend together! We drove back to Elaina’s and put Phoebe to bed. Then we stayed up until 4:30 a.m. watching dance movies and eating a smorgasboard of cheese, pickles, hummus with mushrooms, chocolate, and bourbon. It was a fabulous night.

The next morning, we ate breakfast at a terrific little bar/breakfast joint near Elaina’s place and then drove to Mom and Dad’s in Sagamore Hills. That afternoon, we went to the playground over at Saint Barnabas. The slide was delightfully static-y, making Phoebe’s hair stand on end.

Grandpa got to chase Phoebe around the playground for a while.

Then she practiced rock climbing all by herself!

After playing at the playground, we went home to play some more (hard life, being a baby!). Phoebe got a chance to sit at the piano with Grandma.

Phoebe relaxed in a little chair for a while before feeding Grandma some snacks.

Sunday morning we all traveled back to Massillon to attend Elaina’s installation at her church. We got to hang out with her family again at the terrific breakfast the congregation put together for her. Then we went home again, where Phoebe had a chance to do her very favorite thing: talk on the phone!

All that playing is exhausting! We finally brought Grandpa a magazine after his leg fell asleep.

Alas, on Sunday evening we had to go home to Colorado. We had another great flight (one empty seat, so Phoebe got her own and went to sleep). And the Akron/Canton airport had a play area! I’ll leave you with a video of Phoebe enjoying waiting for our flight.