I Do...I Dare

Thanksgiving Day 2008

Dear Family and Friends,

Well, another year has gone by and so much has happened since I last wrote. I hope you all are doing well!

So…for starters and the biggest news flash in my life ---- I’m ENGAGED! The girl who declared she was never marrying and was going to live a single, scot-free life has fallen in LOVE with me!! The love of my life is Jenna Marie Barton. She has such wonderful energy… an artist herself, a nature enthusiast, fun-loving, caring and understanding, a great listener, and an absolute joy to be with. Did I mention her cooking? YUMMM….. And she loves cats (and all other four footed creatures) - Sedgie is in seventh heaven!

We met on the porch a year and a half ago at my neighbor’s place. I needed help with my art business and starting art classes for children and adults. She wanted lessons and a chance to fulfill her creative calling. We have worked together since then, a beautiful friendship that turned into love.

We have such a wonderful time together. We love taking long hikes in the Cascades, playing card and board games, doing puzzles, painting, drawing and teaching together, watching movies, taking beach walks with the dogs she pet sits and, of course, talking up a storm.

This year we did a lot of hiking in the Mt. Baker and Cascade Mountain Loop areas. Our first big hike was climbing to the top of Mt. Pilchuck – Jenna underestimated the degree of difficulty and we had rubber legs about two-thirds of the way up and that continued all the way down! We ate at the top in the lookout tower and then took pictures of the beautiful views of Three Fingers, White Horse Mountain and the Islands to the west. I have already made several paintings from the photos I took. Check out the last blog.

We loved exploring the Mt. Baker area – our last hike of the season we walked three trails covering 15 miles in one day! The last trail was at Artist Point and from there we could see some of the other trails that we had walked – such a great feeling of accomplishment!

Of course, art is a big passion for both of us. We love working together on projects, whether it’s drawing, painting or brainstorming artistic ideas. We have a large mural that we are doing for the local elementary school, Utsalady, on Camano Island. The eagle is their mascot so we designed an eagle mural for the entry wall space. We’re planning on painting this project during Christmas break.

Art classes have been going great. We have three children classes and two adult classes. We teach drawing and acrylic painting and work together designing lesson plans, advertising and teaching. This experience has given Jenna a strong desire to become a teacher and continue to work with children.

I also substitute teach in the Stanwood-Camano School District. Jenna has been volunteering at the different schools, helping out in the classrooms to get experience in her future career. She’s looking forward to working with elementary or middle school children and having the summers off to “travel the world” with me.

Here’s another news flash!: I am changing my name back to my birth name: John Scott Delzell. I've been thinking about changing my name for a while and this seemed to be the perfect time to do it. A new start to an exciting life! I'm very excited to get back to my Scottish roots. And Jenna, literally, will NOT be ‘scot-free’ anymore!

The story of the name Delzell is quite fascinating: Way back in 842 A.D, in a battle in Scotland, King Kenneth McAlpin’s son had been captured, stripped naked and hung. The King threw out a challenge to anyone who would dare to bring back his son’s body and my ancestor said, “Dhail Zhail!,” which means “I Dare”. The mission was accomplished successfully, and the man was made an Earl. Dalziel is the original spelling that eventually became Delzell - there are about 6 different spellings for Delzell. Originally it was pronounced De’EL, but in the U.S. it’s commonly mispronounced with the “z”, the z is silent in the Scottish language). Since I’ve learned this, I’ve decided to go with the original pronounciation being simply De’ EL.

Jenna’s mom and dad are delighted to have me as a son-in-law and are very excited about our marriage. Right now, we’re busy making plans for the wedding. We’ve decided to have a unique wedding – we’re going to snowshoe up to Artist Point, Mt. Baker! And we’re hoping to add some Scottish elements to the wedding ceremony. We’re going to do a traditional hand-fasting which is literally “tying the knot” with the Delzell clan tartan. Our rings are being made in Scotland and we hope they arrive in time! Another Scottish tradition is the honeymoon, which means having a little honey wine every night for a full moon/month. Maybe we’ll do the sparkling grape juice with honey version! And of course, there is the traditional Scottish oatcakes to enjoy after the wedding if we wish. There are lots of tradtions to choose from- quite a process!!

We met a wedding officiate on one of our hikes this summer who is happy to perform the ceremony on snowshoes. It’s a 5.5 mile roundtrip hike to Artist Point and we have a guide who is willing to take us up. We’ll have the ceremony up there with a few friends (hardy souls indeed!), or if the weather is too daunting, we’ll have the ceremony on a lower trail. We have just decided on the date – December 21! We wanted to have the wedding during winter break so that we’ll always have these two weeks off for our anniversary in the coming years. So much to do in so little time but thrilling, too!

We will let you all know how the wedding goes and post more pictures later in January.

May you all have a wonderful Holiday Season! John