Coast to Coast

 We got to Tim and Laura's home and Grandad made an instant hit with the IPad.

 I didn't get any pictures of the fun decorations that Laura and Tim put up for Miles first birthday party! The theme was "BIRDS". We painted these cute bird house. There were bird cookies, chicken salad, balloons and a bunting. It was a lot of fun and it was good to meet some of the family friends.



 This was a combined effort. Laura and Hadley painted the sticks, Sam and I made some birds, Laura thought it all out.

Hadley met Elinor on Sunday morning

 We went on a drive to see the seals at "Children's Beach"

 Tim getting in his suit to ride his motorcycle to work.

 We were invited to the Nut farm to see the pumpkins. I got to ride the bus with Hadley and her school friends. I was a remarkably quite bus ride.

 There was a hay maze, hay ride, and the children got to pick a pumpkin. That was not easy since there were so many pumpkins to choose from.

 This guy was really strutting his stuff. He made a ruffling sound with his feathers that was very impressive.

 These chickens has some crazy hairs!
The chickens may have been the most fun for me. There were so many kinds. Miles liked the sheep and Hadley found the goats fascinating. 

Hadley chose this cute little punkin

 Whole class

On the school bus going home!

 Laura and Miles before we went out to dinner to the "Elephant Ear", it was very good food.

La Jolla Beach and the tide pools

 I never seem to tire of just sitting watching the surf. Laura packed us some food and we fed the sea gulls from our hands which is always and adventure in trust on all counts.

 The tide pools were full of hermit crabs, sea urchins, and fish.

 Sam found this fascinating guy. I seemed to be a type of crab, but he looked more like sea weed.
After La Jolla we went to see where Tim works and then to In and Out burger. We then went to a fabulous place for an amazing dessert! They were the most beautiful things I have ever seen. My iphone doesn't take a good flash picture so I didn't get a good picture of it, but they were so good and very beautiful.

 The day we left, I thought maybe I didn't get a good picture of Sam, and it seems I still didn't. Sam rides his bike the short distance to school with his friends.

 thanks Miss Hadley for letting us use you nice bedroom!
This sweet family lives in a great location. They get to walk to and from school every day, and to the soccer field. Laura goes for long walks and runs every day with Miles in the stroller. Great exercise.

Thanks for letting us visit you, we loved it!!

 

"It's Time to TRAVEL"

Salt Lake

We just traveled 80 straight west in fact our navigational system just kept saying, "stay on the current route". We ran out of gas in the darkest night out in the middle of Nebraska. I was reading the Help and LaVar and I were really into the story and we just didn't notice until the car gave a little chug. After a call to USAA we had a few moments of regret and we settled down with a flashlight and continued reading. The time passed quickly, the tow truck came with gas, and we were off again to spend the night in Grand Island. Which was less than an hour away, we were aggravatingly close.

 We met Charlotte and the kids at Paradise Bakery in Salt Lake City. Tyler was in Vermont painting so we didn't get to see him. Jaim and Jody met us there with the plan that we would go to a park in Sugar House. Ordering sandwiches took a long time and by the time we got to the park it was dark and the place had many police cars out front so we just went to Charlotte's house.
This is a picture of a guy that stands in the road in Windover Nevada.

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 Continue on the current route.

 Elinor got to meet her sister and we got to visit with LaVar's parents and Brett and Rowena and their collection of dogs and chickens.




We went into our home that we have rented out for the last 5 years and things were amazingly nice. People have really been kind to the place. The shop out back has not been used much and the spiders really took over. We swept them down gave it a good insect bombing and got it ready to put our stuff in it. This was the first time we didn't take a whole moving truck and had to do the race thing with the movers. The movers had a breakdown and were a couple of days delayed, so we had time to do what we wanted with the shop. We took a set of doors Savannah and I picked up from someone's curb trash, that we had hanging on the outside of the shop as decoration and hung them inside to partition off the back area and lock it. 

 Found treasures. Tim painted this years ago and it hung in Micah's room. We were able to get it into the car, going to California so now it will hang in his boys room.

 We went to the folks favorite Chinese restaurant and this was LaVar's fortune! Indeed it is time to travel!!

 Tumbleweeds or Russian thistles are sort of pretty when in bloom, but because I am so allergic to them, I have a hard time seeing or appreciating their beauty.

 Shop area ready!

 AAAAAAHHHHH! one of our few casualties!! I regret sending my precious hobby maker with the movers. WHAT WAS I THINKING!! The guy that was bringing it in said with a guilty voice, "if I'd had known it was a sewing machine I would have treated it differently !!" What!!??? aaaaaaaw drat, drat, drat!!!

Stuff, stuffed everywhere! But it all fit with room to spare

 We covered it all to protect from sun and spiders, but mice.... not so much. Hope they just don't find anything to make a good nest with.

 On to California! We saw our first snow of the season over the passes, but the road was open and we had no trouble. On to see Tim, Laura, Sam, Hadley and Miles in San Marcos.

Lunch in Bishop. We longed to eat here again and we were not disappointed. It is such a nice place! Loved it.

Go West Ol' Man (and old lady)!

 After a good night's sleep and a fully loaded car we started off across the country. We thought the turnpikes were wonderful thought the tolls did add up. There was a lot of construction on them that slowed us down some. We didn't get a picture of West Virginia..... maybe they didn't have any signs.

 LaVar is a great highway driver. I read the Help to him as we drove along and that really passed the time well.

 We took a little detour down to Nauvoo. Alyssa's family visited there over the summer and since we were so close and we had a couple of days before the movers came, we decided to go.

 The temple at Nauvoo was just so beautiful. We didn't have our clothes with us to go inside but we loved looking outside.

We wanted to spend the night and after speaking with a lady in town decided to stay at the Willard Richards Inn. That was very nice and we had a nice breakfast in the morning with a little history to go along with it. Very pleasant stay

The next morning was crisp and wonderful and we took a wagon ride around Nauvoo and got to hear more history! It was wonderful and it gave us a feeling for the people and what they gave up to go west. Many of the families worked hard to become well established and have bright futures on the land.

 We left feeling very thankful for the sacrifices that many made for the gospels sake.

Westward HO!

 This cute little lady is Elinor. I want to put her in the different places that we go. Elinor was given to Grandma Huntzinger to give to one of her daughters or daughters-in-law from Elinor Peace Baily. Sister Baily knows Grandma from Hayward California she is a wonderful doll maker.
       Our grand daughter Emmaline did this picture thing with a lamb that was left at Grandma Huntzinger's by mistake, but a cousin. Emmaline made sure Lambie got home to Utah after the few days of picture taking.

 Elinor survived the packing up. There was torrential rain that the movers had to get our stuff out to the truck in and that was only a real problem at the storage unit. Our bishop thought we needed more help, we thought we were doing fine. I tell you, we had 3 wonderful ladies come and clean the kitchen, and help me distribute the pantry items that didn't get used and we REALLY appreciated the help. I have never been so tired. I could barely get up the stairs at Micah and Stephanie's home. 

 Stephanie was making a project with rocks. So cute!

We are TRULY on our way.

Ok, Square One is , Ok

As it turn out, we thought our mission papers were turned in seven weeks ago but they actually haven't been turned in at all yet and they won't be for a couple of weeks. The bottom line is a lesson to learn. See, when the physicals go in for a mission call they go straight to the Bishop from the Dr. So we never got to see them again.  Our Dr. didn't get it -- the church is very careful about physicals for mission candidates and not checking a box with a notation that he didn't check for that just doesn't fly with them. Mmmmm that's amazing! To add to that he doesn't do "female stuff" at all. So all the sudden we found out we needed to get our medicals finished properly. We prayed hard for help, then went to Kaiser Permanente and the lady in the records department helped a lot! She filled in what she could from the notations in our records then sent us down to the receptionist for our Dr. who made appointments for the next day, a GYN appointment for me in the morning and an appointment for us to see the Dr. in the afternoon. The complications there were, the movers were coming that day, Friday the 23 and since LaVar retired did we have benefits?
   Ben Hammond, man from our ward whose cousin married Ashley Weed from Fallon, an interesting connection for us, came and stayed with the movers while we ran to the Dr. The Dr.  checked the boxes initialed the places and sent us on our way. I need to remember today when I lament as I sometimes do, "can't things just be easy sometimes?" Today things worked out so well. The movers did have to take our stuff out of a 3 story building in the torrential rain, the Robert (one of Oly's huge cabinets) still didn't fit in the elevator, though it comes "maddenly close" and needed to be carried down 3 flights of stairs, we did need to leave in the middle of a move, but things generally worked out. AMAZING!
   We need to wait 2 weeks for lab results that can be sent to the powers that be and then the clock can start ticking. We are again homeless or as Micah corrected me "houseless that is different", living out of our car and have time "enough to wear out our welcome everywhere we go!" another Micah quote.

"Wait for IT!"

Well isn't this something! No mission call letter! Seven weeks ago we went in to talk with our Stake President to finish our paperwork for requesting to go on a mission for our church. We stated that we are willing to go for 23 months and we didn't state any preference for places to go. He stated he had never interviewed a couple to go on a senior mission.  So here we sit, our lease is over the 25th of September and we have most of our things packed and boxed. This is a first for me because CNA has always paid for our stuff to be packed and moved.
           Oh wait speaking of CNA I have just remembered a real milestone in our life just about got past over! LaVar retired August 19th. They had a nice little pizza party for him, and that was nice. He has gone back to "work at stuff" a couple of times and is doing a presentation tomorrow for a study he did, but basically he is done with that.
         There is more to that story but I don't want to get too sidetracked but wanted to stick with this mission thing. We are just waiting to know, do we sell the car? The truck already go sold, thanks to Micah and Stephanie. What about the clothes? Have you seen the new mission guidelines for women's clothing? Oh, man it went to just plain, plain, to basically whatever is beautiful and modest, conservative was a word repeatedly used but the pictures are really cute. NICE!
         So the bottom line here is, I am using this blog as a mini mission journal that others can read. I am hoping to be better at writing than I have been lately and post PICTURES, of where ever in all the world we will be going. Does that sound fun?
Hope it will be in the mean time....... we are still
                        "WAITING FOR IT!"

Wonderful Memories

I have been scanning in our old pictures. So many of our photos are fading. I figure it is time to do something else with them. Years ago my mother put together a baby book for each of us and through the years we certainly enjoyed our books. I put together a book as soon as Jaim was born, and added to it regularly, as each child joined us.  I glued them and cut them up and did some of that cutesy stuff, that I now know ruined them, sigh
oh well, I took that apart and put them in the "magnetic photobooks." It became known that the pages with adhesive would destroy the photographs and we were encouraged to get them out off of the pages immediately. I tried a couple of other tries at a book form, and then just put them in some order in envelopes, I won't bore you with all my attempts at organizing them. Somehow they got quite disorganized over time, so this has been quite the time consuming thing. Some had a date stamped on the back, some I wrote on, some I have to ask some of you to see if you remember. I will then try and put them in JPeg or tiff form and get them on a CD. It is a bit sad that I was not a more careful photographer, many great memories are barely visible, and so many are out of focus and I only have that one picture of the event. The good news is that we moved so often that if I can identify the house or city I can get them in the right order.
      I ran on to this photo of Tyler when we lived in Pittsburgh he was probably about 3 years old. He wore this outfit often, wonder what was in the bag?  He took those glasses and took out the lenses. One day just the two of us went shoe shopping (wearing the glasses), there were a few teenage girls in the store. The girls thought he was so cute, they said he looked like Elton John and laughed with joy at this cute little boy. When we left the store Tyler took off the glasses and threw them in the trash, I was shocked and sad about this development. I asked what was going on and he said, "No one is going to laugh at me!"  As he walked resolutely away I asked if he was sure, he didn't answer but I got them out and put them in my purse, just in case he changed his mind. He never did!