Good-bye 2012

In order to truly feel like I completed my New Year's Resolution to keep a blog, I've got to get this one last post in.

I am one year older and feeling it.  I can no longer stay up to midnight or later and take it in stride.  Staying up that late means I drag for days after that.  I am starting to feel those little aches and pains that I would always hear the older folks talk about.  But I'm not going to talk about them or I will have joined their club.  I now order from the 55 and older menu selection at Denny's and I'm not embarrassed to do so.  The portion sizes make more sense for me and I like the lower prices. A fun time for me is spending time with grandkids.  I am excited for Sierra & Cosette to be living closer this next year.  It means I hopefully will be able to share in some of Cosette's milestones that were missed with Sierra living in England.

When I was in my mid-twenties I can remember swearing that I would never get old.  I do think I'm in better shape and health than a lot of people my age, but I am learning that you can't stop the world from spinning and the body from aging.  I think I can only minimize the damage.  It's a constant battle of the bulge (that just seems to ebb and flow with no clear winner), a regular routine for keeping the gray hairs at bay, and this year adjusting to being empty nesters, at least for part of the calendar year.

I no longer have any of children in the teenage stage of life, as Spencer turned 20 on Dec. 1st.  Wow.  In some ways it has been forever since I first laid eyes on my son and in other ways it has been a blink of the eye.  Spencer celebrated this milestone out in Missouri.  He is now back in Utah.  He has gone back to working at Subway, only as a peon worker bee, not as a manager. He does not plan on making that situation long term.  We will see if he can pull off his latest current plans.  I am still holding out hope (and praying an awful lot) that he will choose to serve the Lord and his fellowmen as a full-time missionary.  I know he could be an awesome influence for good wherever he might be sent and I know it would help him to reach his highest potential.

Jenni is currently as of today a grandmother, of sorts.  Her dog, Mocha, had 8 puppies.  She is very proud. 

We are anxiously awaiting the return of Alyssa and her family to Utah from England.  They were told the paperwork is completed, all except for the necessary signatures of the officers on base.  As soon as that happens, they have 20 days to be packed up and gone.  It will have been 3.5 years that they have been at the air force base in Lakenheath.  Their plans are fluid right now as Kelan tries to decide what his new career plans will be.

Here is a recent family photo.  Cosette is now 10 months old, and will turn 1 in February and Sierra is 3 and will turn 4 in March.

Dave turned 58 this month.  December has not been kind to him.  His John Deere painted Jeep Cherokee that he has driven for many years slid on a patch of black ice early in the month after one of the first few snowstorms we had and slid into the concrete barrier at the Pleasant Grove northbound on-ramp and was totalled.  That will always be remembered as the fateful location of his beloved Jeep's demise.  We feel fortunate that only one other vehicle was involved minimally and that his injuries were limited to soreness to his neck and back for a few days and a cut on his right forearm just below the wrist as his arm went through the steering wheel, which has no padding on the metal bars.

But that is not the only thing that went wrong for Dave this month.  He came down with a cold and decided to visit the doctor early to hopefully nip it in the bud.  The doctor talked him into getting the new pneumonia vaccine (as he had pneumonia back in September) and he had a bad reaction to the vaccine.  He ended up lethargic and fighting a very high temperature for a number of days.  He was sort of out of it for his birthday on the 19th.  He doesn't remember much of that actually as I think there were times he was actually a bit delirius from the fever.  Finally I grew so concerned that I took his temperature and it read 102.4!  I called in the Priesthood and he was anointed with consecrated oil and blessed.  Shortly after that, and I do mean shortly, his fever broke and began heading back down to normal.  This was the Friday before Christmas Day.  He felt well enough to be up out of bed for Christmas Eve & Christmas Day, even though he had to take it easy.  His appetite and stomach were the last to return to normal. I gained plenty of weight through the holidays, Dave lost weight.  I think I'll blame Dave for sending the weight my way.

Because of Dave being under the weather, Christmas was pretty quiet.  We didn't go visit any family or friends.  We did have Jenni & Spencer here at home with us for Christmas Eve & Christmas Day.  The 3 of us made it out to a see a movie, "Here Comes the Boom" (It came Jenni recommended, thus the fighter theme)  Dave stayed home and rested which was probably a good thing because his kids and grandkids stopped in towards the evening and visited and opened presents with us.

 Thanksgiving we spent down in St. George, just Dave & I.  With Alyssa's family in England, Spencer in Missouri and Jenni busy with her own life, we decided to head south to enjoy warmer temperatures and sunshine.  We went four-wheeling in the morning.  Here are some of the photos we took on our ride.  I wish we could go more often so I could get more comfortable as a four-wheeling mama!  So much time goes by between outings that it is like starting all over for me in regards to my confidence.  Both Dave and I sure do enjoy the red rock formations in Southern Utah!  It is our dream to buy some property down there and become snowbirds (live down south in winter & up north in summer) upon Dave's retirement.  To that end, we even spent some time looking at possible property options while we were down there.

Later that day we crashed the family gathering at Dave's brother, Jim's house.  He had many of his children & their family there visiting.  We were able to have a nice dinner and not have to lift one finger to prepare it!  Now how often does that happen?  A big thank you to Jim & Kathy Rhoades, et. al for that!  And I have to say, this Thanksgiving will probably go down in my memory as the one with the most pies available.  I have never seen so many pies at one time.  The entire table was covered with pies.  This visit has inspired Dave to learn to play the mandolin and that is what he requested for Christmas, his own mandolin.  Due to him being sick, the mandolin has not been found, but we did go out looking before he got sick and have a much better idea on what maker has the best quality and what features are important. 

Dave is spending the New Year at the firestation.  His plans for retiring in January were put on hold earlier in the year when his son became very ill.  He still plans on retiring from Unified Fire Dept. in 2013, but it most likely will be towards the end of the year, rather than at the beginning. 

We feel very blessed to be where we are at in life.  We are concerned for the future, but know that if we put our trust in God, his prophets & apostles and live worthy to have the Holy Ghost as our guide, we will be sustained and all will be well.  We hope all our family, near and far, and friends, near and dear to us, will do the same.  Happy New Year!!

Bring on Winter!

Winter has arrived!  And it's only November 11th.  Yikes.  We had a beautiful, wonderful fall.  Warm, sunny weather day after day.  Fall colors all around.  Last Thursday it was 71 degrees.  Friday we had a snowstorm hit that dumped at least 8 inches of snow on us and it is now turtleneck and boots weather.

Here's what's been happening in the Rhoades household since the last time I posted. 

Plenty of extended family milestones.  My dad celebrated his 1st anniversary with his new wife, Dotty.  Then a week later celebrated turning 78 years old.  We had a fun extended family dinner and party with him, where he bragged about his recent conquests in the Senior Games down in Saint George.  He had participated in two race walking events and taken a silver medal in both.

One niece, Amy Rappleye, was married in the Salt Lake Temple, Oct. 23rd.  This is the youngest daughter of my twin sister, Cathy.  I have managed to attend all the weddings for each of her married children so far.  Her colors were orange & neon pink and she had a beautiful rose bouquet using the roses that are orange with pink tips.  Georgeous.

Another niece, Kayla Bainbridge, oldest daughter of my brother, Kent, had her first baby, a boy, the next day, Oct. 24th.  He is such a tiny thing!  Very cute, and very well behaved.  His baby blessing was today and boy was there a crowd since he is the first grandbaby on either side of their family.  Can you say "spoiled"? 

Halloween came and at the last minute I decided to dress up.  My firm always does a party and has a costume contest.  A friend of mine posted a photo of what she had dressed up as over the weekend before and I got inspired.  I copied her idea and gave it some of my own touches.

This isn't the finished product, but I dressed as a picnic table for two.  I got ahold of some KFC paper products and made it look like a meal had just been eaten.  My head was a flower centerpiece.  It was quick and easy to make, but difficult to move around in and work in.  I wore it to work and to my ward trunk or treat party that evening.  Everyone was quite impressed at how clever I was but I just know how to plagerize.

This year my birthday was a bit of a milestone - 55 years old.  How can that be???  When Dave asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I told him I wanted a party.  For most of my adult years, I've been throwing parties for kids and spouses, but I could not recall having a party thrown for me since I was single and in my 20's. 

As my birthday neared, Dave stayed mum about a party.  I began to think I wasn't going to get my wish, but I kept talking like I would.  When I came home from work on Monday, my birthday, Dave was sitting at the kitchen table totally dirty from working on his projects.  He had texted me and asked me when I would be home from work, something he never does, so I had expected to walk in to a house full of people yelling "Surprise!".  But nothing.  I asked him where my party was.  He acted like he had forgotten today was my birthday.  I wasn't buying it.  Dave is such a tease and loves to pull tricks so I was sure he was teasing me about forgetting.  He had to try a number of tactics before he convinced me that it really might be a possibility that he had forgotten it.  I was still not 100% certain, but when he had me go see a neighbor who was having a difficult time and we were there for quite some time, I began to feel like my birthday was going to come and go, without any kind of celebration; no cake, no presents, no birthday dinner - nothing!!  I had to keep telling myself not to be too upset with my husband.  It was only a birthday, not the end of the world or anything like that.  But Dave is usually so good to me, it was such a disappointment.  I kept telling everyone at work when they asked me what I was doing for my birthday, that it wasn't like my husband to forget, so even though I didn't have anything planned I was sure HE had planned something for me.

We didn't get home until about 8 and as we walked in the kitchen the house was totally dark.  I could smell popcorn and made a comment about it.  The next thing I knew, the lights came up and people were yelling "Surprise!" and I was being hit with silly string!  Well, Dave didn't forget and he did manage to surprise me.

They actually had 55 candles on a small cake and made me blow them out.  Luckily they were all grouped tightly together which made it easy. 

It was a fun time and I was so pleased with my husband for coming through, even if I had to allow him the satisfation of pulling the wool over my eyes.



But that wasn't the end of my birthday celebration.  On Wednesday, I got to get a professional manicure & pedicure with Cathy.  That was her gift to me.  It was the first time in my life, getting one.  they had chairs that gave you a massage while you sat there and it was fun to gab away about life the whole time we were there.  I got to wear open toed shoes the next day to show off my painted toenails, because the weather was still warm, but now with the weather turned cold, I won't get to show them off any more.

Wednesday night we also took Donna out to dinner & a movie for her birthday, which was the day before, Nov. 6th.  Since Kent was in town, he tagged along as well.  Donna chose Chinese, so we took her to Dave's and mine favorite chinese restaurant, China Isle, in American Fork.  Kent sprang for the dinner check, which was really nice of him.  Then we went and saw the movie "Brave", an animated movie about a girl in Scotland, who doesn't appreciate what her mom is doing for her.  She learns the hard way that she has been wrong and has to go through some hard times, but of course the movie has a happy ending.  I could relate to the story line.  Hopefully, my life will have a happy ending as well.

Today Spencer took off to start a new phase of his life in Missouri.  He seems to feel it is the right thing to do.  I am way worried about it.  He flys by the seat of his pants and doesn't do much planning or preparation.  I hope it goes well for him.  He does have a tentative place to rent, but he doesn't have a job lined up.  He sold the truck he bought from Grandpa, bought a 2001 Saturn cheap because the owner had hit a deer and didn't want to bother fixing up the windshield and roof.  Dave's friend, Israel, who owns a body shop helped repair it and Spencer was able to still walk away with a chunk of money in his pocket.  He is on his way en route as I type this entry up. 

He just happens to be moving to a part of Missouri where our renters lived when they were back there.  So they have given him a bunch of contacts.  He also happens to know a family that he has become friends with and that is actually his motivation for moving out there.  They have a beautiful, young lady as a daughter that Spencer is smitten with.  I am beginning to learn that men will do just about anything once a girl/woman has captured their hearts.  I hope she and her family will be a good influence on him.  Any guesses what my prayers will focus on for the next little while?

Goodbye Summer, Hello Fall!

Where has the summer gone?  Luckily September has been so warm, it hasn't felt like the summer days are over.  The only things giving it away are the blazing red colors on the mountains and the fact that it gets darker much earlier than before.

The nice thing about end of summer is the end of gardening work.  But that also means the end of eating garden produce!

We have been swimming in tomatoes for some time now.  We've shared with co-workers, tenants, ward members, family members, made salsa, eaten a lot of chips & salsa, BLT sandwiches, salads and we still can't keep up with all the tomatoes  I knew this would happen, when 18 tomato plants were planted last springs.  And this hasn't been the greatest year for tomatoes.  Thankfully, I guess.  I planted roma tomatoes for the first time this year because I heard they were better for making salsa.  I have to concur with that now that I've tried it.  All future gardens will have roma tomatoes, just not so many of them!

What this has been a good year for is canteloupe!!  With the ward garden space we could plant them since we had the space for them to spread and oh, baby!  We are so glad we did.  The canteloupe has been heavenly and has been very productive.  Canteloupe is one of my favorite fruit and these look just like the ones you buy in the store, a lot of them have been huge, heavy things.  Delicious!!

It has also been the year of monster cucumbers.  Sometimes I didn't catch them soon enough and we'd walk away with a cucumber like this.  And that isn't even the biggest one we've had!

We are also starting to harvest our corn that was planted in the ward garden.  For the last few weeks, I think I have been living off of salsa & chip, canteloupe, corn, salad and in the last few days, peaches!!

Our peach trees have been very plentiful.  I have already canned 16 jars of peach jam, 3 jars of peach pie filling and so many jars of peaches, I've lost count.  Fresh peaches for breakfast, lunch & dinner are available here.

Apples have also kept me busy.  Dave helped as my assistant one day.  He is a pro at the apple peeler/corer thing-a-ma-bob.  We did 13 quarts of apple pie filling and left a lot of apples for just plain eating.  I've been eating at least an apple a day and I can testify it is keeping the doctor away!

It's great to have so many things to eat that we have grown ourselves.  My weekly shopping bill yesterday?  $25.

Dave mustn't have been eating enough apples because he came down sick this month.  So sick that he dragged his sorry butt into the doctor.  Now if you know Dave, you know that means he was sick!  One of the drawbacks of being a medic, is he tends to diagnos himself and doesn't feel like paying someone to do it.  But this time, he bit the bullet and went and he came back pretty surprised.  He had PNEUMONIA!  He stayed home sick for a full week.  I mean really stayed home, IN BED, for a full week.  He was so bored by the end of it. 

A nice perk we got out of that is we learned how to hook up our laptop computer to our big screen TV in our bedroom and we signed up for Netflix, so we have been enjoying watching movies & tv shows.  Dave has become hooked on Burn.Notice.

This summer we bought 1/4 of a cow raised by a member of our ward so we have been enjoying freshly butchered meat and some good cuts.  Awhile back we ate ribeye steaks for dinner..twice in the same week.  Yumm.  Today we have on tap, dinner with two of Dave's siblings and their spouses and we are serving T-bones!  Living the high life, uh-huh.

This summer working with the young women has helped me do a number of fun activities.  We rode Provo Canyon bike trail - twice because the girls liked it so much.  We went out jet skiing on Utah Lake and it was quite the hit.  We went to the city pool and learned to do water aerobics.  Our class is  now getting smaller with a number of the girls turning 14.  It has changed the dynamics a bit.

Dave got to spend some time up at Bear Lake with the older scouts helping them earn the sailing merit badge.  He enjoyed the time and came home with some interesting stories.

Dave has been busy helping his son move out to Roosevelt.  Bryan got hired to teach science out there and is so excited for the opportunity.  Unfortunately, his health has taken a turn for the worse in the last month with his kidney that he just had transplanted 4 years ago causing most of the problems.  It has landed him in the hospital multiple times and he has had to take it easy.  That meant Dave had to step up to the plate and do a lot of the hauling and fixing up needed.  Housing is so sparse out there because of the oil boom going on, the only place they could find to rent was a real fixer upper so Dave has been helping out there as well.

This has prevented us from going down to the property in Koosheram as often as we had hoped this summer.  Hopefully we'll get down there one more time before the end of the nicer weather.

Jenni has moved out on her own as of mid-August.  The parting was not on the best of terms.  We are hoping all will go well for her and that she will choose to invest in having a relationship with her family at some point in her life.  She recently was hired to work at a convenience store in Orem called Common Cents.  She had been looking for a job like that for some time.  She is still working her part-time afternoon job at a center for troubled youth.  Her boyfriend and her have been on-again, off-again for some time.  Currently it is off.

With Jenni moving out and Spencer doing that early in the summer, we are now truly empty nesters.  Chico is lonely, I'm afraid.  Even though Spencer and Jenni were always busy with their lives, Chico at least had someone to sleep with at night and Jenni would often bring her dogs over when she came around, now Chico only has us old farts to hang with.  I take him walking as often as I can.  Yesterday Dave took Chico with him out to Roosevelt and he had some good adventures there from what I hear.

Spencer had a shock on August 16th when he learned that Steve, my former husband, and the man he has always called dad, passed away due to a heart attack.  It was totally unexpected.  He was only 62.  Spencer had missed visiting with him the Sunday before and had made plans to see him the upcoming Sunday, Aug. 19th.  It has been hard on him.  He spoke at his funeral and Steve has been buried in the Pleasant Grove cemetery just down the street from our home.  I also attended the funeral to support Spencer.  It was difficult for me because when someone passes you can't help but review your experiences with them.  It caused me to revisit some of my deepest sorrows and most painful years.  It made me sad for what was lost and what could have been.  The good news is that the Atonement is a real power.  Steve had worked hard to get his church membership back and was close to submitting papers for reinstating his priesthood and temple blessings.  His current wife and him were hoping to be sealed together as soon as that happened.  I know the Atonement has made it possible for me to heal and I am hoping that my children will learn to turn to the Atonement for help in their healing process.  The other good news is it made me reflect on how blessed I am to have a good man like Dave as my spouse and eternal companion.  Listening to the funeral, made me reflect on the fact that no one is perfect.  We all have our weaknesses and we certainly make plenty of mistakes.  It really is our choice whom we will love and part of loving is forgiving when they make the inevitable mistakes that come with mortal life.  Dave is not perfect.  He has his challenges that he has to work on overcoming and improving.  But I felt impressed from early on when I first met him that he had a good heart and I continue to see that time and time again.  Dave truly cares about me and my children.  He works hard to serve us and help us be happy, as well as serving our neighbors, friends, ward members and extended family members.  My life is better because he is in it.

September has been stressful dealing with helping Donna & Bob.  The good news is Bob is in a care facility and has been approved for long-term Medicaid to pay for it.  Donna is doing better.  She really wasn't equipped to handled Bob.  His dementia/alzheimers had deteriorated so badly, it had made her suicidal.  Hopefully Bob will adjust and learn to like his new lifestyle.  I'm ready for life to calm down.  I'm afraid my work suffered this month.

But Dave and I did get away one Saturday for a day up in the mountains at Snowbird.  We enjoyed the breakfast buffet and then took the tram up to the top, hiked around and enjoyed the beautiful fall colors as we rode down the peruvian chair lift.  It was nice to relax and enjoy each other's company.

Dave's the man!

Tried to capture the colors, but my cell phone camera just doesn't do it justice.

My favorite photo of the day

Look what we found at one of the booths for Oktoberfest!  Missionary nutcrakers and a boy scout and cub scout nutcrakers.  How cool is that?

Snowbird Weekend

At the beginning of the summer I started talking to my kids about having a family vacation together, them and me.  We bounced around a few ideas of where and what to do.  I started out with my top 3 choices being Lake Tahoe, Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon.

When Spencer used up all his vacation time for his road trip to Tennessee in early June, and I used most of my vacation time between my trip to England and girls' camp and Jenni got her new job which made it hard for her to take a lot of time off, I trimmed down my aspirations and knew I was going to have to settle for a nearby weekend getaway.

In all my years living in Utah, I have never been up to Snowbird.  I had no idea they had so many great activities.  So I signed us up for a stay and play package that got us a room, a buffet breakfast and an all day pass to all the activity venues they had going, as well as use of the facilities which included swimming pool, hot tub, steam & sauna rooms, and fitness center.  All at a reasonable rate.  It sounded like a good match.

Well this weekend, August 24-25 was our reservation.  Jenni chose not to join us so it ended up being only Spencer and I.  Friday night was sort of a laid back night.  Spencer had been up since 4 am and was quite tired.  He didn't get up there until 7 pm.  I had come up straight from work so I was pretty hungry.

Once we got Spencer settled into our room, which was on the 5th floor with a patio looking towards the mountain, we went and ate at the Steak Pit.  Spencer ordered the 1 lb. ribeye steak and had no problem eating the whole thing, along with a baked potato and salad.  I ordered the teriyaki chicken breast, which turned out to be horrible and only half baked.  I complained about it so they asked if there was something else I wanted, so I requested their smallest steak, a petite sirloin.  That turned out to be heavenly, quite tasty.

We just ended up going back to the room and found Jurassic Park 3 on the tv and watch that while I tried to solve the USA Today crossword puzzle, occasionally getting some help from Spencer.  The theme of the puzzle was Box Factory and they had 3 places where the clue was 3 types of boxes.  It took me a long time to figure out that they had put 3 words together, each one describing a type of box.  For example there was - match(box), penalty(box), bread(box), tackle(box), etc.  We figured out all but two of them and a few other clues.

I would not recommend staying at the lodge at Snowbird.  The walls were paper thin.  We turned the lights out at midnight and Spencer went right to sleep because he was so tired.  I laid there listening to someone who had their TV on way too loud as well as people visiting and laughing until 2 am and it all sounded like it was right in our room.

The breakfast buffet was very enjoyable in the atrium.  Nice setting, good food.  After checking out of our room, we headed over to the activities.  I think our favorites were the zipline and the alpine slide.  We did both of those twice during the day.

The ropes course was not very challenging, the line for the bungee trampoline was too long and slow.  The rock wall was not very challenging for Spencer.  He scampered up it in no time.  I'm a loser because I could only make it halfway up the easiest side of the wall.  Pretty lame, I know.

We also rode the aerial tram up to the top of Hidden Peak - 11,000 ft. altitude.  It was a on the cool side up there, but it felt good.  We hiked a good way over to Mt. Baldy, but didn't go the full distance.  It was a cool  trail because it was right on the ridge line and you could look down on both sides of the mountain as you hiked.

You can see how the trail was right on the ridge in this picture.

Mineral Basin is behind Spencer.

The view from Hidden Peak

The grimace was from looking into the sun, not because I wasn't having a good time.  I was hoping this picture would show the rows of mountain ridge after mountain ridge that you could see from the top.

Spencer was smart and kept the shades on so he could manage to smile for his photo.  I hope these shots give you some idea of how high we were!

We went through the Peruvian tunnel and rode the Peruvian tram back down the mountain.  It was quite a relaxing ride.

By mid afternoon the activities were a lot more crowded and beer mugs were seen everywhere because of Octoberfest.  I bought & ate the best piece of  german chocolate cake.  Spencer settled for a pretzal and pizza.  Spencer was excited to find a booth that had long john's with a butt flap.  He said he's been wanting a pair of pajamas like that for a long time.  He bought himself a pair.  Now I challenge him to let me take a picture of him wearing them so I can post it on this blog.  I found a very nice wall hanging that said - When you hug a fireman you feel warm all over, as well as another item that I will not reveal at this time as it is going to be either a birthday or anniversary present for him in Dec or Jan.

I thought it was a pretty fun time.  I would like to make it an annual tradition to do a weekend getaway with just me and my kids.  Hopefully Jenni will join us next year, along with Alyssa since she should be back in the states by then.

I Survived Girls' Camp

Last week was the YW girls camp up American Fork canyon at a campsite, Mutual Dell.  I was one of 4 leaders that attended with 21 girls.  It had been 24 years since I last attended girls camp as a YW leader and I was never much into girls camp when I was a youth, only having gone 2 years.  My memories of girls camp back in the 1970's was of pretty primitive conditions.  I forgot to take my camera so I have no photos to share.  I'll try to add some later if I can get copies from the other leaders.

This camp had flush toilets, running hot/cold water and showers, although we still slept in tents.  The stake also provided full-time cooks so the girls never had to cook one single meal.  Because of the dry conditions in Utah and the multiple wildfires so far this summer, we were not allowed to light a fire, not even to dutch oven cook.  How's that for a camping experience?  A long cry from what I remember girls camp being like!

The Laurel president worked closely with the stake and along with her first counselor and a stake rep from some of the wards, planned most of the activities and took care of most of the preparations.  I was in charge of the desserts for two nights at camp.  I also was responsible for collecting parent letters to the girls.  The leaders did such a good job carrying out their responsibilities it really allowed me to pretty much just enjoy the experience.  Kudos to Amber Edgecomb and Emily Bridges for being such great youth leaders!  They really took the younger girls under their wings and helped them have a great time.

The theme of camp was "Light the Fire Within" Arise and Shine Forth and they used the Olympic theme since this year is the 10th anniversary of the SLC Winter Olympics and the London Summer Olympics is happening at the end of the month.  Each ward had to pick a country and our ward was Tonga.  The YW president is married to a Tongan and had some good props.  We had a big conch shell that we could blow as a wake up call, or to call the girls to camp.  Our ward had been assigned the value color red and we gave each of the girls a red bandanna, red nail polish and cherry chapstick.

The first day's theme was Bronze the Beauty Within.  I was responsible for doing a certification presentation to the 3rd year girls about nature and expressing through the arts (which I focused on music) how they felt about nature.  I taught them a few camp songs about nature, reviewed a few primary songs and hymns that focused on nature.  The girls were pretty quiet and it was hard to generate much enthusiasm from them.

The first night was skit night.  We did a skit related to Tonga.  Erin Summerill, the YW secretary and Jodee Mickelsen, the YW president acted the part of filmmaker and incompetent assistant who had just returned from filming youth in Tonga learning a cultural dance.  The rest of us played the parts of the youth being filmed.  We did a brief dance segment at regular speed, rewind, fast forward and slow motion.  It was quite fun.

We also heard a great talk from Bro. Atkinson about how the gospel is the only way to happiness; that no other way, any other way, every other way does not work.  Amen to that.

The first night at ward scripture study each of the girls/leaders shared a favorite scripture.  I shared Romans 8:35, 38-39, about the love of God.

The second day was the high adventure day, with the theme Silver Day of Service.  I had looked forward to participating in the various activities planned.  The girls were going to rotate between archery, zipline, canoeing and rappeling, but I was asked by the stake leaders to help all day at the zipline, which I did.  I spent all morning and afternoon, hooking the girls up to the zipline and encouraging them to not be afraid and go for it.  The older girls who had done it before didn't need much encouragement, but the younger girls were leery about the whole experience, until they did it.  On their second go round they were all excited to go again.  What a change for some of them.  It was like night and day.  We were told we were the "hookers" for the day and since we had to be in a safety harness while on the platform, I felt like I had spent the day tied to a tree.  I didn't mind too much missing the other activities since it was my opportunity to provide service as we were encouraged to that day.

Later that day the girls did crafts.  They made a flower origami lei with different colored flowers representing each of the value colors, a red bracelet using washers and feather earrings.  They seemed to have a lot of fun with that.  In the evening was a fireside.  That evening we did thankamonies during our ward scripture time.  We each shared three things we were thankful for.  I choose to name, working with the youth, living in this country and having a good husband.

The last day had the theme, Golden Moments of Glory.  For the younger girls it was their hike day.  Since I was working with 3rd years, I learned to orienteer, using a compass.  It was very informative.  I hope to surprise Dave in the near future with a date night activity using that.  In the afternoon was the sports day and water activities.  The hit of the afternoon was the waterslide down the slope into the grass field.  It had been so hot all week long that it felt so good to the girls to get wet.  I even went down the slide 3 times and I have to admit it was quite refreshing.

That evening was the bishopric visit.  The girls got their parent letter.  Dave had snuck into camp earlier without me seeing him and had left me a letter and strawberries, but I was so busy that night that I tossed them aside thinking they were from my secret sister.  I didn't realize they were from Dave until the next morning.  He wrote me a very sweet letter that made me cry.

That evening we revealed who was our secret sister.  I had Amber Edgecomb and I had given her a small perfume sprayer, a talk on tape by Sister Ellen Edmunds about love & service and then the book, I Challenge You, I Promise You by Paul H Dunn from my floor to ceiling library.  My secret sister had been Varia Aird who had given me a set of hair items each day, bronze, silver & gold, along with a mirror & a flashlight.  She had also arranged to have Lynzie Weakley french braid my hair one day, which was fun to have.

That night as well was the ward testimony meeting.  We started just after 10 pm and ended a few minutes before midnight.  All but two of the girls stood to bear their testimonies.  I shared with the girls two of my testimony experiences as a youth.  One when I knew that God loved me and that I was a daughter of God at BYU's Academy for Girls and then when I knew the church was true on my choir tour in Victoria BC as a junior in high school.  I encouraged them to gain their own testimonies now so it can be an anchor to them as they go through the trials they will have in life.  I also invited all the girls to be a more active part of our Beehive class because they each contribute something and make us better and I told the girls I miss them when they are not there.

Some of the fun of camp was staying up late with the YW leaders and sharing life experiences.  I learned a lot about Sis. Mickelsen, her first marriage and how she met Al.  She was only married 3 years to her first husband, but 25 years to Al.  I learned a lot about some of her kids and grandkid situations.  Besides Jodee and Erin, Jaime Stubbs was there.  She is a lot more quiet and private, but she celebrated her 14th anniversary during camp and I learned she has a daughter coming in to YW next year.

It was satisfying to see all the girls work together and get along so well.  It made me think of Zion, and the scripture that talks about being of one heart and one mind.  The stake leaders chant was "Come to Zion, come, come to Zion.  Come to Zion, come, come to Zion."  How I wish my family could be more like that!  We have the eternities, I guess to work on that (and it may take that long).  Dave has been such a big help in what progress we have made as a family to become like Zion.  I am so grateful to have him as a marriage partner.

This camp experience has also gotten me excited about serving a mission.  I can so see Dave & I serving as a host/hostess for one of the church's recreational properties and working with youth as they participate in scout & girls camps, youth conferences, trek experiences, etc.  I even looked on the lds website to see what is out there and there are plenty of places right here in Utah to serve, but also in the Pacific NW (WA & OR) that would be fun to do.  I vote that we do that first and our second mission experience be a Spanish speaking foreign mission of some kind.  Life could be very fun and rewarding working together to build up Zion and prepare for Christ's second coming.

Summer is Here!

We are in the midst of a heat wave here in Utah!  90 degree weather is not unusual here in Utah during the summer, but it IS unusual this early in the summer.  I read that our temps hit an all time high beating out the record from 1881.  Whoa.  That's a long time ago.  After not sleeping much at all for the last 3 nights, I finally insisted that we turn on the air conditioner to keep our house temperature at a bearable temperature.

Last weekend for Memorial Day, Dave and I made a trip down to his property in Koosherem, UT. (bet you've never heard of that place!  I hadn't before marry him).  He hasn't done a lot with it over the years, but it has a modular 3 bed. 2 bath home in good condition and a trailer home that definitely needs some fixing up.  I have tried to encourage him to spend some time and money improving it so it could be a nice family retreat property.  But since we bought our fix-it up home in Pleasant Grove, he has been so busy on this home, it left little time for Koosherem.  It has been hard for me to take off for the weekend when the kids were younger as well, and they weren't much interested in spending time out in the middle of nowhere.  But the big major projects are done here and the kids are older, doing their own thing, that I don't feel so bad leaving for a weekend now and again.  I'm encouraging Dave to have us go down once a month at least, from now until winter sets in.  We can do some property improvements part of the time and play the other part.  The property is close to the Piute trail and Monroe Mt. which has some great ATV trails, which Dave loves to do.  It is also close to Fish Lake, if you are into fishing and a good home base for trips into Bryce Canyon.  There are also some hot springs about an hour away.


On this visit we cleaned up the home so it is in habitable condition for the season.  We also pulled sagebrush that had overgrown the grounds.  We now at least have a clear path to both entries - front and back.  After doing some work, we also played.  We took two ATV rides. On our ride up Monroe Mt. we saw an elk, two deer, a badger, a beaver and lots of pretty scenery and we were practically the only ones on the mountain because it was still early in the season and it was a bit chilly at that altitude.  


I got Dave to sit down and look over his work calendar and other commitments and we have tentatively determined which weekends we will shoot for to head down to "the farm" as Dave likes to call it.  We hope to invite friends and family along as well, but be prepared to put in some work if you come.  These are "work vacations", but not ALL work.  We do play.


Out of the blue I decided to try to apply for a secretary job with the Alpine School District.  It would be a substantial loss of pay, but it would leave me the summers & holidays off, give me a much shorter commute, and I would be back in the Utah Retirement System earning credits towards retirement.  Anyway from 3-8 more years would make a significant difference in the amount of retirement credit I would have.  Unfortunately, I had to pass a financial test and for some reason, I aced the basic math problems, but the section of the test that required that I balance a bank statement and checkbook, I failed.  And I took the test twice!  Failing both times.  I am baffled because that is what I did as executive director at Altrua and I balance our checking accounts all the time.  This was 30% of the test score so it left me with a score in the 60's so I highly doubt I will even be called in for an interview.  But I will keep looking and trying.


Dave became a grandfather again this morning for the 6th time with his son, Bryan's family.  Another boy.  They now have 5 boys and 1 girl in their family.  This time they did not find out ahead of time, they wanted to be surprised.  They are naming him Rider Adlai Rhoades.  Bryan also has been hired to teach science and coach wrestling at Roosevelt junior high in the fall so sometime this summer they will be packing up and moving out to eastern Utah.  Bryan is excited.  Not so sure about his wife and kids, but the kids are young and will adapt.  Moving is never easy and with 6 young kids, could be quite the challenge.


Today is Alyssa & Kelan's 4th wedding anniversary!!  Congratulations to them.  But Dave & I still beat them out since the end of May we celebrated 5 years since meeting and starting a relationship with each other.  We went back to the dance location that started it all.  The sad thing was, there were still a lot of the same single people there 5 years later.  Both of us are glad to have escaped the single scene although we both feel like we had good experiences being involved in the church single activities and we met a lot of good people.


Spencer took off on his two week road trip last Friday.  The first night out an antelope ran onto the road and they hit it totaling the car they were driving.  They were almost to Rapid City, SD. All 3 of the boys are younger than 25 so they can't use a rental car.   They were driving one of the boy's mother's car.  She ended up driving the boy's car (which is older and they weren't sure it could handle this long of a trip) out to them.  They are back on their way but they probably lost a day out of their itinerary that they will have to modify.


Jennifer has been hired as an afternoon assistant at a program for troubled teens, called Journey down in Provo.  It is just a part-time job but she is liking it a lot.

Garden Daze

We are close to having our gardens all complete.  Yes, that's gardens with an "s".  How two people in their 50's with two young adults living with them, who don't much eat with them anyways, need to grow gardenS is beyond me, but that is what we have this year.

We have our spring garden.  This is nothing new.  It consists of peas, lettuce and spinach.  Peas are coming on and we are beginning to harvest some at this point.  We almost lost our lettuce.  We could not figure out who was the culprit.  I have to admit I blamed Chico, our dog, initially, when the plants were very tender and whole plants would disappear.  And maybe he did his share of destruction.  But when the lettuce plants got bigger and the leaves were gnawed on, I said, "This is not the work of a dog." and so the sleuth work began.  Every morning and upon my return from work I would check the lettuce plants.  Something was having its way with the lettuce and if we didn't do something about it we were going to lose everything!  I built a barrier that was designed to keep a certain dog out, I won't name names.  But the lettuce continued to be eaten.  Eventually, Dave took some evidence (a half eaten lettuce leaf) to a neighbor who is quite knowledgeable about gardens and was told quail was to blame.  We do have quite a few quail in the area.  Shortly after that, Dave had an actual sighting of the quails in action.  That was enough to whip Dave into action.  That day upon my return from work, Dave had devised protection for the lettuce that kept the quail out, but allowed the sunshine and water in.  It seems to have worked because the lettuce is now thriving once more.  The trick is going to be harvesting.  The protection is not harvest friendly.  You can see what I mean below.

Next we have our strawberry patch, which I love.  Not only is it easy to harvest since it is at waist level, but it is probably one of my all-time favorite foods.  We are now in the middle of harvesting those, which is a bit early since they are JUNE bearing plants.  But we almost lost this crop as well, to the birds!  We've had trouble with birds other years, but usually a plastic snake and a fake owl, moved around regularly will keep the birds at bay, but not this year!  We had to resort to netting on top of the plants.  This too keeps the animals out, but allows the sun and water to get through.  Doesn't make it convenient to harvest, but it does allow for a harvest.  See below for yesterday's haul.

Both these gardens we have done for the last 3 years.  These are nothing new.  But our vegetable garden has been taken to a new level this year.  Dave has been quite ambitious.  Being in the High Priest group leadership and the home teacher to an elderly woman in our ward who has way more land than she knows what to do with, has combined forces to bring about the first annual "ward" garden.  Dave has been toiling away for the last two weeks getting the area ready.  He has had help of course.  They brought in a tractor that tilled up the ground.  This is no small garden.  It is probably at least half an acre, maybe more.  They tilled it up again and again.  I think three times total.  Then water had to be brought to the plot.  There was a control box for irrigation water, but a pipeline had to be installed so water was accessible to all areas of the garden.  A trench was dug (using a machine, thank goodness!), pipe installed with periodic water spouts coming off it and then the pipe had to be covered and the trench filled back in (this time by manual labor).  I helped but don't think I contributed all that much since I still tend to baby my back to avoid re-injuring it.

Finally yesterday, our section of the garden was ready to be planted.  Dave's weed prevention method (carpet covering) was in place between the rows.  Drip hoses were bought and placed down the 3 rows in our 10' x 20' space and our plants were transferred from their small pots where they had been living for the last couple of weeks waiting for their new home to be completed and ready to move in (Kayla & John aren't the only ones in temporary housing this month).

This garden now boasts two cantaloupe hills, two watermelon hills, two zucchini hills, two cucumber hills, one winter squash hill, four cabbage plants (two green and two purple), six tomato plants and onions (donated to us by a neighbor).  A very ambitious garden to be sure.  We are excited to have a chance to grow vine fruit since our backyard garden has never been adequate to house sprawling produce.  I don't have a photo of this garden yet.  I will post one with a future blog entry.

But that is not the end of it.  We still have our three grow boxes in our backyard.  Two are being used mostly by Donna and Bob.  They are excited to become gardeners themselves.  Yesterday we helped them plant sunflower and carrot seeds in the back grow box.  They will use most of the middle grow box to grow their own zucchini and cucumber plants.  We will use a section for more onions and a new addition to our garden line-up, a sweet potato plant  .The front grow box  we are still using and is now home to 13, yes you read right, additional tomato plants.  Come on, do the math, that is now 19 tomato plants in all.

 Do you know how many tomatoes we are going to be dealing with come August & September??  In past years I've used the description "swimming in" to describe the amounts of tomatoes we've had.  This year I'm afraid we are going to be buried alive!  We will be giving lots of tomatoes away, I'm sure so feel free to get in line and never buy a single tomato from the grocery store while tomatoes are in season.

Why, you might ask do we have 19 tomato plants?  Good question.  The answer is easy, poor communication between Dave & I.  His brother had asked us to provide him with some tomato starts since every year I grow them from seeds in our sun room.  But this year, because of hurting my back, that didn't happen.  However, not wanting to disappoint his brother, when I went to the nursery and bought tomato starts I made sure to buy plenty for him to have some and a number to contribute to the ward garden "community" tomato patch as well.  My mistake was forgetting to mention this to Dave enough times that he would remember this fact when needed.  When his brother called to inquire about picking up his tomato starts from us, Dave just remembered to tell him I hadn't been able to grow any tomatoes from seed this year due to my back problems.  There went 6 of the tomato starts, or shall I say "stayed" instead of "went".  Then Dave went to a neighbor around the block who grows tomato and pepper starts for sale as a side business and purchased the community tomato plants and didn't take into account the 6 starts that I had earmarked for contribution.  The plan was to have 7 of our own tomato starts, MORE than enough for our needs, but now, as you can see and have read, we are proud parents of 19 tomato plants.  Call me crazy, I know.

We are excited about the prospective apple harvest as well.  I've posted an update to show how the apples are progressing.

We are probably going to need to do another round of thinning.  Both trees are doing well.  For trees that didn't have one single apple to plenty of fruit this year.  It makes my mouth water just thinking about it!

Catching Up

Well, April and came and went without a post to my blog.  I'm going to blame it on my back injury that made it really hard to sit for very long periods of time. So that after sitting at a computer at work, the last thing I was able to do was sit at my home computer and type an entry to my blog.  It was Easter weekend when I had the unfortunate experience of causing some kind of injury to my lower back all because I was being diligent and cleaning my shower stall floor.  But apparently I was being lazy as well, because I didn't get down on my hands and knees to do it, just bent straight over from the waist.  Too long in that position must have caused an adverse reaction to my straightening up.  Take my advice - always get down on your hands and knees to clean any shower floor you may have.  Because it is a month later and I'm still suffering from that.  Although I can function in most day to day activities, I'm still limited in what I dare do and I still feel pain on a regular basis.

This injury caused me to face my fears and treat with a chiropractor for the first time in my life.  I find it ironic that my job has me encouraging my motor vehicle accident clients to get regular chiropractic care for months after an accident.  To them I can tell them all the good reasons for seeing a chiropractor and yet, you would not have caught ME seeing one for any previous aches and pains.  I had an irrational fear of a chiropractor yanking too hard on my spine and causing me to be paralyzed for the rest of my life.  Go ahead and laugh at me, but the fear was real.  So I tell you about my fear, even though it makes me look foolish, so you can understand that for me to finally see a chiropractor it should give you some idea of how much pain I was in and how disabled I was.  This was not some minor tweaking of my back

I'm proud to report I survived five treatments from a chiropractor and he was very patient with my fears. I will have to admit that his treatments got me back up and functioning again.  But you notice, I only went to 5 treatments.  I stopped them as soon as I felt I could live with my back's condition.  I was still having pain but it is slowly getting better.  He did K laser therapy treatments.  If you ever have a chance to use that treatment I recommend it.  It was wonderful.  He also had a massage bed, that if I had the $4,000 it cost to purchase and room in my house for it, I would buy it in a heartbeat.  It was WONDERFUL!  That bed is probably what kept me coming back for as long as I did.

I am now totally out of shape having gone nearly a month without exercise and I lost any momentum I had with my diet.  So I have set a goal in May to eat NO candy and as little sugar as possible.  I am allowing myself the occasional cookie or small dessert but definitely NO candy.  Easter sent me into a candy binge I'm afraid, so I am reforming my diet habits this month.  So far so good.  I've been true to my commitment and it hasn't been as hard as I thought it would be.

I'm back to exercising but I am only walking.  I'm still worried about what too strenous of exercise would do to my back.  I hope my back gets back to 100% soon.

My gardening suffered because of my back injury.  I had started the peas and lettuce as the picture below is proof,

but I wasn't able to start seeds for tomatoes, zucchini, etc.  So I had to bite the bullet and go buy those plants from a nursery this year.  But this year we are going to be able to grow some vegetables that we normally can't because of limited space. This year we have a ward garden space that is huge.  So we signed up for a spot and we will be growing watermelon and canteloupe (that spread all over the place) up there.  We are also going to try sweet potatoes, along with our every year crop of tomatoes, cabbage and cucumbers.  There will also be a ward community corn and pumpkin patch.  It's a big project that Dave got assigned to head up as part of his stewardship in the high priest group leadership so it is going to keep us/him busy this summer.

We are also excited about how our apple trees are doing this year.  In this photo I tried to capture a sample of all the apple buds we have going in both of our apple trees.  Don't worry, I am slowly getting around to thinning.  Our little trees could not handle having ALL the buds come to fruition!  Last year the late winter storms froze off ALL the apple blossoms and we didn't have one single apple.  This year, the apple buds are everywhere!

Speaking of keeping Dave busy, he has started on a new home improvement project.  Take a look at the photos below and see if you can tell what it is.

If you guessed a carport for the back apartment, you are right.  Dave is real excited and Donna and Bob should be as well.  It is going to keep their apartment a lot cooler this summer as it will block the late afternoon sun from directly hitting their apartment.  It will also provide them a covered space in the winter for when they are outside smoking.  Dave is excited because it will provide him a covered place to park his vehicle.  In the three and a half years we have lived in this house, he has always had to park out in the elements, so it is going to be a nice treat for him.

Jenni has finally gotten hired, not just at one job, but apparently two.  She has been working on getting hired at a drug rehab center right here in Pleasant Grove as a night shift personnel.  They had her do a few trial shifts to see how she did and how she got along with the other staff members and then she has filled in for some employees for pay and has done a few complete shifts for pay.  She says she is in a probationary period and if all goes well, it will become permanent.  She likes the job because she can sleep during part of her shift and she is getting paid for it!  

Last week she got hired with another drug/behavioral rehab center down in Provo called The Journey.  You can check out their website  http://www.journeyprograms.com.  Jenni hasn't told us a lot about this job but it is only a part-time job working with the teen girls in the residential program as part of their after school program.  Jenni plans on doing both jobs. She has wanted to get into working as part of the staff for these types of facilities so way to go Jenni!  Congrats on reaching your goal.  

Spencer is busy getting ready and psyched for his big road trip in June with two friends he has made at work. He plans on taking two weeks and touring some of America.  I'm not sure of all the places he is heading for but he has told me Mt. Rushmore and Chicago are two of the places they want to visit.  Their main objective is a big music festival called Bonnaroo, held in Tennessee, apparently on a yearly basis.  It sounds like a modern day Woodstock, but Spencer assures me he is NOT going to be doing the drug/sex scene.  As a mom, I'm keeping my fingers crossed and praying my guts out that it's true.  Check out the website  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnaroo_Music_Festival  to get some idea of what this Bonnaroo is all about.

England Trip

This could be a potentially long post.  How do you recap 10 exciting days in England and not have it be long?  Plus I have lots of photos to go along with my narrative.  I will have to post only the cream of the crop photos.  Ok, so.... Dave and I flew out early evening March 1.  We flew to Minneapolis and almost missed our connecting flight to London.  We flew all night and with the 7 hr time change, by the time we got to London, it was 12:30 pm March 2, Friday.  Customs took FOREVER to get through and I was practically falling asleep on my feet since I really didn't sleep during the flight.  Try sleeping sitting up, with meals being served at midnight, people moving around the cabin and conversations and laughter going on a few rows behind you.  I dare you to do it.  So Friday was just an arrive to Alyssa's house, which is about 2-2.5 hrs from the airport, visit for a little while and then crash day.

Saturday, March 3, we went to a local farmer's market in Bury St. Edmunds and mozied through the stalls taking in the sights. 

It was pretty cold and windy.  This took most of the morning so by the time we were done we had to hit up a local restaurant for some chow.  After eating we headed over to a local park called Abbey Gardens.  That's because all throughout the park are ruins of an abbey from long ago.  See photos below.

Even though we were cold, we enjoyed ourselves. 

Sunday, March 4th was church and Cosette's blessing day.  Dave was asked to offer the blessing, which he gladly did.  See the happy grandparents below with the star of the day.

And here are the proud parents.

Monday, March 5th we took off to tour England.  We headed to Bath which is on the western side of England and Alyssa and family live on the eastern side so it was a number of hours to get there, but it was well worth it.  We toured the bath, saw the abbey and walked around a bit.  See some of my favorite photos below from Bath.

 Main entrance to the abbey.

 Abbey in the background.  We are on the balcony surrounding the Roman bath.

 I liked this shot because it shows the bath below, the roman architecture and the abbey in the background.

 I love this photo because Sierra looks so delighted to be with her grandparents and seeing the sights.

 We couldn't actually bathe in the hot springs, but Dave managed to stick his hand in the water.

I like this one because it shows the steam coming up from the water and you can see the reflection of the balcony above.

It was like walking back in time and made me think of the pool of Bethsaida paintings.  It was probably a place similar to this where Jesus healed the lame man.

There was a museum with lots of artifacts that we wondered through and enjoyed and we went underground and saw the hot springs and sauna rooms.  It was all quite facinating.

Then since Stonehenge was only an hour drive from Bath, we headed in that direction.  Little did we know that access to Stonehenge only went until 4 pm.  We arrived at 4:20, 20 minutes too late!  It was such a disappointment.  We were able to view it from outside the chainlink fence, and got a few photos, but it wasn't the same as if we could have gone in and viewed it up close. 

Oh well, at least I can say I've been then and seen Stonehenge in person.

The trip back put us home rather late, and no one was in the mood to cook, so Kelan and Alyssa took us to one of their favorite restaurants in Cambridge, yes, the town where Cambridge University is located and apparently where Prince William and Kate are now named after (Duke & Duchess of Cambridge).  I can't remember the name of the restaurant, but it was portuguese cuisine.

Tuesday was a rest day, hanging around the military base.  Kelan took Dave on a tour of his working facilities and other places on the base while I helped around the house and with the kids.  We all did take a trip to the BX where we perused the souvenir shops and got an idea of what we might want to purchase to bring home.  Kelan is stationed at RAF Lakenhealth, home of the Liberty division, 48th fighting wing.  It was really cool because every day at 4:30 pm when the flag is retired, the national anthem of both England and USA is played and no matter where you on on the base, if you are within hearing distance, you stop and honor the flag, in your car or walking, it doesn't matter.  Everyone stops.

 The entrance to the base closest to Alyssa & Kelan's home so we used this frequently.  Every time you enter the base you have to provide photo identification and we had to have a pass allowing us to be on the base as visitors.

 There is a mini statue of Liberty at the flag pole location in honor of the fact that they are the Liberty Division.

Tuesday evening the storm came in and it actually snowed, no sticking to the streets however.  Wednesday was our planned day into London and it rained, pretty hard until about 2 pm.  It kept the crowds down, but made walking the streets not very enjoyable.  We went to Buckingham Palace first, walked through St. James Park over to Westminster Abbey.  We took the tour of the Abbey mostly to get out of the rain, but it was pretty facinating to see the architecture and all the scepulchres and plaques honoring many famous people from English history.  We weren't allowed to take photos inside the abbey so I only have outside photos.

 In front of the royal gates at Buckingham palace. 

 Buckingham palace, London, England.  See, no crowds, which Alyssa said was highly unusual, but I'm sure the rain kept people away

 St. James Park.  Signs of spring were there.

 Great views of Big Ben as we walked to Westminster.

 Front view of Westminster Abbey.

Side entrance to Westminster Abbey.  Incredible architecture both inside and out!

We headed over to Trafalgar Square after this and took some photos of typical London sights as well as strolled down some of the nearby streets.

 Trafalgar Square was quite large of an area.  Not only did it have this large fountain, but also a very large statue of Lord Trafalgar, of course!  The National Gallery is in the background behind the fountain. 

 Dave and his sense of humor.  Don't little boys ever grow up?  What can I say??

 Ah, the red double decker buses.

 And the red telephone booths.

 This appeared to be Scotland Yard.  At least we saw a sign indicating that and there was a Sherlock Holmes restaurant across from this building.

 The river Thames behind us with Big Ben, the Parliment and Westminster as well.

Sierra, Kelan & Alyssa with the London Eye behind them and of course the Thames River.  One of the few moments of sunshine that day.

We said goodbye to them and headed over to Victoria Station for dinner and to enjoy our show, Wicked.

It turned out to be a late night by the time we got to our hotel, but it was a fun show.  Thursday morning, we got up and I dropped Dave off at Heathrow airport for his flight back home and then headed back into London to do some serious playing... on my terms.

I went right back to Trafalgar Square and spent an hour and a half in the National Gallery.  I got there right when it opened so there were not a lot of crowds.  I enjoyed wondering from room to room viewing the paintings.  There wasn't any particular ones that really stood out.  I just loved seeing original pieces of many of the artist I had studied in college for my Humanities degree.  Compared with the Louvre in Paris and the Prado in Madrid, it wasn't nearly as spectacular as I remember those, but it was quite enjoyable.

By the time I was done there it was noon so I made sure to stop at a small cafe that had fish and chips.  Mmmm is all I can say.  Then I headed over to St. Paul's cathedral, but ended up taking a detour when I noticed that my underground train stopped near one of the only remaining homes that Charles Dickens had lived in and since I do enjoy his writings and this is the 200th year of his birth I decided I just HAD to stop by so I could at least say I had been there.  Which I did and I have the picture to prove it.  His home is now a museum.

Then it was on to St. Paul's Cathedral and all I can say is WOW!!  St. Paul's is so immense, so ornate and so fascinating.  It is called the nation's cathedral.  It is where Princess Diana was wed, Winston Churchill's funeral was held and in the crypt is buried Lord Nelson who defeated the Spanish Armada and Duke of Wellington who defeated Napoleon Bonaparte.  It was built by Christopher Wren in the 1700's and was designed to tower over all of  London, which is does quite well.  I spent quite a bit of time in there, but no photos were allowed inside so the only photos I have are below.

This photo was taken miles from the cathedral and yet look how large it seems.

I tried to see Tower Bridge and got in the general neighborhood but then ran out of energy.  So I headed back to Victoria Station to do some souvenir shopping and then hopped on the tube to head back for pick up by Alyssa to return to the base.  

Friday was a down day to hang with the family.  I tried to help out by doing some cleaning around the house and taking Sierra to the playground near by.  Kelan went back to work and Alyssa and I entertained ourselves that evening by going to the movie theater on base to see The Lorax (not a movie I would recommend by the way, too much environmental propaganda!).

Saturday we headed out on another adventure that was quite fun.  I couldn't leave England without seeing a castle so we found the nearest castle to the base and headed over to check it out.  Framlington Castle is about an hour east and it was wonderful experience.  Sierra kept calling it Cinderella's castle, which was fun.  We were able to climb up on the walls and walk around the perimeter of the castle.  You could see where the moat used to be (no water in there any more), the dungeon tower, and there was a nice little museum inside.  Check out the photos below.

 Framlingham castle is listed as a 12th century castle.

 Doesn't that look medieval?

 The moat is now a walkway around the castle.

 Sierra & Kelan at the entrance

Inside the castle

The last Sunday I was there was probably the sunniest and warmest day.  I had one more day, Monday, where I tried to get in last minute souvenir shopping and just enjoyed the grandkids.  Then it was up early the next morning, and a close call getting to the airport in time for my flight home.  Luckily it left about 20 minutes late or I might not have made it.  The flight home was long.  Next time I plan a layover in Atlanta with my brother, Kent to break up the flight.

But I'm grateful to live in a time when traveling is so quick and relatively comfortable.  Before airplanes a visit to England to see family would never have happened since we would have been talking days/weeks just in travel time.

Now I can say I have been to 3 major European cities/countries:  London, England, Paris, France & Madrid, Spain.  I've also been to Mexico, Guatemala & El Salvador along with Canada.  I wonder what other travels await me in the future?