I suggested that we each read our blessings as we start out the new year. I finally have gotten around to it.
I am awed and amazed.
I was given my blessing on April 23, 1978. It was short, much shorter than each of my children's, and very to the point. There were no super exciting dramatic things like I oft heard people share. It was basically, be good- get blessed.
That is what I thought for most of my early years in the church.
Now, I see it quite differently.
Here are 2 paragraphs I would like to share:
"Karen, I bless you that you may have a hunger and thirst for righteousness, a desire to know and search the scriptures, to become intimately acquainted with your Father in heave and the Lord, Jesus Christ. I bless you that your mind might be keen and your intellect enlightened, that you may be able to comprehend the scriptures. As you are diligent and faithful in seeking knowledge, the Lord will touch you that you will understand the truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I bless you that you will come to know and understand that the principles of the gospel are eternal truths, the same truths by which the earth and the universe were created and are operated, and these same truths you may use in your life to judge the truth of all things. Hold fast to those things which measure up to these eternal truths, for they will bring true joy and happiness into your life as you are obedient to them.
I bless you that as a mother... that you might teach these truths to your children..."
How blessed I feel this cold Sunday morning when the warmth of the Gospel shines so clearly in my life. I end my class every single Wednesday night challenging the students to keep seeking, ever seeking, the truth of all things. I continue to seek knowledge and truth. It does bring me great joy when I hear a truth and the Spirit speaks to me of its truth.
Just this morning I watched a BYU discussion on Alma 40- 42. ( I need to teach that this week) Never before have these doctrines felt so clear and obvious to me. How awesome has been my growth in this Gospel! (Of course, I know I have much more to learn)
Study, pray, and prepare. Read your Patriarchal blessings if you have not done so already.
Sunday, January 19, 2014
Friday, January 10, 2014
A dream about Tom
I had extra time today, so I was going through some paperwork.
I found this scribbled on the bottom of a notebook I use for General Conference talks.
8/22/09
" On the night of Tom's birthday, the Lord gave me a special gift. I had a dream: I was working in a hospital, and I had a locker. As I was looking in my locker, I heard and saw some missionaries come in the room.
I heard Tommy's voice. Someone tole me not to look because it was Tommy, and he was still on his mission. As they walked away, I looked up and saw him and heard his voice! It was wonderful! It was as clear as a bell. Thank you Heavenly Father!"
I am grateful today that I wrote that down. I have had many great spiritual dreams, some I have never even told anyone about. Some have to do with genealogy.
I want my boys to know how much I missed them when they were on their missions. Bret was the hardest, because he was so far, and contact was slower and different than now. I knew they would be blessed and watched over, but I will admit some days were hard.
I am grateful for all of you choosing righteousness and keeping your covenants.
I found this scribbled on the bottom of a notebook I use for General Conference talks.
8/22/09
" On the night of Tom's birthday, the Lord gave me a special gift. I had a dream: I was working in a hospital, and I had a locker. As I was looking in my locker, I heard and saw some missionaries come in the room.
I heard Tommy's voice. Someone tole me not to look because it was Tommy, and he was still on his mission. As they walked away, I looked up and saw him and heard his voice! It was wonderful! It was as clear as a bell. Thank you Heavenly Father!"
I am grateful today that I wrote that down. I have had many great spiritual dreams, some I have never even told anyone about. Some have to do with genealogy.
I want my boys to know how much I missed them when they were on their missions. Bret was the hardest, because he was so far, and contact was slower and different than now. I knew they would be blessed and watched over, but I will admit some days were hard.
I am grateful for all of you choosing righteousness and keeping your covenants.
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Bret's best of 2013
2013 was awesome. I got a new job, had some great trips, and enjoyed health. Here are some top things from 2013.
Favorite songs. It was hard to narrow down my top 10, but in the end, here they are. Yep, Miley has not one, but TWO of my fav songs of the year.
Red Hands by Walk Off the Earth
Naked Kids by Grouplove
We Can't Stop by Miley Cyrus
Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus
Sweater Weather by Neighborhood
We Own It by 2 Chainz and Wiz Khalifa
Come & Get It by Selena Gomez
My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark by Fall Out Boy
Just Give Me A Reason by Pink and Nate Ruess
Pacific Rim by Ramin Djawadi
I wanted to embed this, but I can't from the chromebook and I'm too lazy to go to the other computer. So here is a link to listen to the songs.
https://play.spotify.com/user/darevco27/playlist/4Bu6Ns1gLRLOJjpiSzBXsP
Favorite Book I read in 2013: Chasing the Prophecy (Beyonders 3)
Favorite Movie in 2013: Fast & Furious 6
Favorite New TV Show I watched: Arrow
Most Addictive Game I played: Candy Crush Saga
Favorite Sports Moment: Attending the BYU bowl game (even though we lost)
Here's to a great 2014. Happy New Year everyone.
Monday, December 30, 2013
Addition to Thanksgiving
I forgot (cuz my pictures to remember were on my phone, not my camera) that we got to finally eat at the cute little diner in Cottonwood with Bret's parents. We ate dinner there after everyone split up from being in Sedona. The food was pretty good, and the the atmosphere was fun! I think the kids enjoyed eating there too. I got some onion rings and they were hands down, the best onion rings I have had in a long time. Delicious! Bret was happy to finally eat at this cute little place.
San Francisco Trip - 2013
For years I have been told that San Francisco is a great place and I should visit. So when BYU made the deal to have the bowl game there this year I decided it was a good time to go to our first BYU bowl game. Tevia seemed on board and eventually Jake and Cari also decided to go for it. Tevia and I decided to use the trip as a getaway and like a Christmas present. I bought our tickets the first week they were available and we have counted down to the trip ever since.
The day after Christmas Tevia and I drove down from Lakeside where we had spent Christmas and went to the airport to fly out. We didn't arrive until late that night. We took the subway to the hotel and pretty much went to bed shortly after arriving. First impressions to me were it reminded me a lot of Asia; Hong Kong in particular. This was probably due to the hills and many of the Asia stores found in Hong Kong (like UNIQLO).
Friday we decided to do breakfast at a place down the street called Sears Fine Food. Jacob and Cari came with us. There was a line, but we had no deadlines, so we waited in line for some time before being seated. I ordered the Eggs Benedict. I have to admit that this meal was fantastic. I loved it. In fact, we loved it so much we returned two days later before leaving SF. We then took a taxi to the fisherman's wharf (Pier 39 to be exact) and spent some time wandering that area. This was also fun. I loved seeing the sea lions. While watching the sea lions we also happened to notice Dave McCann from BYUTV. He hosts TrueBlue and does many of the sports shows. We love this guy. Oddly enough, he eventually came and stood by Jake and I began talking to us. So we said hello and talked about the game and team and it was kinda fun.
After our celebrity encounter, we visited the aquarium which I also enjoyed. We then wanted some seafood and even though the place was very crowded, since we weren't in a hurry we waited at a place there on Pier 39. We had some scallops with a great jalapeno sauce and fish and chips and chowder. The best was a non-alcoholic raspberry mojito, which was good enough that Tevia and I went back for another at the bar on our last day, too.
We then headed up towards Lombard Street (famous "crooked" street) which was fun walking up the hill and then down the street. We could see the Golden Gate bridge and Alcatraz. We grabbed a cable car and headed over to China Town. We had fun looking at the shops and food and eventually stopped where Jake wanted to try some egg custards (egg tarts) that they eat a lot in China. The bakery also had sesame balls which I was quick to order one. Jake tried the egg custard and liked it so much he bought the rest.
At this point it was about time to head to the game. We went back to our hotel and bundled up a bit and realized that the game was over a mile away and we weren't sure we wanted to walk that (after walking a lot that afternoon). We were thinking of getting a taxi when a guy approached us and offered to drive us over in his limo/suburban. We decided to go for it and I'm glad we did. This was the craziest taxi ride I have ever been in (and I've been in a lot of taxis). He drove this Suburban like it was a motorcycle and I couldn't believe we didn't hit more than a few cars. He got us there in record time and we headed into the stadium sporting our Cougar gear and looking forward to our first bowl game.
When I purchased the tickets they didn't provide seats but instead would provide them later. But you could pay extra to try and get better seats or do some other tricks to get better seats. I didn't do any of those things but did put a funny note in the note section. When I got the tickets in the mail I immediately looked online and put in the seat numbers and they looked pretty good, but not as low as I would have liked. So when we arrived at the stadium and looked for our seats, we couldn't find them in the lower section so I was disappointed and thought we had to go up a level. But when we went up there they said our seats were down in the lower level. So we went back down and asked where our seats were. They guy said these were down by the field and we had to go through a tunnel to get to them. Wow! Crazy. So we went through the tunnel and at the door we had to enter to get to our seats was a line of people. We asked what they were lining up for and they said the team was going to go by. So we stayed in the small line and got to see the team come out of the locker room. Then we went to our seats... which were ... front .. row ..SEATs! It was awesome.
The game was a blast. We lost; so that sucked. But it was fun and the experience was amazing. We stayed after for quite some time to cheer the sad players on as they entered the locker room. Many of them (especially the seniors) were in tears. It looked like Bronco was, too. We then walked home for a great ending to our day.
The next day J&C went home, so it was just Tevia and I. I told Tevia to pick what she wanted to do. We started off going to breakfast (early lunch) getting a Banh Mi at a small Vietnamese place. We then packed them and took a taxi to Golden Gate park. The sandwiches were amazing. Then we walked through the gorgeous park (think the size of Central Park) and went to the Japanese Gardens and some of the lakes. We eventually ended up on the beach at the end of the park and were amazed to see such a huge beach. There were surfers even though it was cold. This park was also the first time I've seen someone wearing Google Glass. From the beach we hiked up to the baths which was cool area where a guy had built swimming pools long ago. There was also a tunnel in the mountain. It was fun hiking and viewing right along the ocean. From there we took a bus to Ghirardelli Square and waited in an amazingly long line for some ice cream. We then walked the wharf again and walked back to our hotel. We rested again before heading out for dinner. Neither of us were starving so we just walked around and eventually settled on a little Italian joint that had gnocchi (I'm a sucker for gnocchi) and enjoyed a fun meal. After that we were exhausted (at least i was) and went to bed.
Our last day we had breakfast at Sears again (I ordered the same thing). We then packed up our stuff and checked out and left our baggage at the hotel. We then took a cable car ride again and Tevia was excited because we were able to hang out the side. The driver was very fun and we went to the wharf again to visit one pier Tevia wanted to see. We eventually made our way back to Pier 39 where we got our mojitos again and then some awesome tiny donuts. We then took the streetcar back to Union Square where we sat in the sun for some time before gathering our stuff and heading back to PHX.
It was a great trip and I had a lot of fun.
The day after Christmas Tevia and I drove down from Lakeside where we had spent Christmas and went to the airport to fly out. We didn't arrive until late that night. We took the subway to the hotel and pretty much went to bed shortly after arriving. First impressions to me were it reminded me a lot of Asia; Hong Kong in particular. This was probably due to the hills and many of the Asia stores found in Hong Kong (like UNIQLO).
Friday we decided to do breakfast at a place down the street called Sears Fine Food. Jacob and Cari came with us. There was a line, but we had no deadlines, so we waited in line for some time before being seated. I ordered the Eggs Benedict. I have to admit that this meal was fantastic. I loved it. In fact, we loved it so much we returned two days later before leaving SF. We then took a taxi to the fisherman's wharf (Pier 39 to be exact) and spent some time wandering that area. This was also fun. I loved seeing the sea lions. While watching the sea lions we also happened to notice Dave McCann from BYUTV. He hosts TrueBlue and does many of the sports shows. We love this guy. Oddly enough, he eventually came and stood by Jake and I began talking to us. So we said hello and talked about the game and team and it was kinda fun.
After our celebrity encounter, we visited the aquarium which I also enjoyed. We then wanted some seafood and even though the place was very crowded, since we weren't in a hurry we waited at a place there on Pier 39. We had some scallops with a great jalapeno sauce and fish and chips and chowder. The best was a non-alcoholic raspberry mojito, which was good enough that Tevia and I went back for another at the bar on our last day, too.
We then headed up towards Lombard Street (famous "crooked" street) which was fun walking up the hill and then down the street. We could see the Golden Gate bridge and Alcatraz. We grabbed a cable car and headed over to China Town. We had fun looking at the shops and food and eventually stopped where Jake wanted to try some egg custards (egg tarts) that they eat a lot in China. The bakery also had sesame balls which I was quick to order one. Jake tried the egg custard and liked it so much he bought the rest.
At this point it was about time to head to the game. We went back to our hotel and bundled up a bit and realized that the game was over a mile away and we weren't sure we wanted to walk that (after walking a lot that afternoon). We were thinking of getting a taxi when a guy approached us and offered to drive us over in his limo/suburban. We decided to go for it and I'm glad we did. This was the craziest taxi ride I have ever been in (and I've been in a lot of taxis). He drove this Suburban like it was a motorcycle and I couldn't believe we didn't hit more than a few cars. He got us there in record time and we headed into the stadium sporting our Cougar gear and looking forward to our first bowl game.
When I purchased the tickets they didn't provide seats but instead would provide them later. But you could pay extra to try and get better seats or do some other tricks to get better seats. I didn't do any of those things but did put a funny note in the note section. When I got the tickets in the mail I immediately looked online and put in the seat numbers and they looked pretty good, but not as low as I would have liked. So when we arrived at the stadium and looked for our seats, we couldn't find them in the lower section so I was disappointed and thought we had to go up a level. But when we went up there they said our seats were down in the lower level. So we went back down and asked where our seats were. They guy said these were down by the field and we had to go through a tunnel to get to them. Wow! Crazy. So we went through the tunnel and at the door we had to enter to get to our seats was a line of people. We asked what they were lining up for and they said the team was going to go by. So we stayed in the small line and got to see the team come out of the locker room. Then we went to our seats... which were ... front .. row ..SEATs! It was awesome.
The game was a blast. We lost; so that sucked. But it was fun and the experience was amazing. We stayed after for quite some time to cheer the sad players on as they entered the locker room. Many of them (especially the seniors) were in tears. It looked like Bronco was, too. We then walked home for a great ending to our day.
The next day J&C went home, so it was just Tevia and I. I told Tevia to pick what she wanted to do. We started off going to breakfast (early lunch) getting a Banh Mi at a small Vietnamese place. We then packed them and took a taxi to Golden Gate park. The sandwiches were amazing. Then we walked through the gorgeous park (think the size of Central Park) and went to the Japanese Gardens and some of the lakes. We eventually ended up on the beach at the end of the park and were amazed to see such a huge beach. There were surfers even though it was cold. This park was also the first time I've seen someone wearing Google Glass. From the beach we hiked up to the baths which was cool area where a guy had built swimming pools long ago. There was also a tunnel in the mountain. It was fun hiking and viewing right along the ocean. From there we took a bus to Ghirardelli Square and waited in an amazingly long line for some ice cream. We then walked the wharf again and walked back to our hotel. We rested again before heading out for dinner. Neither of us were starving so we just walked around and eventually settled on a little Italian joint that had gnocchi (I'm a sucker for gnocchi) and enjoyed a fun meal. After that we were exhausted (at least i was) and went to bed.
Our last day we had breakfast at Sears again (I ordered the same thing). We then packed up our stuff and checked out and left our baggage at the hotel. We then took a cable car ride again and Tevia was excited because we were able to hang out the side. The driver was very fun and we went to the wharf again to visit one pier Tevia wanted to see. We eventually made our way back to Pier 39 where we got our mojitos again and then some awesome tiny donuts. We then took the streetcar back to Union Square where we sat in the sun for some time before gathering our stuff and heading back to PHX.
It was a great trip and I had a lot of fun.
Thursday, December 19, 2013
What I am learning from my calling
I received my first Christmas gift last night. It was sweet, thoughtful, something I can actually use, and probably from the dollar store. It was heartfelt and sincere, and I was humbled by it.
A few hours earlier, a young man was posting hourly on our YSA FB page, "who is coming to Institute tonight?"
Time went by, and no one answered. By 2 pm, I was worried it would end up being just him and I.
I also posted, requesting others to let us know if they were coming or not.
If no one else answered by 3:00, I would cancel. Dad & I started thinking we could end up going to a movie.
There are two sweet girls in Pok 2 ward that are special needs of some sort. They are roommates, and one joined the church this past year, and one when she was 17. One has a 5 yr old child who lives with the father's mother. Neither work, nor drive, and I know they live in some kind of government assisted housing.
They immediately answered and said if they could get a ride, they would come. They love coming. They called around their whole ward until they found a ride. Kevin would bring them, and I would bring them home. They live in the center of the city of Poughkeepsie.
And so it was. There were now 3 'for sure'.
The young man, finding out it would now just be him and these 2 girls, wrote, and I quote, "well, since basically no one else is going, I probably won't come now." I was floored. These girls are not invisible. They deserve to be included, and feel the Spirit.
Jen, one of the girls, did not even notice the dis, and continued texting and calling others, hoping some of the local boys were home from college and could come.
I geared up my lesson for just them, (they both know very little about the Book of Momon or the Gospel)
Last week I spent 1/2 hour with just them and we had a great lesson about angels.
So, I get lazy, and it is super cold and snowy, and I ask dad, "since it is only a few people coming, do you think I can just wear jeans and boots and my warm sweater I had on? Now, dad is over me, speaking in church language, and he gave me permission.
I head out the door with 10 wrapped, flavored chap sticks, lots of Christmas cookies, hot chocolate, and a good attitude, thinking how I will bless these 2 girls lives.
ha ha. and then The Lord says, Karen needs to learn something here.
I get to church, and there is Eric, a returned missionary from Brazil, and 2 new missionaries from the 2nd ward, sitting in the front row, ready for a deep, well-taught Institute lesson. I sneak in, embarrassed to be in jeans, and my mind starts racing. I had to do some rearranging of my lesson, and quick.
The girls come, and, low and behold, so does this young man.
So I had 6, and we had a great class, and the Lord blessed me with some semblance of sanity, and we had a great discussion.
A few hours earlier, a young man was posting hourly on our YSA FB page, "who is coming to Institute tonight?"
Time went by, and no one answered. By 2 pm, I was worried it would end up being just him and I.
I also posted, requesting others to let us know if they were coming or not.
If no one else answered by 3:00, I would cancel. Dad & I started thinking we could end up going to a movie.
There are two sweet girls in Pok 2 ward that are special needs of some sort. They are roommates, and one joined the church this past year, and one when she was 17. One has a 5 yr old child who lives with the father's mother. Neither work, nor drive, and I know they live in some kind of government assisted housing.
They immediately answered and said if they could get a ride, they would come. They love coming. They called around their whole ward until they found a ride. Kevin would bring them, and I would bring them home. They live in the center of the city of Poughkeepsie.
And so it was. There were now 3 'for sure'.
The young man, finding out it would now just be him and these 2 girls, wrote, and I quote, "well, since basically no one else is going, I probably won't come now." I was floored. These girls are not invisible. They deserve to be included, and feel the Spirit.
Jen, one of the girls, did not even notice the dis, and continued texting and calling others, hoping some of the local boys were home from college and could come.
I geared up my lesson for just them, (they both know very little about the Book of Momon or the Gospel)
Last week I spent 1/2 hour with just them and we had a great lesson about angels.
So, I get lazy, and it is super cold and snowy, and I ask dad, "since it is only a few people coming, do you think I can just wear jeans and boots and my warm sweater I had on? Now, dad is over me, speaking in church language, and he gave me permission.
I head out the door with 10 wrapped, flavored chap sticks, lots of Christmas cookies, hot chocolate, and a good attitude, thinking how I will bless these 2 girls lives.
ha ha. and then The Lord says, Karen needs to learn something here.
I get to church, and there is Eric, a returned missionary from Brazil, and 2 new missionaries from the 2nd ward, sitting in the front row, ready for a deep, well-taught Institute lesson. I sneak in, embarrassed to be in jeans, and my mind starts racing. I had to do some rearranging of my lesson, and quick.
The girls come, and, low and behold, so does this young man.
So I had 6, and we had a great class, and the Lord blessed me with some semblance of sanity, and we had a great discussion.
- I will never wear jeans again
- I will never cancel Institute due to how many respond on FB
- I will always do my best on my lesson, no matter who is attending
- I will continue to learn real Christlike love for all, even the guy who faked me out and I judged him out and then he came through in the end
- people are wonderful, and all have something to give
The gift was from Jen and Nicole, along with a card that said they loved me. And they really do. Not because I am a good teacher, or because I help them, but because they know how to really truly love people. And it is I who learn from them.
Monday, November 04, 2013
Kathy Marie Wall Cox
Kathy came into the world as expected, on November 4th, 1987, quite different than the first two birth experiences. We knew it would be a C-section, and we chose the day. It was so easy; pack, wake up, and go to the appointment. No pain. No worries. Bret & Jacob spent the day with grandma Wall.
We also had the name chosen for years. If I had 2 girls, one would be Kathy, named after my sister and best friend. The other would be Alexa, named after my other best friend from grade school all the way to high school. I loved her name, and she was the only Alexa I knew. (My sister also loved the name, hence, Sarah's daughter is Alexa) I am glad we now have a Lexi.
Kathy was expensive. We had no health insurance at that point, but knew we would probably have a c-section, and just saved money for it.
Because we lived in Salt Lake, we had plenty of help from Grandma Wall, other family members, and the ward brought in meals for 5 nights. Dad & I fondly remember having 3 nights of chicken soup, but all totally different tasting. We had some great cooks in our ward.
She cried a lot, and by her 2 week check up, she already had an ear infection, which explained why she was so fussy. However she continued to be a fussy, colicky baby until she was six months old, when she learned to such her finger. She also did not sleep through the night until then.
It had taken us 4 years to be blessed with a girl after having Jacob. We wanted more children, and prayed and fasted. Two miscarriages came and went, sadly, and I found myself longing for another child. We finally decided to try to adopt. We started going through the paperwork. It was at my physical for the adoption that the doctor told me I was pregnant.
Before she was born, Kathy was reaching out to me. I had two amazing spiritual experiences with her. One was in the temple, after I knew I was expecting. I was told as clear as day that I was having a little blond girl. I could almost see her. It was surreal.
I had another visit from her in our home, before she was born, that is too tender and special to blog about, but I also can remember it very clearly and how I felt.
Bret was so happy when Jacob was born, and he wanted even more siblings; so this was thrilling to him. He held her and watched over her and of course became our babysitter. He was great with babies and children.
We felt so blessed with 3 children. Dad was at the end of his PhD, and life was awesome! Because I had had so much trouble getting pregnant, we didn't know if we would be blessed with more children or not. Right before Kathy turned 1, we moved to start our new life with IBM in NY, and dad bought our first brand new car, a Ford Escort. (which, didn't fit a family of six!) Our 4th blessing, Tom, came soon after, and we were complete!
We also had the name chosen for years. If I had 2 girls, one would be Kathy, named after my sister and best friend. The other would be Alexa, named after my other best friend from grade school all the way to high school. I loved her name, and she was the only Alexa I knew. (My sister also loved the name, hence, Sarah's daughter is Alexa) I am glad we now have a Lexi.
Kathy was expensive. We had no health insurance at that point, but knew we would probably have a c-section, and just saved money for it.
Because we lived in Salt Lake, we had plenty of help from Grandma Wall, other family members, and the ward brought in meals for 5 nights. Dad & I fondly remember having 3 nights of chicken soup, but all totally different tasting. We had some great cooks in our ward.
She cried a lot, and by her 2 week check up, she already had an ear infection, which explained why she was so fussy. However she continued to be a fussy, colicky baby until she was six months old, when she learned to such her finger. She also did not sleep through the night until then.
It had taken us 4 years to be blessed with a girl after having Jacob. We wanted more children, and prayed and fasted. Two miscarriages came and went, sadly, and I found myself longing for another child. We finally decided to try to adopt. We started going through the paperwork. It was at my physical for the adoption that the doctor told me I was pregnant.
Before she was born, Kathy was reaching out to me. I had two amazing spiritual experiences with her. One was in the temple, after I knew I was expecting. I was told as clear as day that I was having a little blond girl. I could almost see her. It was surreal.
I had another visit from her in our home, before she was born, that is too tender and special to blog about, but I also can remember it very clearly and how I felt.
Bret was so happy when Jacob was born, and he wanted even more siblings; so this was thrilling to him. He held her and watched over her and of course became our babysitter. He was great with babies and children.
We felt so blessed with 3 children. Dad was at the end of his PhD, and life was awesome! Because I had had so much trouble getting pregnant, we didn't know if we would be blessed with more children or not. Right before Kathy turned 1, we moved to start our new life with IBM in NY, and dad bought our first brand new car, a Ford Escort. (which, didn't fit a family of six!) Our 4th blessing, Tom, came soon after, and we were complete!
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Bronx Zoo
We actually did something spur-of-the-moment! Kind of... Dad & I have wanted to visit the Bronx zoo on a Wednesday for several months. (Wednesdays are free, sort of). It has been hard for him to get a day off of work, or, the weather did not cooperate.
With his new boss, they now have daily meetings, and he has been leery of missing them.
Yesterday, he woke up, noticed a meeting had been cancelled, rearranged his whole schedule, and asked me to go to the zoo.
Well, another hard thing about Wednesdays is that I set that day aside to work on my lesson. This week was Jacob 5, and the class voted to delve into it deeply. Yikes. Hard stuff for me. I always read that chapter with an attitude: too many who is grafting who in where questions for me.
Until this week. I studied and studied. So, I thought I had it mostly down, and accepted the date.
We had so much fun! It is not a kid-friendly zoo. The animals are far apart. There is a lot of walking.
I thought I found directions to the best parking lot- fail on my part, so we had to walk even farther to most of the exhibits.
Although it was free, there are at least 6 separate exhibitions that cost additional money. I have never paid the extra $5. to see the gorillas there, and have always wanted to. I find them fascinating, ever since I was a child. We had a favorite gorilla in the Cleveland zoo we new by name, and he loved whenever my sister came in.
So dad decided to pay the money and get an all-included pass to everything, since the entrance was free.
Total - 15 parking, 15 more each for this pass= 45 for a free day at the zoo. Classic.
The $3 butterfly house was a disappointment to dad. I had seen it before, but with the cool weather, there were only about 20 butterflies flying around, and only 3 species visible. He was sad.
We took a ride on the Asian monorail, which was a lovely ride in the beautiful fall trees, with few and far between animals; mostly different kinds of deer, one elephant, and a huge bengal tiger. We enjoyed it, but again, if we had little ones, they may have found it long and boring. ($5 each a ride)
The gorillas were fun. The baboons super active. We enjoyed an overpriced sandwich and soda, and walked some more.
This zoo does an amazing job of scenery and showcasing the animals. There are just not many animals.
Neither of us had a favorite. We really just loved being together, taking a day off, and walking along in the cool beauty of the fall here in NY.
The last time I went was with Kathy's grade school class. They stopped all city field trips since 9/11.
Side note: 2 of the paid exhibits are dinosaur themed. What is that about? They aren't real animals.
The zoo has a lot of space, but evidently not enough money for more animals. The one worker told us that the 22 yr old polar bear was going to die in the next year or two, and they would not replace him. He claims they don't do well in zoos.
PS- my class stunk, I was lost and just did a terrible job, but, it was all worth it.
Fun day! Thanks dad!
With his new boss, they now have daily meetings, and he has been leery of missing them.
Yesterday, he woke up, noticed a meeting had been cancelled, rearranged his whole schedule, and asked me to go to the zoo.
Well, another hard thing about Wednesdays is that I set that day aside to work on my lesson. This week was Jacob 5, and the class voted to delve into it deeply. Yikes. Hard stuff for me. I always read that chapter with an attitude: too many who is grafting who in where questions for me.
Until this week. I studied and studied. So, I thought I had it mostly down, and accepted the date.
We had so much fun! It is not a kid-friendly zoo. The animals are far apart. There is a lot of walking.
I thought I found directions to the best parking lot- fail on my part, so we had to walk even farther to most of the exhibits.
Although it was free, there are at least 6 separate exhibitions that cost additional money. I have never paid the extra $5. to see the gorillas there, and have always wanted to. I find them fascinating, ever since I was a child. We had a favorite gorilla in the Cleveland zoo we new by name, and he loved whenever my sister came in.
So dad decided to pay the money and get an all-included pass to everything, since the entrance was free.
Total - 15 parking, 15 more each for this pass= 45 for a free day at the zoo. Classic.
The $3 butterfly house was a disappointment to dad. I had seen it before, but with the cool weather, there were only about 20 butterflies flying around, and only 3 species visible. He was sad.
We took a ride on the Asian monorail, which was a lovely ride in the beautiful fall trees, with few and far between animals; mostly different kinds of deer, one elephant, and a huge bengal tiger. We enjoyed it, but again, if we had little ones, they may have found it long and boring. ($5 each a ride)
The gorillas were fun. The baboons super active. We enjoyed an overpriced sandwich and soda, and walked some more.
This zoo does an amazing job of scenery and showcasing the animals. There are just not many animals.
Neither of us had a favorite. We really just loved being together, taking a day off, and walking along in the cool beauty of the fall here in NY.
The last time I went was with Kathy's grade school class. They stopped all city field trips since 9/11.
Side note: 2 of the paid exhibits are dinosaur themed. What is that about? They aren't real animals.
The zoo has a lot of space, but evidently not enough money for more animals. The one worker told us that the 22 yr old polar bear was going to die in the next year or two, and they would not replace him. He claims they don't do well in zoos.
PS- my class stunk, I was lost and just did a terrible job, but, it was all worth it.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Google thinks I'm Indian
I have used Google for years and love the company. How silly of me not to invest a few thousand dollars in it when it first went public, but c'est la vie. I also find it funny how companies use data to try and figure out how best to advertise to you and share things with you that might interest you.
Recently Google Plus (G+) has been doing a better job at trying to figure out what I might be interested in in my "What's Hot?" feed. It is about 85% on in terms of what it shows me. It knows I like BYU. It recognizes I like science. It assumes I like Star Wars and Mortal Kombat and Android and Google and many other things.
But starting about 2 months ago or so I started to notice some peculiar things popping up. I now get a lot of posts about Indian (the country) holidays, Indian food (which I do love!), Indian leaders. Then I started getting more on Hindu proverbs or other religious things and Indian celebrities (as much as I love Bollywood, I admit I can't name one Bollywood star).
So my only guess is that Google thinks I am Indian. I thought maybe it knows many of my friends are Indian, but that would be tough since honestly very few of them are in my circles. So it must assume that based on searches and behavior online that I am Indian. I find this fascinating as I wonder what 'attributes' lead it to that conclusion. So if you ever want to know what holiday it is in India or any cool Hindu proverbs, I probably got you covered.
Even more interesting, in just the last two weeks I am now getting a bunch of Muslim posts. Now, there are quite a few Muslims in India so it might be related to that. So maybe based on my online behavior it assumes I am an Indian Muslim. Which might not be too far of a stretch. Obviously it probably assumes I don't drink or use "creative" language (I assume Google knows everything I type). It probably knows I have a wife named Tevia (could be Indian, right?) and am monogamous (rare these days). But the algorithm hasn't seemed to be able to close the gap that I am Mormon (it sends me BYU stuff, so this would be a simple assumption by Google).
I guess I am peculiar enough to not fit the standard profiles. Which, I think, is probably a good thing.
Recently Google Plus (G+) has been doing a better job at trying to figure out what I might be interested in in my "What's Hot?" feed. It is about 85% on in terms of what it shows me. It knows I like BYU. It recognizes I like science. It assumes I like Star Wars and Mortal Kombat and Android and Google and many other things.
But starting about 2 months ago or so I started to notice some peculiar things popping up. I now get a lot of posts about Indian (the country) holidays, Indian food (which I do love!), Indian leaders. Then I started getting more on Hindu proverbs or other religious things and Indian celebrities (as much as I love Bollywood, I admit I can't name one Bollywood star).
So my only guess is that Google thinks I am Indian. I thought maybe it knows many of my friends are Indian, but that would be tough since honestly very few of them are in my circles. So it must assume that based on searches and behavior online that I am Indian. I find this fascinating as I wonder what 'attributes' lead it to that conclusion. So if you ever want to know what holiday it is in India or any cool Hindu proverbs, I probably got you covered.
Even more interesting, in just the last two weeks I am now getting a bunch of Muslim posts. Now, there are quite a few Muslims in India so it might be related to that. So maybe based on my online behavior it assumes I am an Indian Muslim. Which might not be too far of a stretch. Obviously it probably assumes I don't drink or use "creative" language (I assume Google knows everything I type). It probably knows I have a wife named Tevia (could be Indian, right?) and am monogamous (rare these days). But the algorithm hasn't seemed to be able to close the gap that I am Mormon (it sends me BYU stuff, so this would be a simple assumption by Google).
I guess I am peculiar enough to not fit the standard profiles. Which, I think, is probably a good thing.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Disney / Mexico 2013
As fall break quickly approached, along with cooler nights in Phoenix, we decided to take a couple of short vacations with the family. The first was a couple of days in Disneyland with my brother and his family. I hadn't been to Disneyland in a few years, so I was excited to see the new attractions (Cars land) and enjoy the time in the magic kingdom.
The drive to LA wasn't as bad as usual and our hotel was great. We had gotten a suite together with Jake's family and it was a lot of fun. We had dinner at some place near the hotel and watched my Rams get killed by the 49ers and then played some basketball with Enok.
The next morning we set off for adventure.
We spent a couple of days at the park. I really enjoyed the new Cars ride and area and the color/water show they have in California adventure. I did my best to eat as poorly as I could knowing that Tevia and I were going to be good after our trips, so I enjoyed ice cream, the pineapple whips, a churro, a corn dog and even a yummy monte cristo sandwich near Pirates (love that dish!).
The drive to LA wasn't as bad as usual and our hotel was great. We had gotten a suite together with Jake's family and it was a lot of fun. We had dinner at some place near the hotel and watched my Rams get killed by the 49ers and then played some basketball with Enok.
The next morning we set off for adventure.
We spent a couple of days at the park. I really enjoyed the new Cars ride and area and the color/water show they have in California adventure. I did my best to eat as poorly as I could knowing that Tevia and I were going to be good after our trips, so I enjoyed ice cream, the pineapple whips, a churro, a corn dog and even a yummy monte cristo sandwich near Pirates (love that dish!).
Our favorite ride was Star Tours (hard to believe, I know). Jarek actually went on it 5 times while the rest of us did 4 rides and got quite a bit of the variations. That was fun. The weather was ideal with warm days and not-too-cool nights. It was a great trip and a lot of fun.
We came back for a few days and then headed off to Rocky Point in Mexico with Tevia's parents. This is our annual trip we love to take to visit the beach, eat some awesome Mexican food and just chill. The drive down was quick and the first night we headed to Pollo Lucas for our favorite chicken. It was as good as always and a great start to the trip.
The next day we spent at the beach. It was pretty empty and a little windy, but the temperature was awesome. We spent the whole day on the beach, bought some great burros on the beach, and headed to our fav taco place for dinner. It was even better than last year.
We spent one morning in the Cholla Bay looking for clams and the low tide this year was super low. The last day at the beach there were no waves, which was weird for an ocean. But it made for some awesome snorkeling along the reef. Enok got his first taste of snorkeling with me and Jarek spent a lot of the afternoon doing it, too.
The sunsets were gorgeous as usual. We even finally ate in Rocky Point on the wharf watching the sun set. They even made me an awesome scallop dish that wasn't on the menu that had the greatest garlic sauce I've ever had (just ask Tevia!). It was the perfect fall break trip to wind down and get ready to go back to work and school. We just spent hours on the beach, bringing our lunches and snacks, reading, sleeping, buying local things, and enjoying the sand. Nobody even got burned. It was hard to come back and we can't wait to head back again soon. Next time we'll try to bring a few more people as we did miss having more company.
Start of our bucket list
Start of our bucket list, October 15, 2013
- · Love train rides
- · Manti temple
- · See a whale
- · Grand Canyon
- · Live near grandchildren
- · Me- spend time with sister
- · Me- have grandchildren visit NY individually
- · Dad- climb Mt McKinly
- · Dad- run a marathon
- · A cruise
- · Maybe Rome temple and Italy
Not in any particular order. That’s it so far.
Tuesday, October 08, 2013
Mixed Feelings
Monday morning, I woke up nervous.
I was heading to the radiology dept. to get a 3rd look at 3 spots on my right breast. This would be the second ultrasound, and although I really didn't think I had cancer, I still had anxiety. We had a prayer that the doctor would do his best to find out if I needed a biopsy or not.
Conference talks the two days before left me happy and joyful, full of renewed strength and direction. I still had much to do in this life.
Getting perspective-
The phone rang. It was my good friend, Kathy Lombardo. Her daughter-in-law, Dan's wife, was expecting, and the ultrasound had showed several problems with the unborn baby: some heart defects, and only one kidney. This past Saturday, she went into labor and delivered James. He was 5 1/2 months old, 12 " long, and breathing on his own.
The family went in on Saturday evening and celebrated. No one spoke of any disabilities.
At midnight, the doctors put James on a breathing tube. At 2 am, they told the parents they would probably have to make the decision to take him off. He was in pain, and probably not going to make it. At 4 am, the Lord in His tender mercies, saved them from making the decision. He moved on.
Kathy called me in tears on Monday morning, her heart broken for Dan and Jenifer. They had tried so long to have a second child.
The sadness I felt was surreal, yet, after I let her cry for a bit, her testimony of how the Lord is in charge came shining through. She knows it was best, and that He blessed them. Dan had also left the Catholic church, and did not believe in infant baptism anymore. They did not baptize their first child. Dan called his mom early Monday morning and said, "mom, we baptized him right before he passed away." Now, she doesn't know if Dan did it himself, or a chaplain from the hospital came, but her joy was great that Dan, after all he has said to them, believes in a God. So touching.
Juxtapose
I am helping at a funeral today of a lady I never knew. She has been inactive for many years. She had throat cancer. Suzanne and several RS sisters had been going to the hospital to visit her the last 2 weeks. The doctor had given her 6 months to live. She couldn't talk, but in the end, wanted the visits and love of the Sisters. I was supposed to go this week with Diane. She is in her 70's, and very alone. Again, the Lord was tender, and took her earlier than they thought. She too was in much pain.
Death is intriguing. I have no fear of dying whatsoever. My children all are happy and live righteous lives. We are sealed together, and when my turn comes, I will go willingly.
My news was good, 2 spots have not grown at all, and they could not find the third. They said it is probably nothing, and to just come in next year for my regular mammogram.
In one hour on an early Monday morning, feelings and emotions were mixed as I felt people grieving and yet understanding the basic plan of God. He is all-knowing, and all-loving. and I love Him deeply. And, although I can get hit by a car today or tomorrow, I feel a renewed license to go forth and serve, and build His kingdom, and spread His joy.
I was heading to the radiology dept. to get a 3rd look at 3 spots on my right breast. This would be the second ultrasound, and although I really didn't think I had cancer, I still had anxiety. We had a prayer that the doctor would do his best to find out if I needed a biopsy or not.
Conference talks the two days before left me happy and joyful, full of renewed strength and direction. I still had much to do in this life.
Getting perspective-
The phone rang. It was my good friend, Kathy Lombardo. Her daughter-in-law, Dan's wife, was expecting, and the ultrasound had showed several problems with the unborn baby: some heart defects, and only one kidney. This past Saturday, she went into labor and delivered James. He was 5 1/2 months old, 12 " long, and breathing on his own.
The family went in on Saturday evening and celebrated. No one spoke of any disabilities.
At midnight, the doctors put James on a breathing tube. At 2 am, they told the parents they would probably have to make the decision to take him off. He was in pain, and probably not going to make it. At 4 am, the Lord in His tender mercies, saved them from making the decision. He moved on.
Kathy called me in tears on Monday morning, her heart broken for Dan and Jenifer. They had tried so long to have a second child.
The sadness I felt was surreal, yet, after I let her cry for a bit, her testimony of how the Lord is in charge came shining through. She knows it was best, and that He blessed them. Dan had also left the Catholic church, and did not believe in infant baptism anymore. They did not baptize their first child. Dan called his mom early Monday morning and said, "mom, we baptized him right before he passed away." Now, she doesn't know if Dan did it himself, or a chaplain from the hospital came, but her joy was great that Dan, after all he has said to them, believes in a God. So touching.
Juxtapose
I am helping at a funeral today of a lady I never knew. She has been inactive for many years. She had throat cancer. Suzanne and several RS sisters had been going to the hospital to visit her the last 2 weeks. The doctor had given her 6 months to live. She couldn't talk, but in the end, wanted the visits and love of the Sisters. I was supposed to go this week with Diane. She is in her 70's, and very alone. Again, the Lord was tender, and took her earlier than they thought. She too was in much pain.
Death is intriguing. I have no fear of dying whatsoever. My children all are happy and live righteous lives. We are sealed together, and when my turn comes, I will go willingly.
My news was good, 2 spots have not grown at all, and they could not find the third. They said it is probably nothing, and to just come in next year for my regular mammogram.
In one hour on an early Monday morning, feelings and emotions were mixed as I felt people grieving and yet understanding the basic plan of God. He is all-knowing, and all-loving. and I love Him deeply. And, although I can get hit by a car today or tomorrow, I feel a renewed license to go forth and serve, and build His kingdom, and spread His joy.
Sunday, September 08, 2013
Update on grandma, trip to Cleveland
I was really grateful that dad was willing to spend some of his furlough time off work to drive me to see my mom and family. He had hoped to be able to stain the decks, but of course, it rained Monday and Tuesday. We did get the pool closed.
On Wed we left about noon and just drove to Youngstown to make it a shorter drive on my back, 6 1/2, and relaxed at a cheap Best Western. It was quiet and nice. We walked over to a Mexican place for dinner. Dad ordered his usual, cheese enchiladas, but didn't like them at all. I don't know if the place was authentic Mexican, or just weird, but everything tasted different. It was crowded, and a real hit to this little trucker-oriented town. I had a bean burrito and guacamole salad, and enjoyed both.
On Thursday, dad met Frank and Mike and played 18 holes of golf, while I took the car and told mom I would take her anywhere she wanted to go. She chose her favorite clothing store, Col Water Creek, and McDonald's for lunch. She was happy and cheerful and even funny. She said she surely missed just being able to go grab a hamburger and a milkshake when she wanted one.
We didn't find anything at the store there, so we went into Macy's and Dressbarn, where we found a cute tweed sweater vest. She bought me one and herself one.
She was worried about money the whole time. She must have looked into her little purse 15 times to see what was in there.
She is given 2- $50 Visa gift cards, and that is all. Most places take them. She has a little cash. Well, Mike brought over her real Visa credit card and a Macy's card, and explained to me to watch if she used them so she didn't leave them on the counter. She was careful, but very confused as to which card to use and why. She told me she had tried to use the Visa gift card at Walmart on her Wed bus trip from her assisted living place, and they wouldn't take it. So she asked me to use one of them at McDonald's to see if they took it and how much money was left on it. They took it, no problem, and she had 32 left on it. She then asked me to use the other one at the salad place I bought my lunch at, and it had a balance on it as well. We used the balance on both up at DressBarn, so both were zero. She seemed happy to be able to use it up! Mike will get her new ones. He was quick to take the real Visa back, because on Friday when we went shopping, she didn't have it anymore.
There is a Dairy Queen right down the street. Again, she mentioned how hard it was to know it is there, actually almost in walking distance, and not be able to just go get a cone when she wanted one. That must be hard to lose that freedom.
Because she didn't have her cards, I bought us DQ.
She had $100. bill Milan had given her if we all went out to dinner. She wanted to keep that. We ate dinner at Carol's both nights. I knew mom would want to go out, but Milan had fallen in Mike and Marsha's bathroom just that previous Monday when they brought them there for Labor Day. He has no balance, and falls asleep sometimes right on the pot. So we didn't want to take him to a restaurant, or exclude him; plus, Carol had insisted on cooking...
Then mom and I took a short walk around her little lake, which she calls a park, and then got free soda and ice from her place and took it out back to a little patio and chatted for an hour.
Mike and Dad went golfing again. Dad's back got pretty sore from golfing 18 holes in 2 days and not being used to that.
The one incident I wanted to get down in writing was that even after being with mom all day Thursday, and telling her I would be over at 12:30 the next day, (after she got her hair done), she told me that when I walked in, she could not remember if I was coming that day or my sister Kathy. She said she knows her mind is slipping away. It almost broke my heart.
My back was really sore all the way home, even though I kept changing positions. Still sore today. But it was worth it.
Mike told us some very spiritual stories. Frank and Mike were together again. Frank sincerely thanked Don for taking such good care of me! wow. Carol took us to dad's grave and she cried there. She says he cries still all the time. There is evident tension between Mike and Carol. Sad to see.
I am grateful to dad to drive me there, because I am pretty sure I can't do that drive alone anymore, unless I finally get this back fixed. Chiro tomorrow, Pain specialist Thursday. Colonoscopy Friday. Egh.
Please try to think of things to help grandma have fun, cute experiences these final years. I think you for sending photos. She loves them. Maybe have the kids write her, or color a picture for her. Music is a great Christmas gift. Also, Carol can use spiritual boosts. She can receive emails with photos attached, and loves little sayings and the such. I even think she would like one of those little Mormon messages attached to an email. We told her at the cemetery that she would be with dad again. I don't know if she believes it or not.
On Wed we left about noon and just drove to Youngstown to make it a shorter drive on my back, 6 1/2, and relaxed at a cheap Best Western. It was quiet and nice. We walked over to a Mexican place for dinner. Dad ordered his usual, cheese enchiladas, but didn't like them at all. I don't know if the place was authentic Mexican, or just weird, but everything tasted different. It was crowded, and a real hit to this little trucker-oriented town. I had a bean burrito and guacamole salad, and enjoyed both.
On Thursday, dad met Frank and Mike and played 18 holes of golf, while I took the car and told mom I would take her anywhere she wanted to go. She chose her favorite clothing store, Col Water Creek, and McDonald's for lunch. She was happy and cheerful and even funny. She said she surely missed just being able to go grab a hamburger and a milkshake when she wanted one.
We didn't find anything at the store there, so we went into Macy's and Dressbarn, where we found a cute tweed sweater vest. She bought me one and herself one.
She was worried about money the whole time. She must have looked into her little purse 15 times to see what was in there.
She is given 2- $50 Visa gift cards, and that is all. Most places take them. She has a little cash. Well, Mike brought over her real Visa credit card and a Macy's card, and explained to me to watch if she used them so she didn't leave them on the counter. She was careful, but very confused as to which card to use and why. She told me she had tried to use the Visa gift card at Walmart on her Wed bus trip from her assisted living place, and they wouldn't take it. So she asked me to use one of them at McDonald's to see if they took it and how much money was left on it. They took it, no problem, and she had 32 left on it. She then asked me to use the other one at the salad place I bought my lunch at, and it had a balance on it as well. We used the balance on both up at DressBarn, so both were zero. She seemed happy to be able to use it up! Mike will get her new ones. He was quick to take the real Visa back, because on Friday when we went shopping, she didn't have it anymore.
There is a Dairy Queen right down the street. Again, she mentioned how hard it was to know it is there, actually almost in walking distance, and not be able to just go get a cone when she wanted one. That must be hard to lose that freedom.
Because she didn't have her cards, I bought us DQ.
She had $100. bill Milan had given her if we all went out to dinner. She wanted to keep that. We ate dinner at Carol's both nights. I knew mom would want to go out, but Milan had fallen in Mike and Marsha's bathroom just that previous Monday when they brought them there for Labor Day. He has no balance, and falls asleep sometimes right on the pot. So we didn't want to take him to a restaurant, or exclude him; plus, Carol had insisted on cooking...
Then mom and I took a short walk around her little lake, which she calls a park, and then got free soda and ice from her place and took it out back to a little patio and chatted for an hour.
Mike and Dad went golfing again. Dad's back got pretty sore from golfing 18 holes in 2 days and not being used to that.
The one incident I wanted to get down in writing was that even after being with mom all day Thursday, and telling her I would be over at 12:30 the next day, (after she got her hair done), she told me that when I walked in, she could not remember if I was coming that day or my sister Kathy. She said she knows her mind is slipping away. It almost broke my heart.
My back was really sore all the way home, even though I kept changing positions. Still sore today. But it was worth it.
Mike told us some very spiritual stories. Frank and Mike were together again. Frank sincerely thanked Don for taking such good care of me! wow. Carol took us to dad's grave and she cried there. She says he cries still all the time. There is evident tension between Mike and Carol. Sad to see.
I am grateful to dad to drive me there, because I am pretty sure I can't do that drive alone anymore, unless I finally get this back fixed. Chiro tomorrow, Pain specialist Thursday. Colonoscopy Friday. Egh.
Please try to think of things to help grandma have fun, cute experiences these final years. I think you for sending photos. She loves them. Maybe have the kids write her, or color a picture for her. Music is a great Christmas gift. Also, Carol can use spiritual boosts. She can receive emails with photos attached, and loves little sayings and the such. I even think she would like one of those little Mormon messages attached to an email. We told her at the cemetery that she would be with dad again. I don't know if she believes it or not.
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Alaska...
"I've made a HUGE mistake." - various members of the Bluth and Wall families
Sad to say, that was our motto for the Alaska trip we took in the middle of July. A little background: Jacob and I and various friends/family members enjoy fishing. It's been a desire for quite some time to go salmon and halibut fishing in Alaska. Partially for the fun of it, partially because those two fish are sooooo tasty. I honestly can't remember how this trip first came into being. My memory just isn't that good. I know that I rather quickly invited myself along because...well...I can do that. :) Flights were purchased, emails were exchange, my mother-in-law was enlisted to watch the kids because we stole her husband to come along...everything was in place. Our friend, Jacob Webb (hereafter: Webb, also my sister-in-law's brother - we're all connected) has a cousin who lives in Alaska who he worked out to show us the good places to fish and the best ways to do it, etc. He also graciously offered to let us stay at his house, though he made it clear we'd either be sleeping on the floor or camping outside. Not a problem.
I was rather apprehensive to leave my kids for this trip, partially because it was the longest we'd been away from them for a while (5 and a half days), partially because we were leaving just over 72 hours after getting home from our trip to Texas, and partially because we had never left the Zizah-girl for more than a night and she was going through a rather clingy/whiny phase. But I strapped on my big girl hiking boots and off we went.
Our flight up (Wednesday) was uneventful, just early and long. I gotta tell you Washington people - don't love your weather. Just sitting in the Seattle airport for an hour inside was plenty for me. I like my sunshine, thankyousoverymuch. :-P The Anchorage airport is really cool. We saw more wildlife there than we did for the rest of the trip, but I'm getting ahead of myself. The car rental went pretty smoothly and then we were off to kill some time in Anchorage before we drove up to Wasilla (which is where our host lives).
A couple things about Anchorage:
1. First live wildlife I saw was a caribou in a cage in a backyard in downtown Anchorage. So weird.
2. One-way streets are gross. No city should use them. Like ever.
3. Some people's interpretation of "it's just over there" is not to be trusted.
4. They don't sell beach towels in Alaska. I probably should've bet on that, but I had to ask since it's my default souvenir.
5. They MUST pay someone to do their flowers in downtown Anchorage. I know they only get to grow stuff about 3 months out of the year but wow - those were some crazy amounts of flowers.
6. Apparently all road construction must take place in Alaska during the warm months. It makes sense but it's kind of a bummer since it's also one of their highest tourist times.
7. The Alaskan accent is the oddest accent of English-speaking I've ever heard. I'm pretty good at understanding what people are saying (mostly due to practice trying to understand Speed) but I had to ask many people to repeat themselves.
We drove around for a while (see #2 and #6 above) and then finally found a parking spot. We had been hoping to drive over to a park by the ocean but our map deceived us and the road construction thwarted us. So instead we parked on the street and walked to the Anchorage Visitors' Center. The very nice lady there gave us some maps and suggested a good seafood restaurant for dinner, Simon and Seafort's. (Though because of #7, I thought she said about 3 other things before we finally got the name nailed down.) I got really excited about visiting the Alaska Native Cultural Center, which she said was a lot like the Polynesian Cultural Center in Hawaii, which I loved.
After some shopping during which I discovered #4 on my list above, I was able to buy acceptable souvenirs for our family and my kiddos. I felt a little silly buying that stuff on our first afternoon in Alaska but it ended up being REALLY GOOD that I did. We went to the restaurant to discover that they weren't open for dinner yet. And the people who were in there eating were still there from lunch. I'm not unfamiliar with this set up but the way the hostess explained this to us was rather....off-putting. After a bit of further discussion (and smelling the oh-so-good smells), we decided to just eat at the bar which ended up having almost all of the dishes we wanted to try anyway. SOOOO good. I've said it before and I'll say it again: there's nothing quite like fresh seafood. It was an awesome way to start things.
We hopped back in the car and headed out to Wasilla. After a bit of unplanned off-roading (see #6), and some interesting navigation, we made it. We were further excited about our impending fishing by the loads and loads of fish that our hosts were processing in their kitchen when we got there. They had returned from a dip-netting trip a few days prior. Apparently Alaskan residents can get a subsistence permit, which allows them to catch fish by just dipping a net in the water during the salmon run. Lucky.
Since we'd been up since 4am and Jacob and his dad had to do an airport run after midnight to pick up our friends who had a later flight, we all turned in early. There's something very odd about going to bed around 9:30pm when the sunlight indicates it's only about 5:30pm. I'm told you get used to it, but that doesn't seem likely. We ended up sleeping in a trailer our host borrowed from his father-in-law, so it was nice to have a bed of sorts and a toilet. Especially since when I woke up in the morning, the house was locked so it was the trailer or the trees. And since the house remained locked after everyone in the trailer woke up, we jumped in the rental car and headed off to Wendy's for some breakfast.
It took a while but we finally got headed out to our first fishing spot on Thursday, the name of which I can no longer recall. That's what I get for waiting to write these experiences down. It was north-east-ish of Wasilla. We parked the trailer right off the river and went to work. This was a whole new way of "fishing". Apparently it's called flossing and basically you're trying to keep your line perpendicular to the shore for as along as possible in the river's current hoping that a salmon will happen upon your line while open his or her mouth to breath. Then the line is supposed to slide down as the salmon continues upstream, ending with the hook in his or her mouth and voila - you've got a fish. Weirdest way I've ever fished in my life - very different from what I'm used to.
While we were there, my friend Millie caught two fish, so we were really excited. I actually hooked two (YES!!!!) but one got away while we were trying to net him and the other was HUGE and broke my leader line clean off the swivel. But we kept trying. Oh believe you me, we kept trying. Our two Alaskan hosts caught several fish each but except for Millie, the rest of us came up dry. On the second day (Friday), we checked some fishing reports and decided to relocate for the rest of the day before heading to our ocean departure.
So we packed up a bit early and decided to try our luck at Ship Creek in downtown Anchorage. Whoops. The descriptor "downtown" should've been our first clue this was a bad idea. I won't tell you what we nicknamed this place, but trust me, it wasn't pretty. Interesting enough, walking down the street toward the creek, we ran into a man from our church back in Phoenix! We knew he came up to fish in Alaska and was supposed to be there the same time we were but we had no plans or suppositions that we would run into him. Alaska is kind of a BIG place after all. But it was fun to run into him, though a little sad for us to hear that he had been catching his bag limit daily down on the Kenai River.
Also while we were there, we got the completely depressing news that our Saturday ocean voyage would not be happening. Apparently the weather was worse than our captain (who was doing this as a favor anyway) was willing to deal with. I gotta tell you, looking up at that clear blue sky, I didn't get it. But I'm not an ocean-going boat captain either. We were DEPRESSED. Seriously. Even if we caught zero fish the entire trip (which we were well on our way to doing), we would get to go out on the ocean. As we sat contemplating what to do, our conversation with our fellow Phoenician came to mind....and that's when we decided to try to the Kenai.
The problems with fishing the Kenai River were these: 1. Our host had never fished there. 2. It was a 3 - 4 hour drive from Anchorage and it was already 7pm. 3. We had no reservation for camping or hotel and with this being the peak of the salmon run, finding accommodations could be interesting. But we decided it was worth the try and headed off. We still got lots of pretty views on the drive down since the sun didn't go down until we got to Soldotna. We did stop at one little creek while we tried to figure our where precisely we wanted to try to camp and Webb caught one tiny little fish that he threw back. I was trying to not be nervous about the "Recent Bear Sighting" signs but come on - bears are SCARY. We never saw one, thankfully.
I'd prefer to skip over the 90 minute ordeal that was us finding a place to park the trailer that night so we could sleep. Let's just say I woke up on Saturday in the trailer in an abandoned lot behind an abandoned car rental place in the middle of Soldotna, Alaska. That's a first for me.
After a bit, we made it to the Kenai only to realize that we were either fishing with a boat or waders. Which we didn't have. (Okay, my father-in-law and our host had their waders but that left the other 4 of us with nothing to do because trust me, none of us had a boat hiding in our carry-on.) After some discussion, Jacob decided he was content to sit back and watch that day and the rest of us went on a crazed run to Sportsman Warehouse to buy waders. I didn't want to buy any but Millie and I determined that if I was willing to suck in my gut, we could probably share. We got back to the river with our gear in the early afternoon. Millie took the first turn with our waders so I stayed on the shore with Jacob to watch.
OH. Somewhere in all of our hiking from the river to the car and trailer, we saw a wild moose!! Just hanging out about 50 feet away, eating some leaves. And of course, I didn't have my camera. Webb had his phone so he got a picture or two, though I haven't seen them yet. One of our goals was to see some wildlife bigger than a beaver so at least that was fulfilled. :)
Back at the river, I was definitely nervous when it was my turn to get the waders on and give it a try. There may or may not be some INCREDIBLY embarrassing video of me trying to get to and from the shore. Where a dog is barking at me and the men on the shore are asking if I'm alright as I stop to decide if I'm about to be swept downstream or not. And where I almost fall. Nope, nothing like that exists. Or ever did. Ever.
To sum up, Webb ended up catching 3 fish that day (the bag limit) so it was worth the venture. The rest of us who tried had nibbles but we didn't land anything (again, except our host - so unfair, right?). It was the same fishing technique we had used in the other river (can't believe I can't remember what it's called!) but there were so many people, we were practically shoulder to shoulder. We were constantly getting lines tangled and I'm really surprised no one got hooked. The one tool that we didn't have and didn't want to buy because it was expensive was a big net. Usually when someone hooked a fish, someone else standing further back in the river would be willing to help out with his net. However with one of Webb's fish, no one stepped up to lend a hand. So he basically wrestled the thing while trying to grab his billy club from its hook so he could bop it on the head to put it out of its misery. I can't believe we didn't have the camera rolling for that one. It was epic.
We stayed at the Kenai River until late that night (Saturday) and then drove back to Wasilla (about 6 hours I think). I don't really know for sure how long it took because I fell asleep pretty quick after we got underway. Jacob had taken a nap earlier so he was nice and awake to help with the driving. We got back to our host's house in Wasilla around 3am Sunday morning and I had to seriously think if I wanted to bother moving from the backseat of the rental car to the trailer. The desire to lay flat eventually won out and I moved.
In the morning on Sunday, we were treated to hot showers (hooray for hot water!) and scrambled eggs and caribou sausage (really, really good). After that, there was the mad dash to Walmart to get the necessary items to check a box of fish to bring home. No, you didn't miss the part where anyone with the last name of Wall caught anything. :) But our hosts was super nice (and felt really bad about our bad luck and the ocean trip getting canceled I think) and offered us some of their salmon, halibut and caribou to take home.
After dropping the Webbs at the airport, we commenced the quest for dry ice. There were wrong turns made, Jacob's phone to be cursed, and the one way streets to be blamed for our problems. In the end, we finally got a hot tip from a nice lady in the Walmart customer service line that we should try Fred Meyer. The employees were far less than helpful but at least the customers were nice. We were looking for dry ice to keep our fish frozen since we didn't depart from Anchorage until 2am that night/the next morning (you know what I mean). When we finally found the dry ice and finished packaging the fish, it was only 11am....yeah, we had some time to kill. After checking some of the tourist stuff we got the first day in Alaska, we decided to go eat at this seriously awesome pizza place called the Moose's Tooth (Spicy Thai Chicken Pizza - yummmmm) and then go hike Flattop Mountain outside of Anchorage.
We were slightly misled about the distance and difficulty of this hike. I'm blaming it on something akin to item #3 on my list above though it's possible I'm just wussy and too used to Arizona's definition of "mountain". We made it to the second saddle and no where near the summit. Partially it was the time because we had already bought tickets to go see Red 2 that night to help kill time and didn't want to miss that. It was also partially that we had no where to shower and no more clean clothes before getting on the airplane, so we were trying to not get too gross. But the main reason for me was that after the second saddle, that was not a trail. That was a joke. There was even a sign saying they didn't recommend taking children past that point. I'm not saying I'm a child but it was not happening. On the upside, the views were awesome.
After some bad directions that ended with me being fired as the navigator (never wanted to job in the first place!) we decided that we didn't have enough time for the Alaska Native Cultural Center (sigh) but that we could probably find our way to the Anchorage LDS Temple. It was right in the middle of a residential neighborhood, which shouldn't be that weird (even Mesa is that way) but it was funny that we couldn't even see it until we pulled into the parking lot. That was a fun stop, especially considering it was Sunday. :)
We wasted about an hour outside the theater eating leftover pizza and calling home to check in. Red 2 was not as good as the first one but still SUPER fun. When we got done there, it was 10pm. And even though it looked like it was 5pm, everything was closed so there wasn't much left to do but head to the airport. The system of getting bags checked and going through security at the Anchorage Airport was so, so, so odd. But whatever. We didn't need to have that much time, but it was nice to know that there was pretty much no way we could possibly miss our flight because we had so much time. That and the fact that there were flights to Seattle every hour so even if we did miss our's, it's not like we'd be stuck for long.
The traveling back was nice and uneventful. I didn't sleep as much as the men did but I still dozed several times. We had a quick little stop in the Portland Airport (sorry, Burnetts - I thought of you in the 45 minutes we were on the ground) and then we were on the way home. I was SOOO glad to be home. It was a long, crazy, fun, and disappointing trip. Overall, I'm really glad we went. My expectations for any further trips to Alaska will be much more realistic now. Don't think that I hated the trip. There were lots of fun times and good things to see and experience (the moose!). If we go back again, we'll certainly do it differently. I don't know how precisely :) but differently. I was very grateful to our host for taking us around everywhere and trying to hard to help us have success. He was very understanding of our frustrations and disappointment while understanding that we weren't mad at him. Not the best trip of the year for me (Austin still wins) but certainly an adventure I'll never forget.
Sad to say, that was our motto for the Alaska trip we took in the middle of July. A little background: Jacob and I and various friends/family members enjoy fishing. It's been a desire for quite some time to go salmon and halibut fishing in Alaska. Partially for the fun of it, partially because those two fish are sooooo tasty. I honestly can't remember how this trip first came into being. My memory just isn't that good. I know that I rather quickly invited myself along because...well...I can do that. :) Flights were purchased, emails were exchange, my mother-in-law was enlisted to watch the kids because we stole her husband to come along...everything was in place. Our friend, Jacob Webb (hereafter: Webb, also my sister-in-law's brother - we're all connected) has a cousin who lives in Alaska who he worked out to show us the good places to fish and the best ways to do it, etc. He also graciously offered to let us stay at his house, though he made it clear we'd either be sleeping on the floor or camping outside. Not a problem.
I was rather apprehensive to leave my kids for this trip, partially because it was the longest we'd been away from them for a while (5 and a half days), partially because we were leaving just over 72 hours after getting home from our trip to Texas, and partially because we had never left the Zizah-girl for more than a night and she was going through a rather clingy/whiny phase. But I strapped on my big girl hiking boots and off we went.
Our flight up (Wednesday) was uneventful, just early and long. I gotta tell you Washington people - don't love your weather. Just sitting in the Seattle airport for an hour inside was plenty for me. I like my sunshine, thankyousoverymuch. :-P The Anchorage airport is really cool. We saw more wildlife there than we did for the rest of the trip, but I'm getting ahead of myself. The car rental went pretty smoothly and then we were off to kill some time in Anchorage before we drove up to Wasilla (which is where our host lives).
A couple things about Anchorage:
1. First live wildlife I saw was a caribou in a cage in a backyard in downtown Anchorage. So weird.
2. One-way streets are gross. No city should use them. Like ever.
3. Some people's interpretation of "it's just over there" is not to be trusted.
4. They don't sell beach towels in Alaska. I probably should've bet on that, but I had to ask since it's my default souvenir.
5. They MUST pay someone to do their flowers in downtown Anchorage. I know they only get to grow stuff about 3 months out of the year but wow - those were some crazy amounts of flowers.
6. Apparently all road construction must take place in Alaska during the warm months. It makes sense but it's kind of a bummer since it's also one of their highest tourist times.
7. The Alaskan accent is the oddest accent of English-speaking I've ever heard. I'm pretty good at understanding what people are saying (mostly due to practice trying to understand Speed) but I had to ask many people to repeat themselves.
We drove around for a while (see #2 and #6 above) and then finally found a parking spot. We had been hoping to drive over to a park by the ocean but our map deceived us and the road construction thwarted us. So instead we parked on the street and walked to the Anchorage Visitors' Center. The very nice lady there gave us some maps and suggested a good seafood restaurant for dinner, Simon and Seafort's. (Though because of #7, I thought she said about 3 other things before we finally got the name nailed down.) I got really excited about visiting the Alaska Native Cultural Center, which she said was a lot like the Polynesian Cultural Center in Hawaii, which I loved.
After some shopping during which I discovered #4 on my list above, I was able to buy acceptable souvenirs for our family and my kiddos. I felt a little silly buying that stuff on our first afternoon in Alaska but it ended up being REALLY GOOD that I did. We went to the restaurant to discover that they weren't open for dinner yet. And the people who were in there eating were still there from lunch. I'm not unfamiliar with this set up but the way the hostess explained this to us was rather....off-putting. After a bit of further discussion (and smelling the oh-so-good smells), we decided to just eat at the bar which ended up having almost all of the dishes we wanted to try anyway. SOOOO good. I've said it before and I'll say it again: there's nothing quite like fresh seafood. It was an awesome way to start things.
We hopped back in the car and headed out to Wasilla. After a bit of unplanned off-roading (see #6), and some interesting navigation, we made it. We were further excited about our impending fishing by the loads and loads of fish that our hosts were processing in their kitchen when we got there. They had returned from a dip-netting trip a few days prior. Apparently Alaskan residents can get a subsistence permit, which allows them to catch fish by just dipping a net in the water during the salmon run. Lucky.
Since we'd been up since 4am and Jacob and his dad had to do an airport run after midnight to pick up our friends who had a later flight, we all turned in early. There's something very odd about going to bed around 9:30pm when the sunlight indicates it's only about 5:30pm. I'm told you get used to it, but that doesn't seem likely. We ended up sleeping in a trailer our host borrowed from his father-in-law, so it was nice to have a bed of sorts and a toilet. Especially since when I woke up in the morning, the house was locked so it was the trailer or the trees. And since the house remained locked after everyone in the trailer woke up, we jumped in the rental car and headed off to Wendy's for some breakfast.
It took a while but we finally got headed out to our first fishing spot on Thursday, the name of which I can no longer recall. That's what I get for waiting to write these experiences down. It was north-east-ish of Wasilla. We parked the trailer right off the river and went to work. This was a whole new way of "fishing". Apparently it's called flossing and basically you're trying to keep your line perpendicular to the shore for as along as possible in the river's current hoping that a salmon will happen upon your line while open his or her mouth to breath. Then the line is supposed to slide down as the salmon continues upstream, ending with the hook in his or her mouth and voila - you've got a fish. Weirdest way I've ever fished in my life - very different from what I'm used to.
While we were there, my friend Millie caught two fish, so we were really excited. I actually hooked two (YES!!!!) but one got away while we were trying to net him and the other was HUGE and broke my leader line clean off the swivel. But we kept trying. Oh believe you me, we kept trying. Our two Alaskan hosts caught several fish each but except for Millie, the rest of us came up dry. On the second day (Friday), we checked some fishing reports and decided to relocate for the rest of the day before heading to our ocean departure.
So we packed up a bit early and decided to try our luck at Ship Creek in downtown Anchorage. Whoops. The descriptor "downtown" should've been our first clue this was a bad idea. I won't tell you what we nicknamed this place, but trust me, it wasn't pretty. Interesting enough, walking down the street toward the creek, we ran into a man from our church back in Phoenix! We knew he came up to fish in Alaska and was supposed to be there the same time we were but we had no plans or suppositions that we would run into him. Alaska is kind of a BIG place after all. But it was fun to run into him, though a little sad for us to hear that he had been catching his bag limit daily down on the Kenai River.
Also while we were there, we got the completely depressing news that our Saturday ocean voyage would not be happening. Apparently the weather was worse than our captain (who was doing this as a favor anyway) was willing to deal with. I gotta tell you, looking up at that clear blue sky, I didn't get it. But I'm not an ocean-going boat captain either. We were DEPRESSED. Seriously. Even if we caught zero fish the entire trip (which we were well on our way to doing), we would get to go out on the ocean. As we sat contemplating what to do, our conversation with our fellow Phoenician came to mind....and that's when we decided to try to the Kenai.
The problems with fishing the Kenai River were these: 1. Our host had never fished there. 2. It was a 3 - 4 hour drive from Anchorage and it was already 7pm. 3. We had no reservation for camping or hotel and with this being the peak of the salmon run, finding accommodations could be interesting. But we decided it was worth the try and headed off. We still got lots of pretty views on the drive down since the sun didn't go down until we got to Soldotna. We did stop at one little creek while we tried to figure our where precisely we wanted to try to camp and Webb caught one tiny little fish that he threw back. I was trying to not be nervous about the "Recent Bear Sighting" signs but come on - bears are SCARY. We never saw one, thankfully.
I'd prefer to skip over the 90 minute ordeal that was us finding a place to park the trailer that night so we could sleep. Let's just say I woke up on Saturday in the trailer in an abandoned lot behind an abandoned car rental place in the middle of Soldotna, Alaska. That's a first for me.
After a bit, we made it to the Kenai only to realize that we were either fishing with a boat or waders. Which we didn't have. (Okay, my father-in-law and our host had their waders but that left the other 4 of us with nothing to do because trust me, none of us had a boat hiding in our carry-on.) After some discussion, Jacob decided he was content to sit back and watch that day and the rest of us went on a crazed run to Sportsman Warehouse to buy waders. I didn't want to buy any but Millie and I determined that if I was willing to suck in my gut, we could probably share. We got back to the river with our gear in the early afternoon. Millie took the first turn with our waders so I stayed on the shore with Jacob to watch.
OH. Somewhere in all of our hiking from the river to the car and trailer, we saw a wild moose!! Just hanging out about 50 feet away, eating some leaves. And of course, I didn't have my camera. Webb had his phone so he got a picture or two, though I haven't seen them yet. One of our goals was to see some wildlife bigger than a beaver so at least that was fulfilled. :)
Back at the river, I was definitely nervous when it was my turn to get the waders on and give it a try. There may or may not be some INCREDIBLY embarrassing video of me trying to get to and from the shore. Where a dog is barking at me and the men on the shore are asking if I'm alright as I stop to decide if I'm about to be swept downstream or not. And where I almost fall. Nope, nothing like that exists. Or ever did. Ever.
To sum up, Webb ended up catching 3 fish that day (the bag limit) so it was worth the venture. The rest of us who tried had nibbles but we didn't land anything (again, except our host - so unfair, right?). It was the same fishing technique we had used in the other river (can't believe I can't remember what it's called!) but there were so many people, we were practically shoulder to shoulder. We were constantly getting lines tangled and I'm really surprised no one got hooked. The one tool that we didn't have and didn't want to buy because it was expensive was a big net. Usually when someone hooked a fish, someone else standing further back in the river would be willing to help out with his net. However with one of Webb's fish, no one stepped up to lend a hand. So he basically wrestled the thing while trying to grab his billy club from its hook so he could bop it on the head to put it out of its misery. I can't believe we didn't have the camera rolling for that one. It was epic.
We stayed at the Kenai River until late that night (Saturday) and then drove back to Wasilla (about 6 hours I think). I don't really know for sure how long it took because I fell asleep pretty quick after we got underway. Jacob had taken a nap earlier so he was nice and awake to help with the driving. We got back to our host's house in Wasilla around 3am Sunday morning and I had to seriously think if I wanted to bother moving from the backseat of the rental car to the trailer. The desire to lay flat eventually won out and I moved.
In the morning on Sunday, we were treated to hot showers (hooray for hot water!) and scrambled eggs and caribou sausage (really, really good). After that, there was the mad dash to Walmart to get the necessary items to check a box of fish to bring home. No, you didn't miss the part where anyone with the last name of Wall caught anything. :) But our hosts was super nice (and felt really bad about our bad luck and the ocean trip getting canceled I think) and offered us some of their salmon, halibut and caribou to take home.
After dropping the Webbs at the airport, we commenced the quest for dry ice. There were wrong turns made, Jacob's phone to be cursed, and the one way streets to be blamed for our problems. In the end, we finally got a hot tip from a nice lady in the Walmart customer service line that we should try Fred Meyer. The employees were far less than helpful but at least the customers were nice. We were looking for dry ice to keep our fish frozen since we didn't depart from Anchorage until 2am that night/the next morning (you know what I mean). When we finally found the dry ice and finished packaging the fish, it was only 11am....yeah, we had some time to kill. After checking some of the tourist stuff we got the first day in Alaska, we decided to go eat at this seriously awesome pizza place called the Moose's Tooth (Spicy Thai Chicken Pizza - yummmmm) and then go hike Flattop Mountain outside of Anchorage.
We were slightly misled about the distance and difficulty of this hike. I'm blaming it on something akin to item #3 on my list above though it's possible I'm just wussy and too used to Arizona's definition of "mountain". We made it to the second saddle and no where near the summit. Partially it was the time because we had already bought tickets to go see Red 2 that night to help kill time and didn't want to miss that. It was also partially that we had no where to shower and no more clean clothes before getting on the airplane, so we were trying to not get too gross. But the main reason for me was that after the second saddle, that was not a trail. That was a joke. There was even a sign saying they didn't recommend taking children past that point. I'm not saying I'm a child but it was not happening. On the upside, the views were awesome.
After some bad directions that ended with me being fired as the navigator (never wanted to job in the first place!) we decided that we didn't have enough time for the Alaska Native Cultural Center (sigh) but that we could probably find our way to the Anchorage LDS Temple. It was right in the middle of a residential neighborhood, which shouldn't be that weird (even Mesa is that way) but it was funny that we couldn't even see it until we pulled into the parking lot. That was a fun stop, especially considering it was Sunday. :)
We wasted about an hour outside the theater eating leftover pizza and calling home to check in. Red 2 was not as good as the first one but still SUPER fun. When we got done there, it was 10pm. And even though it looked like it was 5pm, everything was closed so there wasn't much left to do but head to the airport. The system of getting bags checked and going through security at the Anchorage Airport was so, so, so odd. But whatever. We didn't need to have that much time, but it was nice to know that there was pretty much no way we could possibly miss our flight because we had so much time. That and the fact that there were flights to Seattle every hour so even if we did miss our's, it's not like we'd be stuck for long.
The traveling back was nice and uneventful. I didn't sleep as much as the men did but I still dozed several times. We had a quick little stop in the Portland Airport (sorry, Burnetts - I thought of you in the 45 minutes we were on the ground) and then we were on the way home. I was SOOO glad to be home. It was a long, crazy, fun, and disappointing trip. Overall, I'm really glad we went. My expectations for any further trips to Alaska will be much more realistic now. Don't think that I hated the trip. There were lots of fun times and good things to see and experience (the moose!). If we go back again, we'll certainly do it differently. I don't know how precisely :) but differently. I was very grateful to our host for taking us around everywhere and trying to hard to help us have success. He was very understanding of our frustrations and disappointment while understanding that we weren't mad at him. Not the best trip of the year for me (Austin still wins) but certainly an adventure I'll never forget.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Bret's Summer Trips
This summer has been a great summer. The weather has been great, I found a new job that I am enjoying, and I was lucky enough to go on some fun trips. Here are some highlights.
The water park. This year we purchased season passes to Wet 'N Wild, the water park down the road. We decided to do this in place of our usual "staycation". I was glad we did. I had a lot of fun spending time with the boys (and Tevia) at the park. And having a season pass made it so that you didn't feel like you had to stay for hours. Once it got too hot or too crowded, we would just leave and go back again another day. I always wanted to do something like this as a kid. And since I still have the mental/maturity factor of a kid, this summer was fun.
Uintah trip. I'll start off with some education. My whole life I always spelled Uintah with an 'h'. While in Utah this year I noticed it spelled Uinta (no 'h'). This annoyed me until I found out that it is acceptable both ways (according to Wikipedia), though the mountains are typically without the 'h'. So this should be titled the Uinta trip. Either way, I finally had time to join the annual Unita trip with my father, Jacob (Wall), and Jacob (Webb). Usually I am too busy or they try to do it after another trip. But this year I was free and had the added bonus of having Tommy (Tom) come on his first trip as well. I flew in to Utah with Jacob and we had a fun day playing tennis with Tommy and seeing a movie and getting some good sushi. The next day we drove off to the mountains where we hiked in to do some manly fishing and enjoy the elements. It was beautiful. There were meadow flowers all over and the lakes were gorgeous. The first day I was lucky enough to get quite a few fish and we enjoyed frying them up and eating them. My biggest fear of the trip was being too cold, but my usual luck held up and we had no rain or cold. Perfect weather.
The second day we headed to another lake/area and I caught so many fish I stopped counting. At one point I almost got bored. But it was fun. I enjoyed the hiking and beauty and spending time with the guys. We had some fun discussions. On the hike out the last day I spent most of the hike with Tommy learning about his studies and getting to know him again. I enjoyed it a lot. He is a good guy. I was grateful to have been able to make this trip and spend time with family.
Caves. For Brandt's (Tevia's brother) birthday he invited me to accompany him, his dad, and his friend Dave to do some spelunking. We drove down to Peppersauce Cave near Tucson and I loved it. It reminded me of the Nutty Putty cave in Utah (now shut down). There is no tour, no sign, and the freedom to do what you like. I loved shimmying through the caves and exploring new routes. Afterwards we headed to Tombstone for a night there. We had dinner at Big Nose Kate's and I enjoyed the atmosphere and brisket sandwich. Later we went to the Birdcage Theater on their night tour. It is also called their ghost tour. The Birdcage is apparently haunted. It was amazing to see a building that is the same as it was back in 1880 and imagine people living there back then. After the tour they have the group sit on the stage and turn off the lights and try to see if the ghosts will interact with the group. Many in the group would say they had some paranormal experience that night. Myself, being a little more skeptical and logical, did not, but did have fun.
The next day we went to Karchner Caverns where I have wanted to go for years. This is a more tourist-type cave, but it was awesome none-the-less and beautiful. I was glad to have gone as now I know our kids would have no problems with the tour (the website makes it sound like it is too tough for kids or people with disabilities). The trip was a lot of fun and worthy of an encore at some point.
Now the kids are back in school which signals the end of summer. I'm actually in Minnesota right now on business.
The water park. This year we purchased season passes to Wet 'N Wild, the water park down the road. We decided to do this in place of our usual "staycation". I was glad we did. I had a lot of fun spending time with the boys (and Tevia) at the park. And having a season pass made it so that you didn't feel like you had to stay for hours. Once it got too hot or too crowded, we would just leave and go back again another day. I always wanted to do something like this as a kid. And since I still have the mental/maturity factor of a kid, this summer was fun.
Uintah trip. I'll start off with some education. My whole life I always spelled Uintah with an 'h'. While in Utah this year I noticed it spelled Uinta (no 'h'). This annoyed me until I found out that it is acceptable both ways (according to Wikipedia), though the mountains are typically without the 'h'. So this should be titled the Uinta trip. Either way, I finally had time to join the annual Unita trip with my father, Jacob (Wall), and Jacob (Webb). Usually I am too busy or they try to do it after another trip. But this year I was free and had the added bonus of having Tommy (Tom) come on his first trip as well. I flew in to Utah with Jacob and we had a fun day playing tennis with Tommy and seeing a movie and getting some good sushi. The next day we drove off to the mountains where we hiked in to do some manly fishing and enjoy the elements. It was beautiful. There were meadow flowers all over and the lakes were gorgeous. The first day I was lucky enough to get quite a few fish and we enjoyed frying them up and eating them. My biggest fear of the trip was being too cold, but my usual luck held up and we had no rain or cold. Perfect weather.
The second day we headed to another lake/area and I caught so many fish I stopped counting. At one point I almost got bored. But it was fun. I enjoyed the hiking and beauty and spending time with the guys. We had some fun discussions. On the hike out the last day I spent most of the hike with Tommy learning about his studies and getting to know him again. I enjoyed it a lot. He is a good guy. I was grateful to have been able to make this trip and spend time with family.
Caves. For Brandt's (Tevia's brother) birthday he invited me to accompany him, his dad, and his friend Dave to do some spelunking. We drove down to Peppersauce Cave near Tucson and I loved it. It reminded me of the Nutty Putty cave in Utah (now shut down). There is no tour, no sign, and the freedom to do what you like. I loved shimmying through the caves and exploring new routes. Afterwards we headed to Tombstone for a night there. We had dinner at Big Nose Kate's and I enjoyed the atmosphere and brisket sandwich. Later we went to the Birdcage Theater on their night tour. It is also called their ghost tour. The Birdcage is apparently haunted. It was amazing to see a building that is the same as it was back in 1880 and imagine people living there back then. After the tour they have the group sit on the stage and turn off the lights and try to see if the ghosts will interact with the group. Many in the group would say they had some paranormal experience that night. Myself, being a little more skeptical and logical, did not, but did have fun.
The next day we went to Karchner Caverns where I have wanted to go for years. This is a more tourist-type cave, but it was awesome none-the-less and beautiful. I was glad to have gone as now I know our kids would have no problems with the tour (the website makes it sound like it is too tough for kids or people with disabilities). The trip was a lot of fun and worthy of an encore at some point.
Now the kids are back in school which signals the end of summer. I'm actually in Minnesota right now on business.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Gratitude
I have to say, our family is having a wonderful 2103.
I have so much gratitude in my heart lately, I can hardly keep from smiling.
In no particular order~
We prayed and fasted for Bret to find a job he would like better, and he did!
Ditto for Jimmy!
And so proud of him and Tom for their graduations and success.
Dad didn't get layed-off, although many of us secretly wish he had. (I don't think he is quite ready- but I am!)
All four of you families have the moms at home with their children! What a blessing in this age where that is considered old-fashioned, and the economy makes it almost impossible.
Kudos to all of you who go without 'things' to gain much better blessings of being with your children.
And we welcomed a new addition- Izaac James!
Hazel started school, Jarek- high school! Landmarks!
All the grandchildren are growing and happy.
Family was able to be together often. Service was done. Lives were touched. And there was fishing and camping and bonding, and I got to get to know Holly and Beckham better and loved every minute of it.
We all continue to be temple goers, which is an amazing feat in itself! I personally thank you for your dedication and faith. It brings me great joy. There surely is peace in our posterity.
Many of us have new callings that will stretch our capabilities and teach us what He wants us to know. I find my calling in the temple to be the greatest calling I have ever held, albeit sometimes it is standing in the laundry for an hour folding towels. I love knowing I have the privilege to be there and help others attend. I continue to struggle with my Institute calling, yet I know that I am learning great things from it.
The talents and skills you are all developing never ceases to amaze me.
And, extended family- we were happy Holly got to meet more Walls, Bret got to see grandma and Jesse, and we love when we get to be around Webb & Millie.
I just feel we have all been very blessed, and wanted to let you know that I acknowledge those blessings.
I know there is more, but, I am just dying to get to my genealogy this morning. I am close to a breakthrough, and need some prayers so I can get this data all figured out. My mind is not as clear and focused as it used to be.
I look forward to being together at Thanksgiving.
I so much love you all. I want very badly to live closer to all of you. I will try and continue to be a good long distance grandma. Please keep the Google chats and phone calls and emails coming. Any ideas to increase the love is encouraged. I would like to start up FHE each month again. Does the first Monday of each month sound good?
I have so much gratitude in my heart lately, I can hardly keep from smiling.
In no particular order~
We prayed and fasted for Bret to find a job he would like better, and he did!
Ditto for Jimmy!
And so proud of him and Tom for their graduations and success.
Dad didn't get layed-off, although many of us secretly wish he had. (I don't think he is quite ready- but I am!)
All four of you families have the moms at home with their children! What a blessing in this age where that is considered old-fashioned, and the economy makes it almost impossible.
Kudos to all of you who go without 'things' to gain much better blessings of being with your children.
And we welcomed a new addition- Izaac James!
Hazel started school, Jarek- high school! Landmarks!
All the grandchildren are growing and happy.
Family was able to be together often. Service was done. Lives were touched. And there was fishing and camping and bonding, and I got to get to know Holly and Beckham better and loved every minute of it.
We all continue to be temple goers, which is an amazing feat in itself! I personally thank you for your dedication and faith. It brings me great joy. There surely is peace in our posterity.
Many of us have new callings that will stretch our capabilities and teach us what He wants us to know. I find my calling in the temple to be the greatest calling I have ever held, albeit sometimes it is standing in the laundry for an hour folding towels. I love knowing I have the privilege to be there and help others attend. I continue to struggle with my Institute calling, yet I know that I am learning great things from it.
The talents and skills you are all developing never ceases to amaze me.
And, extended family- we were happy Holly got to meet more Walls, Bret got to see grandma and Jesse, and we love when we get to be around Webb & Millie.
I just feel we have all been very blessed, and wanted to let you know that I acknowledge those blessings.
I know there is more, but, I am just dying to get to my genealogy this morning. I am close to a breakthrough, and need some prayers so I can get this data all figured out. My mind is not as clear and focused as it used to be.
I look forward to being together at Thanksgiving.
I so much love you all. I want very badly to live closer to all of you. I will try and continue to be a good long distance grandma. Please keep the Google chats and phone calls and emails coming. Any ideas to increase the love is encouraged. I would like to start up FHE each month again. Does the first Monday of each month sound good?
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
The Year of the Fishy
I'll just be honest, sometimes when you take a picture, its impossible not to smile. When I caught this little boy at the bottom of Flaming Gorge, I was grinning like an idiot for a very long time. 31 pounds 42 inches and 10 minutes of fighting for this glorious lake trout!
We also caught our bag limit of Salmon and they were some pretty fish.
At one point the commotion of a fish being reeled in and a gust of wind relieved me of my hat. But Webb and Russ snatched the hat and the fish in the net:-)
These pictures were my 4th major fishing trip of the year. I went deep sea fishing off San Diego, Salmon fishing in Alaska, trout fishing after backpacking into the Uninta Mountains of Utah and finally lake trout, salmon fishing, and some rainbows in the Flaming Gorge.
These trips were incredible and adventurous, and memories I won't soon forget. Life is busy, challenging and moves way to fast. Please try your best to experience important adventures like these which slow down our mortal journey and remind us of what is really important. Fish really are the most important oops, erm I mean family, friends and our experiences with them are the most important memories to take from this life. Also, thanks for all those still crazy enough to invite or go with me on silly adventures!
Sunday, August 04, 2013
New Job - Trip to Cleveland
After some time looking, I finally was able to find a job that suited me and accepted an offer of employment. This last week was my official first week and I was asked to travel to their largest office (in Cleveland) to do some training. I will be working out of my home, but I bought a ticket and flew out on Monday and came back on Friday.
From my first impressions I am excited about this new company and opportunity. The people were very nice and the company seemed together and about what I imagined. So that whole part went well.
The nice thing about going to Cleveland is that I had lived there and have family there. I was able to schedule a couple of things with family members and that made the whole trip even better.
The first visit was going with my uncle Michael (my mother's brother) to visit my grandmother. We went to her assisted living home and spent a good two hours or so with her. It was great to see her. She did not recognize me when I entered, but quickly caught on. We talked about many things including her wonderful life and it was great to hear her laughter and positive attitude. It was a great visit.
The second was a dinner with my uncle Michael and his wife and daughter (my cousin Jessica/Jessie) and her family. We ate at Applebees and spent a couple of hours talking about life, family and trading stories. It was a lot of fun and great to spend time with family. I don't get to see this part of the family too much and it was great to see them. I am grateful for the time I was able to spend with them and get to know them again. I am guessing I will most likely get out to Cleveland again some time and hope to set some more things up when I do.
I am excited for this new part of my life. It was time for a change and I am hoping that this new company can provide what I have been missing the last year or so. I am looking forward to giving my all and helping this company grow and improve.
From my first impressions I am excited about this new company and opportunity. The people were very nice and the company seemed together and about what I imagined. So that whole part went well.
The nice thing about going to Cleveland is that I had lived there and have family there. I was able to schedule a couple of things with family members and that made the whole trip even better.
The first visit was going with my uncle Michael (my mother's brother) to visit my grandmother. We went to her assisted living home and spent a good two hours or so with her. It was great to see her. She did not recognize me when I entered, but quickly caught on. We talked about many things including her wonderful life and it was great to hear her laughter and positive attitude. It was a great visit.
The second was a dinner with my uncle Michael and his wife and daughter (my cousin Jessica/Jessie) and her family. We ate at Applebees and spent a couple of hours talking about life, family and trading stories. It was a lot of fun and great to spend time with family. I don't get to see this part of the family too much and it was great to see them. I am grateful for the time I was able to spend with them and get to know them again. I am guessing I will most likely get out to Cleveland again some time and hope to set some more things up when I do.
I am excited for this new part of my life. It was time for a change and I am hoping that this new company can provide what I have been missing the last year or so. I am looking forward to giving my all and helping this company grow and improve.
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