Cousin Reunion in Northern California

On our way to Australia, we stopped over in Sacramento to visit wonderful long time friends; thanks girls for great lunch: Jannet, Marili and LaRee. (and LouAnn, not pictured).

Jannet, Marili, LaRee and me

Roy enjoyed a great day of fishing on the Sacramento River near Redding with Tony. Thank you LaRee and Tony for a wonderful visit. 
 Then home to the land of our birth for Roy's 2nd cousin's Mike's 60th Birthday party which doubled as a mini reunion for a branch of Roy's paternal family. So good to reconnect with family there. 

1st cousin Denise and Roy

Roy and Birthday boy, 2nd cousin and good friend, Mike

We are also able to enjoy lunch with dear friend Sharon at our favorite restaurant on the Coast: Capt' Flint's, walk on a favorite beach, a long walk in our beloved redwoods out in Glen Blair and check on our barn.  Thank you Forest and Pat for your hospitality. 
So good to see, hear, feel, smell, touch; in short,  just absorb our beloved Northern California Coast again.
Now on to a much different coastline.......

In the Good ol' Summertime 2

If it's the last week in June, I'm in Virginia to hang out with Ellie while Scout, Isaak and Gerald go to Suzuki String Camp in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley.  We had a great time together :)       
               
                                                        daily morning fashion show                                                      

We went out to lunch, read stories before naptime,

 watched movies, went swimming at Waterworks (sorry, no waterproof camera),










                                                                       to  swim lessons,

                                                                                                         the Marine Corp Museum

and had a very fun morning at the Bouncy house. 

 We picked up these cute people

and then we were off to a swim meet. 

the day can be long and boring when you are not swimming........

We enjoyed a fun visit to the National Geographic Society in Washington DC to see a Titanic exhibit

and since we were nearby, why not make a quick visit to the Natural History Museum?

             My favorite people in the Commonwealth of Virginia

                                                                                                and a snapshot before I leave. 
 

In the Good Old Summertime 1

It's June and that means.......
Girls Camp!
Our Stake attended a new Camp this year - Camp Holy Wild; just north of Humble, so only a 5minute drive from the Church.  It is owned by some wonderful new Baptist friends who went out of their way to make our stay enjoyable.
The best part about the new Camp?  (at least for us adults....) AIR CONDITIONED cabins!  It was wonderful.  and indoor plumbing.  Hardly camping LOL!  The weather cooperated beautifully; not too too hot and only had rain on the way home.
Tom T. came in very handy for hauling most of the gear. Many thanks to Kristin and Alex for doing all the loading.  
This year's theme was: Oh the Places You'll Go (Dr. Seuss). Our cabin was: "Westfield Ward hears a Who".

Home sweet Home, cabin 11

Did we have a little drama?  Of course.  It's Girls Camp.  To sum it up: We had great highs and great lows.  To quote Forest, "and that's all I'm going to say about that". 

first day

crazy hair day (Kristin and Alex)

Crafty cool Mia Maids

Silly Hat day (Kristin, Stacey, Cassidy, Avri and Alex)

Fun Skit night - Rena

Alex and friends

Mavi

 One afternoon I taught a workshop on Service. Roy gave me the great idea to have the girls put their hand-prints and sign their names on an old sheet.  It turned out to very popular.  One of the other leaders told me it was "inspired".  I was glad to help and that the girls liked it.  Many thanks to Bishop Pergler for all his help. 

The second greatest thing about the new Camp was their 300' zip line and of course I had to try it!

my zip line partner Kristin

 Now I have to say: this looked like a breeze from the bottom as we cheered everyone else on. Then it came time to make good on my promise, harness up and climb up the four story tower to the take-off platform.  Now it didn't look so easy. I think I am a pretty brave girl but I had serious second thoughts about this.  Only knowing that Kristin was waiting for me to GO kept me from chickening out.  Come to find out she was thinking the same thing about me!  LOL!! How I took that first step is still a mystery to me.  The first 25' were scary.  Did I open my eyes?  Cannot remember. 

Then it got fun.  Very fun.  I was not as brave as upside down Kristin.  But seeing that I had just had back surgery one month before, I figured just letting go of the line was good enough.
Yes. Very crazy. 

Our good Bishop Petrakovitz 

 The Bishop's skit was very funny. 

Devon Workman

Devon was a great villain!  

Westfield Ward 2012

In the Good old Summertime 3

July brought us fun visitors: Mary, Gracie, Zach, Katy and Max.  
We celebrated the 4th of July with a neighborhood party

A firetruck and very nice fireman came

too loud! 

 and fireworks! 























Of course we made our favorite visits - the Zoo where we finally found their new splash pad - very welcome on a hot day!  Much to Zach's delight, there was also a special Dinosaur display where they moved and growled!!  We went through twice and only the rain kept us from going a third time.

 We also discovered a very fun nearby bouncy house. 

Super heroes! 

Princesses! 

To make this visit extra special - Grandpa was home for part of it so he went to the Children's Museum with the kids but forgot to take the camera.  To be fair, I most likely forgot to give it to him.  Darn it! 

Gus my cat does not care for strangers and would only tolerate the kids in short doses but he really didn't like Max. At first.  So the game began and by the end of the 2 weeks we had a stand-off: one 8 lb brave feisty cat and one 150 lb. confused Mastiff - "why won't he play with me?" LOL! 

What else happened in May?

As you may remember, I have a herniated disk in my lower back (L4 & L5) that I've been dealing with for the past 9 months.  Epidural steroid shots and physical therapy unfortunately didn't work so long story short: I had back surgery on Friday 18 May.  We were very blessed to be able to schedule it so quickly and Roy was able to postpone his return to Auz 4 days to be home with me.  It was an outpatient procedure: in at 6:30am and was home by 3pm.  I was off pain pills 4 days later. Excuse me if I don't show off my 2" scar.  The great news is that it worked!!!  No more pain; absolutely none.  I am feeling great. Many thanks to my fantastic Back Surgeon Dr. B. 

We have some friends in our Ward who shoot skeet competitively and I've been wanting to go out with them for quite a while.  They were gracious enough to invite Alex and I to tag along on a family outing and give us each a lesson.  Alex is a natural!  I need some work. But Craig has taken it as personal challenge to help me learn how to blast that little clay disk.  We both had a GREAT time and my sweet Baboo, I want a shotgun for Christmas.  Thank you Craig, Liz and Lisette for a fun morning. 
Alex made a hard decision: rather than work this summer to return to school at BYU-I in Rexburg.  So I helped him drive the 24 hours to Bountiful, Utah. He went on alone the last 4 hours to Idaho.  We broke it up into three days, spending the night in Albuquerque, NM and Bountiful. On the second day I got the idea to take him to the visit the Four Corners area - "it's not too far out of our way"..... 
You may or may not have heard one of our famous family stories: how Becky and I missed Cleveland, Ohio when we crossed the US in 1998.  Roy has had so much fun teasing me since then, "Deb, how in the world did you miss a major city?" Well......
So Alex and I maybe missed a turn (the sign was really small!!)  and 30 miles later found ourselves headed South to Mexico rather than West to Arizona.  We did eventually get to the Four Corners.  Why didn't we turn on the GPS?  Good question. 

Roy has already been asking me: "Deb, four states.... You couldn't find FOUR STATES?!"  Let the fun begin.