The Count Down Begins

This is to be the start of a Mission Journal. To do that, I must go back several months.

Wayne and I started planning for a mission several years ago. Our thoughts were that we would submit our application as soon as he retired and figured that would mean we would be gone by March of 2009. Because of his desire to hike the John Muir Trail before the mission, we had to put things on hold until the end of summer.

We finally submitted our application towards the end of June. We were told that the call would come about 3 weeks after Salt Lake received the application. We figured that we should hear something by the middle of July. To our disappointment we had not heard by the time Libby left for Maryland on July 21 and Wayne left for his hike the next day. There was a hold placed on our mail since both of us were to be gone for 3 1/2 weeks so we tried not to think of it too much for a few weeks.

Due to bad weather, Wayne's hike was cut short after only 2 1/2 weeks and he returned home about Aug. 9th. That began the daily calls from Maryland to Clovis just after the mail delivery to see if the call had come. The answer was always the same, "Nothing today".

Libby left for BYU Education Week on August 15 and so began the daily phone calls from Provo to Clovis. Again, "Nothing today".

Libby came home on Aug. 22 and started the daily trek to the mailbox herself. Again, nothing.

On August 27 Libby went into the hospital for surgery and that afternoon received a phone call from Wayne. The letter had finally come, did she want him to bring it to the hospital or open it and read it to her over the phone. What would you do? We had been waiting for over two months. Of course she said to read it over the phone. Wayne began to read. "You are hereby called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You are assigned to labor in the India New Delhi Mission". Talk about blowing your mind. Words would not come. We will be serving a Humanitarian Mission for 18 months.


We were not to report to the Missionary Training Center until February 1, 2010. With the long delay that we had already had that came as a disappointment. Wayne immediately started reading everything he could on India. He ordered the Hindi Rosetta Stone course and practiced daily. Libby took the "Don't get too excited yet" approach. Wait until January before really getting into it.

It is now the end of December. Time to start getting excited. Wayne's Hindi is coming along slowly and we have pretty much gathered all that we need to take with us. We have had some news that makes us a little concerned that we may not make it to India though. Visas have not been issued to new missionaries since April. Aunti Caye, who works in the Senior Missionary Training Center, tells us that a couple who were scheduled to go to India reported to the MTC and found out that they have been reassigned to Croatia. That sounds like a pretty good trade off to me but we are wondering what will happen to us. Maybe we will be lucky and they will start issuing Visas in the next month. If not, I hope that we will not be sent to Tucson Arizona to an Indian Reservation. Not such a good trade off!

Whatever happens, we are still excited and ready to serve wherever that might be. As the time gets closer, I am finding that it is getting harder to think about leaving the family. We have had such fun with Ashlyn and Preston here in our home. I will miss them and my quarterly trips to Maryland to see Thomas, Lucas and Caroline. We know that the Lord will be with us and will help us make the change and we put our trust in him that things will work out in the way that is best for all.

As our departure date gets closer, I will post more.

Happy times in Hawaii

We spent a great week in Hawaii with Jonathan and his family. He had a work commitment and Margo decided to join him with the kids. Margo researched on the internet and found a wonderful beach house on the east coast of Oahu. It was absolutely beautiful. The boys had a great yard to play in and then we just had to walk down a few steps and we were on the beach. Thank you so much Margo. We loved the whole experience.





This is the beach house we rented.

Wayne walking up from the beach to the house.


View from our yard.


Thomas loved kayaking.

The family out for a ride.



Both boys loved playing with the oars.




Lucas loved playing in the sand.

We went to a military museum at Waikiki.




Beautiful sunrises every morning. It was good that the boys got us up so early every day.

Lucas got Grandpa into the sand mode.

Yes - We are still alive!!

It is catch up time once again. I will start with our Alaskan Cruise in June.
As soon as school was out, we joined 12 friends and boarded the Amtrac train here in Fresno and headed for San Francisco.



What a way to travel. We played games the whole way and before we knew it our ride was over.






The train went as far as Emmeryville where we took a bus into the City. The bus dropped us off in front of the Cruise Terminal at the pier and we were joined by 4 more friends bringing our group total to 18.






We had a beautiful view of San Francisco as we headed out to sea.











We had a great time with friends, good food and fantastic scenery. We stopped in Ketchican, Juneau, Icy Strait, went up Tracy Arm and spent Father's day in Victoria.

This is Cutie Claire. She was new to the group and added so much to our trip.

Wayne did an all day hike to the Mendenhall Glacier and had a great experience.



















Wayne and I had been to Ketchican and Juneau before but we did different things this time and we really had a good time.






We went to a Lumberjack show,







saw totem poles and just enjoyed the scenery.











Victoria was the last stop. It was Father's Day and the bus tour company had a deal going because it was Father's Day and so Wayne got to go free and we had a very interesting and enjoyable bus tour of the city. It is too bad we were there for such a short time and it was a Sunday. This is definitely a city worth visiting again.

Well, obviously I never got around to posting our trip to Chile. Suffice it to say it was pretty neat and we had a great time. We did a Hop On Hop Off bus tour in Santiago and we were really able to see a lot of the city. I think it was our favorite part of the trip. We were able to do a session at the temple before we headed to the airport and then home. That was really nice.

Well, we have since returned from yet another trip. We left April 30th to fly to Maryland and we spent two weeks with Jon and Margo. We arrived Thursday evening and Friday morning Jonathan did as we had suggested and took Margo into DC for an overnight date. We had such fun with the grandkids. It is just so great that there is never any getting acquainted time necessary with them.

We had planned on going into DC ourselves while we were back there but it rained almost everyday we were there. It cleared up after a week and so Wayne and I and Margo and the boys spent a day at Harpers Ferry. I have not looked at Wayne's pictures but I have one Margo took of us on the foot bridge going across the Potomac into Harpers Ferry. Wayne took every opportunity to carry Lucas in the backpack. He thought it would help in his preperation for his big hike this summer.


One of my favorite pasttimes was reading to the boys. I love this picture - except for the double chins!



This last picture was taken on the day we all went into Baltimore to the Railroad Museum. On our way out of the city we decided to hunt for Charm City Cakes. That is where the Food Network films Ace of Cakes. Stacy and I are big fans and I just had to take a picture back of the building. It was a Saturday so they were not open but even if they had been we would not have been able to go in. They are available only by appointment. They even had black plastic covering all of the windows. When we got back home I got on the website thinking I would order some t-shirts. I decided I really did not want to pay $26 plus shipping so I just started looking at what was posted on the site. I got curious about what a cake from them would cost and started looking for prices. They do not list them but it did say that they have a $1,000 minimum order. I think the show has really gone to their heads. Maybe they don't really need to sell cakes anymore. They make all their money doing the TV show.



Margo posted a few more pictures of Harpers Ferry if you want to check out her Blog. We'll see if I get ambitious enough to change computers sometime and add some of Waynes pictures.

Hola!

Since I am so far behind and I keep going on trips, I decided to try and catch up. Most of this will be pictures of the last few trips we have gone on. We have only had a few weeks here and there at home and not much has happened.

Let's start with the grandkids. I am throwing this in only because I like the picture. Jon and Margo sent us a mousepad with this picture on it. It was taken at the zoo on one of there trips home.

Our first trip is right after Ashley and Josh's wedding. Since Jonathan had to go to Carlsbad for work the next week, we trailed along and we all went to Legoland. Jonathan had a hotel right next to Legoland and so we could walk into the park from there. We had fun but be aware - the park is definitely for small children so if you are planning to go sometime without kids, DON'T.

Thomas pulling me out of the LONG tunnel slide.

Jonathan and Lucas on the log run.

Thomas the Mummy.

Grandpa and Lucas on the helicopter.

Thomas driving a Lego car.

Sometime in between trips we managed to babysit Ashlyn and Preston. I just have to show Ashlyn the Diva and her joy of playing Barbies.

Our next trip took us to South America. We took my parents with us and went on a 14 day cruise. We flew to Buenos Aires a few days early and were able to take in a Tango Show and dinner, do a city bus tour and go do a session at the Temple.

Mom started a habit that lasted several weeks. Show

me the shops!

Look closely at the dancers!

We boarded the NCL Sun and immediately found two of our favorite things.

Hand Sanitizers

Free ice cream!!!

Our next stop was Montivideo, Uruguay. Wayne had offered to take a care package to Eric Larsen who is serving his mission there. He got off the ship first thing in the morning to meet two missionaries from the office and pass off the SUITCASE. We were a little worried because we had been told that we could not take food into the port. Not to worry. No one even checked him. While waiting for the missionaries, Wayne had been approached by a man trying to sell him a private tour in his minivan. When the missionaries finally arrived the man told Wayne that he was a member of the church and so Wayne booked his services. We had a 12 passenger van all to ourselves (4 of us) and Daniel added a stop for us to see the temple. It was Monday so it was closed but a guard saw us and opened the gate so we could tour the grounds. Very nice.

Our next stop was Stanley, in the Falkland Islands. We went on a tour to a penguin rookery. We took a van out of town and down to a meeting point where we transferred to four wheel drive vehicles. From there it was like an amusement ride. Very bumpy. It was very cold and windy but we enjoyed seeing the penguins and afterwards got to have "tea and scones" in a little trailer set up down there.







The penguins were all standing facing the sun. They were molting and so all the white you see on the ground are feathers.

Well, that gets us about halfway through our trip and I have had enough of trying to get pictures and words to match up. I will leave Chile for another posting. Hopefully it will not take me as long as it did to post Argentina.

Make a Smilebox photobook

The Wedding

Aside from the fact that we have been in South America for three weeks and so I couldn't really do much with the blog, I kept waiting for the wedding pictures before I did another post. They seemed to have been a little slow in coming but I finally got a few of them onto the computer and decided to use what I have now. Most of these were taken outside of the temple.


















































This last picture was taken at the Japanese Gardens in Woodward Park.