COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP

COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!!!

The Apprehension
The Lock Down
The Worry
The Helicopter
The Helicopter and it's Loudspeaker

I'm slow posting this great adventure but I thought for sure Dana and Maggie would beat me to it. When Dana and the kids were visiting the other week, we always joke with them about how they need to move away from the craziness of the Southern California region that they live in and return to peaceful, unadventuresome Northern California. Well no sooner had Adam left Dana and the kids to our trusty care, than chaos knocks on our door. I was out back with Dave when my CHP nephew drives into our driveway. David stops in occasionally on patrol so it wasn't anything really out of the ordinary ....other than he drove in a little faster than usual and comes back to us and says something along the lines of "You didn't happen to see a guy with a gun come by did you?" He then explained to us that parked at the back of our property was a guy who reportedly had a long barrel rifle and that several units were there trying to track him down and that they'd be surrounding the area and try to flush him and if we didn't mind if he left his unit parked at the house. Sounded like a good idea to me to discourage anyone with a gun, so I went into the house and locked all the doors as David retrieved his REALLY BIG gun from out of the unit. Me and Maggie and Dana and the kids then went up to the balcony in the mezzanine to watch it all unfold. My Dave in the meantime, bent on completing his orchard chores, continues to go out and spray weeds as if it's a normal day..AGHH!! In fact he's sitting there spraying weeds and he hears in the grass next to him David speak up, "At least it's a cool day out here"....Scared my Dave for a second cuz he didn't even know David was there he was hid so well. Looking out from the mezzanine, we would see I think about 9 CHP and Sheriff units surrounding the property with a lone truck parked in the back of the property line next to the canal. We felt all was safe until the CHP helicopter flies over and over their loudspeaker system we hear something like, "We see you, lie flat on the ground and get away from the gun!!!" That's when we go for our cameras cuz in this day and age, the girls think...this is the perfect blog. So we get shots of the helicopter and then shots of us panicking and are deciding that if Action News comes to interview us, we're picking Maggie to be our spokesman because she just had gotten her hair cut and eyebrows waxed that morning. Anyway to make a long story short, after about an hour on "Lock Down" the suspect was apprehended. It turns out he had gotten in a fight with someone at the cemetery down the road, got out a gun and then ran when someone called 9-1-1. He takes off down the road and when a CHP spots him he ditches into the north end of our property, drives to the back and holes up there. With the report of a long barrel rifle, the police call in all they got available. After getting him, they find out he only had a pellet gun and he tells them that we had hired him to do some weeding in the back so that was why he was there....silly silly man. Anyway, I guess we can't use the peaceful country living as a reason to persuade the kids to move back up to our area any more. P.S. I didn't post the picture Dana took of David coming to the door in his full gear with gun in tow when it was all done but it was pretty intimidating. Thanks David and all the rest of the crew for protecting us....I know we made light of it as we felt safe in our home high atop all the activities, but you were all really awesome.

The Top 25 Things We LOVE About a Fort Bragg Adventure

THE TOP 25 THINGS WE LOVE ABOUT A FORT BRAGG ADVENTURE....in no particular order.
1. Finding joy in everything.
2. Being eaten by a tree.
3. Seeing what adventure lies on the other side of the tunnel.
4. Playing tag in the sand.
5. Just relaxing.
6. Enjoying the beauty of the coast line.
7. Seeing every road as something out of a story book.
8. Relaxing on the beach with good family.
9. Finding the perfect Harry Potter outfit on a Mendicono shopping trip.
10. Enjoying a picnic stop in the woods.
11. Getting a piggy back ride on Grandma's back after a long hike.
12. Sharing a good story over lunch.
13. The Poole family.
14. Taking a nice stroll to the lighthouse.

15. Feeding the birds what's left of a beach adventure.
16. Holding onto Zach!!
17. Eating your ice cream cone sculpture. (See #24 below.)

18. Driving through the Drive-Through Tree on the way home.
19. Getting that perfect picture.20. Having a Grandpa pile!!
21. Contemplating what it's all really about with Grandpa?
22. Showing off perfect balance learned in ballet class.
23. Standing on the edge of the world.
24. Every good trip to Fort Bragg starts with a stop for ice cream in Lake County where this trip we perfected the art of ice cream cone sculpting.
25. Finding out combining a really good book and a long walk is possible.

ADDENDUM: One of the favorite things about this trip I couldn't get a picture of so I'm adding it pictureless.... At night around the campfire we would tell stories and sing songs and one night after finishing a resounding farm song led by Grandpa Thomasson, we asked Katelyn if there was a song she wanted to sing and she said her favorite was I Am A Child of God which she proceeded to sing and we all joined in. Well our camp site was close to the restrooms and as we were finishing with the chorus, a couple coming from the bathrooms to their campsite joined in. Don't ask me why, but that really touched me.

Seattle or Bust

DISCLAIMER: If you put the mouse on the picture when it gets full screen, you can see the captions for the pictures but it stops the slide show so you have to move the cursor til the next pictures comes up and then do it again. (I messed up on that last caption though and don't know how to edit it at this point...sorry... It's supposed to say "Good Night Seattle...we love you!!) You can speed up the slide show by hitting the little + on the bottom left of the screen. Also the "raindrops" special effects are supposed to give you the feel of Seattle...although when we were there, the weather was beautiful and clear. So enjoy our trip!!

I am derelict in getting our trip to Seattle posted and if I were really good, I would back post like Dana does but I don't know that technique so I just delinquent post instead. We had so much fun moving the kids to Seattle...as much fun as one can have traveling for two days straight, shopping til we dropped, unloading a UHaul litterally full to the door from midnight to three and almost crushing Ben at least once under a heavy load and then organizing and putting furniture together most nights til 1. a.m.....Sounds awful in print but we loved it cuz we were with our kids. And then we really actually got a few afternoons to explore the beautiful city of Seattle and some of the fine food. The Italian restaurant and the Deli were great. And be prepared when you go to Seattle to raise your arms high in the air and say WHEEEE really loud as you drive the city cuz every street in Seattle goes straight downhill and Ava and Elie love to do this. Ava wants to do it all the time but I told her...if you do it when there's no downhill, it isn't quite as fun....and she agreed. Elie goes more just AHHHH!!! And most of the residential streets are only wide enough for one car to pass at a time so it is challenging. But the views are amazing and the houses are just beautiful and all so unique. So there is a lot to see in Seattle and it seems to be all within a few minutes of their house. Next time we go I want to explore the zoo and the Aquarium which look awesome. I'm excited about this move. Thanks for getting this residency Ben. You are awesome...and so is your family.

How Inspired is That

Maggie received her mission call to the Texas Houston South Mission, Spanish speaking and reports to the MTC on September 2nd, 2009!!!! How amazing is that that she got her mission call to the area that Jana and Ben were in....now that Ben graduated from med school just last month and they're no longer there. The Gulf Coast of Texas just wants my girls. Well HOWDEEE and toss me my cowboy hat!!!

Let's think of something to do while we're waiting....

With Maggie's Mission Call Letter coming one week before her return from her Study Abroad semester in Paris, I had to think of something to occupy myself and keep from ripping open her letter. So I decided to prove my strength to her by posting a picture on Facebook every day (to her delight) to prove it was still intact and unopened. I understand kidnappers post a picture daily of their hostages with the current newspaper headlines to prove their victim is still alive and with all ten fingers and toes still there, so I followed their lead.

One day I posted that I thought I could read the word Muckluks through the address window and posted a picture with my warm slippers.
On Sunday, we decided to use the Sunday funnies as our headline since the day's before headline was quite depressing. Then we decided to let Dave use his priesthood authority to gently toss the letter at our world map and see where inspiration landed it. It ended up between Iceland and Ireland....either one REALLY cold and Maggie hates the cold. Not a good sign.
As the days got closer, we decided to enlist the help of our trusty guard dog Wall-E....Actually we put in a stunt double for the letter cuz we weren't sure how trusty Wall-E would be but you can see he handled it with the greatest of respect.
Wall-E called in his trusty side kick, our cat Babe for support. They wholeheartedly took on the assignment and were willing to guard the letter with their life.
It may look like Wall-E is being derelict in his duty and sleeping, but he actually has one eye open, ready to pounce.
With the final day here and Maggie winging her way back home to us, we feel somewhat not unlike the doors outside Mervyn's on the day after Thanksgiving at 5 a.m. with the OPEN...OPEN...OPEN!!! beckoning us in anticipation.

Have I Seen His Hand in My Life Today

I have seen the hand of God in my life often and I can not deny his guidance and love and intervention. I see it through my life, my husband's life and our relationship and I see it in my children's lives. It's every day and I'm grateful for that.

No Room in the Inn

No Room in the Inn

This last Memorial Day Weekend when we went to Yorba Linda for Zach and Elie's birthdays, we had planned to take a leisurely trip up the coast either going down or on the way home, but things didn't look like we would be able to take our adventure afterall. Regardless my sweet husband kept it as his goal and even though we got a late start, when it came time for the two freeways to diverge, he took the one heading for the coast. We thought we had enough time to make it to the coast by nightfall and we'd just catch a hotel and then start up the coast the next morning. Little did we realize how bad things are on the coast on Memorial Day Weekend and when we started looking for a hotel the common sign was "No Vacancy" or "No Room in the Inn". When it was getting around 1 in the morning we saw one hotel from the road that didn't say "No Vacancy" so we took a sharp turn to the right to zip down the side street and in taking the curve a little wide, who should be coming the other direction but a policeman. Sure enough he turned around and pulls Dave over with the question on his lips, "Sir, is there a lawful reason why you swung into my lane back there?" to which Dave made a sarcastic enough reply that I thought for sure he was going to handcuff us and take us into the pokey....would that mean a bed to sleep on? So as I started rifling through the glove box for registration and proof of insurance, Dave explains our situation to which the nice policeman asssured us we did NOT want to get a room in the flea bag hotel we were aiming for. He even called his Sheriff to find out if he had heard of any lodgings still available that he might know of. To no avail, we were sent on our way further up the coast even looking for just a spot to pull off the road and sleep in the car. By 1:30 we were desparate and as we drove along, there was a side street to our left that looked like apartment buildings in the trees but what should catch my eye but a hotel sign. So we swung back around and sure enough it was a whole row of hotels with beautiful signs saying No Vacancy....No Vacancy....No Vacancy.....No Vacancy until what to our wondering eyes should appear but one sign saying an ever most welcome "VACANCY" sign.....Surely a mistake we decided but nonetheless we drove in anyway. Out Dave gets and returns several minutes later as I stay in the car praying...Oh please Heavenly Father, let there be a bed and let it be without fleas and let it be affordable. Dave gets in the car and says, guess how much??? $250 I said figuring an exageration....Very close was his reply....and that's with a 30% discount because it's after midnight. So we contemplate for a few minutes deciding if we want to pay more for a hotel than we ever have before for just a few hours sleep and decide....YES, YES WE DO!!!! So Dave goes back in and is in there for like ten minutes I guess signing his life away and comes back out with key in hand just as a guy drives up to the office and as we see him speaking to the manager, he drops his head and shakes it ever so pathetically and I told Dave, she must have told him what it costs and Dave says, no, she just told him we just got the last room. Then we see him drive off down the remainder of the row of hotels and back out to the road. Dave said we should've tracked him down and offered him our room for $500. But we retired without a second thought to our room with it's warm fireplace and hot jacuzzi tub and Wonderful bed and the sound of the ocean waves hitting the beach just outside our French doors and the quaint little patio. And in the morning we got up to THE most wonderful breakfast I think I have ever had and then took a nice little stroll down the path of the ocean. It was beautiful and PRICELESS!!! and we felt so rested. Next time we go through, we'll have to try out the spa and exercise room that we never even got to see and try the evening "dessert buffet" served at dusk. I think we'll pass on their wine tasting though. So if you're ever in Cambria, stay at the Moonstone or Pelican something I think it was. Then we traveled up the coast stopping often along the way to enjoy the wonderful ocean, took a little nap on a grassy knoll by the beach and saw several California Condors, one of which was perched in a tree and we saw it's little transmitter on his wing for tracking....he was Condor Number 8 by the way. I don't know what it is about the ocean but it always is so relaxing. And even for a busy Memorial Day Weekend, it was peaceful. Thank you Mr. Beasley for taken the low road this time.