California

Back in March or April I am not quite sure, Steve's niece Sariah emailed us about Bethie (her sister who lives in Florida) coming out to California for a visit at the end of June or beginning of July. I checked at work and I got time off. June 29 to July 7 I would be able to be in California. It didn't work out that way.

I told Steve about this off and on for weeks. He likes to procrastinate big time. He wanted to fly his plane but he just didn't find the time to do his currency flights before we headed to California.

On July 2 (I have already had three days off) I basically convinced Steve that we should fly commercially. Our flight was the very next day at 5:55AM in Denver. We live in Canon City and we had to leave the house no later then 2:30AM. We had to switch planes in Phoenix. We arrived in San Francisco around 11:00AM. Picked up our rental car. It is a 2012 Ford Focus

Got to his sister Carol's house and took a nap for a few more hours. It had been a long day so far.

On July 4 went to a Japanese restaurant(we wanted Chinese) and we met Sariah there

Afterwards we went to Sariah's house (it is the same house that Steve and Carol grew up in and picked plums and watched the fireworks from Oakland, San Francisco, and Berkeley all from her house.

Then the last day I finally got to see the Oakland Temple. This is Steve and Carol in front of the Temple.

We didn't do an endowment session but we got to go on top of the Temple and I took these next few pictures.

My favorite picture of the perfect day:

The next day we had to be out the door by 3:00AM to be at the airport for the 5:40AM plane to Denver. Slept the whole way home. Got to Denver around 9:00AM. Made it home around noon. Took a five hour nap so I could be ready to work that night.

It was a quick trip but a very enjoyable one. Can't wait to go back

Update

This is Pikes Peak what it use to look like before the fire. I am not going to upload what it looks like right now. It will just make me very sad. Steve and I are about 45 minutes South West of Colorado Springs. I lived in Colorado Springs for about 20 years and I still have a lot of friends that live there. Some of them were evacuated and probably some have lost their homes to the Waldo Canyon Fire. The Flying W Ranch that I went to a few times is now gone. I wanted to go back there in the next few months. But it will probably be a few more years until it is back up and running again. Yesterday morning I went through Colorado Springs on my way to Denver and I didn't see anything too bad. On the way home in the middle of the afternoon. I got to Monument (just south of Castle Rock) I saw the smoke. I actually saw a helicopter land to get refilled while I was driving. The smoke was really bad. By the time I got to the south end of Colorado Springs I didn't want to stop to get gas where I usually do. I just wanted to get home to Steve.

Tons of stuff that went on since last time

I have been meaning to update this blog but haven't had the energy to do it.

Right before we went to Grenada my sister-in-law gave birth to a baby girl. Over Labor Day Weekend Steve and I went to Fort Collins to go see her.



Then in January over our Anniversary week my parents got us a timeshare up in Estes Park. Then they and my brother from MN came to join us for a few days.





Went to the Stanely Hotel and it was pretty cool.





My brother and his wife and daughter came over one evening to have a small reunion with everybody.










I got to see my Daddy on his Birthday (May 26) this year. My parents or Steve have never gone to see Bishop's Castle. So we went there for the afternoon. It has been about 5 years since I have been there.









I will try to remember to update this blog when things happen a lot quicker next time.