The first week of June brought Gene and Norma Vanwagner to town for the annual golf marathon. I didn't golf all week as I was really not invited but enjoyed being with Norma instead. They are such a fun couple to spend time with. On Monday the 4th, Lon, Gene, Junior, and Kurt golfed. Norma and I took Ann Watts to Twin to her eye doctor appointment. I then went to my doctor's appointment and got my paperwork done for our missions. We told Gene and Norma about our decision and they are thrilled for us but will not tell anyone till we get our families told. Norma and I fixed halibut casserole and invited Junior to join us. We had a great day catching up and hearing all of the old "glory days" stories once again.
Tuesday morning we are getting ready to head to the temple for our shift when we get a call and are invited to speak in the Spanish Branch this Sunday. That's all we need, company and prepare a talk in Spanish all in the same week!
Wednesday morning Lon golfed 9 holes and Tracy and Ashton joined the group. Lon then headed to Dr. Crandall's office for part of his mission exams. He had blood work done and all turned out great. He now has to have the stress test done and we both have our dentist exams and the medical will be finished. With all of our travels this month, we won't get these done till the first of July. I think we are very anxious to get our papers turned in.
Thursday's golf partners were Junior, Gene, Lon, Tracy and Chandler. Gene and Junior have been golfing anywhere from 27 to 36 holes every day. Sometimes the others will stay for 18 or 27 but only those two "young bucks" can do the 36 holes (at age 85). But Norma and I think that they are killing themselves trying to prove that they can still do it! They both come home and take a nap before they can function for the rest of the day.
Junior Robinson and Gene Vanwagner
On Friday evening, Junior brought over his friend, Tamera Tilby and we had a nice visit with everyone. These people don't seem to forget anything about their growing up years but yesterday can be a bit fuzzy(Lon and I are not too far behind them)
On June the 5th, We got the text with Nathan opening up his mission papers. He is heading to the Washington, Tacoma Mission and will leave on the 18th of July. He is not going to be able to attend our family reunion and doesn't have much time to get ready. He is leaving before his availability date! So thrilled for him and his decision to serve. We will let him be the center of attention for a few weeks before we tell the family that we are heading out again.
Saturday morning Gene and Norma headed for home. It was a fun week but with a talk to prepare for Sunday in Spanish, it was a busy week and a bit stressful. We attended the fundraiser for our youth that evening.
Sunday was a very busy day. We had Choir as usual at 8:00am. Lon ended up teaching the 14-15 year old class in Sunday School. After our block, we headed to the Spanish branch and talked in their Sacrament meeting. I think it went well. It was nice to see our friends again. We then headed to Craig and Robbies for the night. We are heading to Washington with them tomorrow morning.
We left at 7:50 Monday morning and stopped in Baker City for brunch. Lon and Craig took turns with the driving. Lon made sure that it was Craig's turn when we hit Seattle. Ug! The traffic was horrible at that time and it took us 2 hours to get from Seattle to Mount Vernon, about 60 miles. We were so thankful to finally pull into Ken and Bonnie's driveway!
Derek and Staci had brought supper for us and we had a wonderful visit until 11pm. We were exhausted from our drive and they had to get up early for work so we headed to the Best Western in town and died.
We had breakfast at the motel and then drove to Ken and Bonnie's. Craig and Robbie have just began another semester teaching online classes so they are sneaking in time on their computers trying to keep up with the classes.
We watched a DVD that Bonnie had made about Ken's life and then headed to "The Barn" for lunch.
The Barn is a florist shop with a cafe in the middle of it.
It had old cars and collectibles as props to showcase the flowers
Ken and Bonnie
At the entrance of the cafe
Soups, salads, and sandwiches with family!
After we ate, we walked around the florist/souvenir shop
This ceramic puppy reminded us of Hope (Mindi's dog) but it won't eat much and definitely no poop to clean up after
The flowers were beautiful
Lon and Ken enjoying the souvenirs
We drove around La Conner and stopped to visit with Riley (Gideon's wife) and see Baby Ruby.
They were supposed to come to dinner that evening with us but their dog got sick and they were at the emergency room for dogs and we didn't see them again.
Craig and Robbie spent the rest of the afternoon doing school work and Lon and Ken visited while Bonnie and I got the garlic bread ready for our dinner at Ed and Starla's.
Ed is an avid fisherman and he cooked salmon and shrimp for us.
Before we left, Ken had Lon and Craig move one of his rocks that had been hit by a car and was not in line with the rest of them.
Ed and Starla
The men out BBQing our dinner
It was the best tasting salmon that we have ever eaten and Ed wouldn't tell us his secret marinade.
I think that many fish stories were shared
And after dinner more fish stories with pictures were told
Jorgen and Hannah were able to join us. Hannah's husband was out of town working so we didn't get to meet him. Jorgen shared his music with us after dinner.
Starla got a kick out of us wearing the same shirts and sharing our vitamins before we ate.
We had a wonderful evening with Starla and Ed and their family. We headed back to the motel and again fell into bed exhausted after a full day.
On Wednesday the 13th we headed back to Ken and Bonnies' after breakfast at the motel. Today was an overcast day with a little rain so we enjoyed a day visiting and watched the DVD that Bonnie had made of her life. We went to visit Gideon at his home as we had not been able to see him the night before.
Gideon is a firefighter in Mount Vernon
This evening we were to meet up with Quinn and Tracy for dinner at the Farm House. Tracy got sick at work and was unable to join us but we were able to have a wonderful meal with Quinn and enjoyed our visit with him. The clam chowder was amazing!
As we were getting ready to leave, the bus boy came out and sang us "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" He had a good voice and we had dinner with a show!
So sorry that we didn't get to meet Tracy.
Quinn and Tracy
We had a great visit with Ken and Bonnie and their family. It was fun to have each of the kids to ourselves each evening to really get to know them again. We said good-bye to Ken and Bonnie this evening and went back to our motel and got to bed as we are heading home tomorrow.
We headed for home and had horrible traffic again around Seattle. We got to Hermiston and had lunch then drove on to Boise. We headed on home and got here about 10:00pm. It was a really long drive but we had such a great time traveling with Craig and Robbie. There never was a dull moment! What a great trip to see family and brought home Lon's 30-30 rifle that Ken had. On Friday we golfed and that evening we went to Tracy and Sarah's to wish Sarah a Happy Birthday and give the rifle to Tracy to put in his safe. While we were there, Tracy shot a skunk in his backyard. We spent Saturday getting the truck and camper ready for our next adventure. We leave for Camp Bradley tomorrow afternoon.
Camp Bradley is located north of Stanly, Idaho, about 150 miles or 3 hours away. Lon has wanted to attend Wood Badge for years. You could say that it has been on his "bucket list." Wood Badge is a leadership camp for scouters. As the temple is still closed this week, he finally got the chance to attend. We left right after church and arrived in camp at about 6:00pm. It was a rainy, windy drive. We got the camper set-----
The Brown's are parked beside us. Linda was in Lon's patrol. Doug was the camp religious leader
This is a shot out of our camper door and there is a deer walking down the trail.
------and had supper and got ready for a week of classes and training for Lon and a week of cooking in the camp kitchen for me.
We knew that we would be a little on the cold side in camp as we approached the turn-off to Camp Bradley and saw the snow still on the mountains
new bathrooms and showers since I had been to camp about 10 years ago. There are bathrooms and showers on both sides of the building.
Each shower is private and very nice with very hot water
These are new bunk houses with beds to sleep 4
The lodge where I spent my days cooking for about 35 on Monday to Thursday and then for 50 Thursday through Saturday. There were 4 of us doing the cooking and once in a while, when the other 3 had to teach a class, it was only myself getting things ready. I was the only non-scout at Bradley this week.
Lon spent the week with his Eagle Patrol and seemed to really enjoy his time. He has written in detail about it in his journal.
It rained every day and was cold the first 4 days so we didn't have a problem with bugs until Friday.
Lon and his Eagle Patrol under the canopy
Scout songs and games
There was a lot of paperwork involved. This is the lodge where we ate and had meetings
The kitchen help
Me, Chris-the first time she had ever worked in a big kitchen; Jeff- who should have been the head cook but tried very hard to let the head cook think he was in charge; and Jim Brown - the head cook. Jim at one time was a great cook but he had trouble staying focused and got confused at times. We are headed out to judge the bottle rocket contest.
Chris, me, Jim, and Jeff
It was a lot of fun working with these three but it was exhausting also
Flag ceremonies were amazing
Chanelle was signing the National Anthem
Lon and I sang with the camp choir for one of the devotionals.
Each of the patrols had to sleep out 2 nights and cook their own meals. We had to provide all of the fixings for these. It was actually more time consuming than actually fixing the meals. There is a deer in the trees.
The second night was our 46th wedding anniversary. Lon mentioned this to his tent buddy, commenting that it would be the first anniversary that we were not together and he made Lon come back to the camper to sleep that night
We had deer in the camp all week
The morning of the 23rd, Saturday, we had a continental breakfast and then the camp had another devotional followed by the final flag ceremony and closing ceremonies. We provided sack lunches for all and we headed for home around 1:30. We arrived home around 5, emptied the camper and got ready for Sunday.
Sunday was definitely a nap day! We are both running on empty today!
Monday morning, the 25th, we got laundry done, banking, grass mowed, and packed and left for Salt Lake City around 3:30. We arrived at Farrell and AnnaVee's at 7:30pm. We visited till 11pm and then got to bed. They took us to the airport Tuesday morning so we could catch our 12:50 flight to Burbank airport where Ginger picked us up and took us to Moorpark for our week stay with her.
Jaikka's dance recital was Tuesday and Wednesday evenings.
The recital was in a new building and the lighting was awful for pictures
Jaikka is such a great dancer. We enjoyed every moment of both nights.
She has made the high school dance team for next year so this could be her last big show as the school team will take up a lot of time.
We went golfing Wednesday morning with Ginger and then ate lunch at the golf club restaurant. It was a beautiful course. We headed to the dance recital again. Jaikka is in 8 numbers.
Ginger and Debbie are remodeling their kitchen so we had no way to eat at the house except cereal for breakfast so we ate out each day.
Thursday morning Lon and Ginger went golfing again and Debbie had to work. I stayed at the house to keep the dogs under control so they wouldn't bother the workers. We couldn't get from the family room to the front room without going through the garage and outside. We took the girls out that afternoon for their birthday dinners. We went to the Wood Ranch BBQ and Steak House. The food was very good and we had a great time.
Friday morning we went to the Way Point Restaurant for brunch. It is at an airport where people either fly in or drive in to eat. There were planes landing and taking off constantly. Lon had bacon Belgian Waffles with sausage and eggs. We split our meal so we weren't stuffed. It was very good and Lon is going to try bacon pancakes when we get home.
We went to the World War II Museum that was right by the restaurant
Inside a huge cargo plane
The pilot's seats. We had a guide that told us about the planes and their uses during the war
Cargo Plane
They restore these planes as best as they can and even fly many of them
Even got to sit in this helicopter felt like we were on the M.A.S.H. set
Ginger and Jaikka
Even got to sit in a fighter plane
Inside the hanger were more exhibits and one more plane to climb into
There was only enough room for my legs and switches and knobs all over the place. I don't think I could ever memorize all of these and be able to fly a plane.
What an amazing day. Just wish that Debbie had been able to come with us. She had to work and then be home with the dogs because the contractors were working on the kitchen.
We had a great visit with these girls and Ginger took us to the airport Saturday afternoon. We flew into Salt Lake and Farrell and AnnaVee were there with our car so we could head for home. We got home at 10:30pm and were so glad to be home and sleep in our own bed for one night before heading to Boise on Sunday afternoon. We only slept in our bed 4 times in the last 3 weeks. Jet lag is starting to settle into our bones. We have gone from Washington to Stanley to California and back. We have been able to visit with lots of family and enjoyed our time in the mountains. June has come to an end but we have 2 more marathon weeks before we will be able to recoup from all our travels.
We have told Tracy, Mindi, and Ginger about putting our papers in for another mission. Everyone else will find out the first week of July. I am a little nervous to tell Mom and Connie. I think that Judy will be OK but Sarah is not handling it well and that makes me even more nervous to tell Mom and Connie. Hello July
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