Corn, corn, and more corn

Day 3 was spent driving across Nebraska and part of Iowa. We have seen so much corn. I find it hard to believe that people think there is not enough food. Of course much of this corn will be used for ethanol. So silly, when you think about how people could be fed. And these states at least offer gas w/o ethanol:). We stopped at Winter Quarters. That place has such a sweet spirit. I am struck once again how much these pioneers sacrificed. It makes me ponder again how Pres. Hinckley always admonished us to remember. While at the visitors center, who should we run into? Reed's uncle Rodney from Denver. What a small world!!
As we drove to our motel for the night, we saw many fireflies. Morgan had never seen them. It is so fun to have her. She is seeing and experiencing so much for the first time.
Tomorrow we spend the day at Nauvoi!!



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Day 2

Today we had our granddaughter Morgan join us. She is Norma's oldest and she gets to be with grandma and grandpa for the next 3+ weeks. Today we visited the Mormon Pioneer handcart center known as Martin's Cove. As we arrived we saw black clouds from a thunder storm approaching. This has happened every time we have visited. We left in time, but got hammered on the highway by a torrential downpour and massive hailstorm. It came down so hard we could not see the road. As we crawled into a rest area, we had no idea that we were at Independence Rock. We couldn't even see it!! It was another exciting day!!








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The Journey Begins

I have decided that I should journal our trip across America. I am very grateful for this beautiful world and the country in which I live. Today we drove to Utah. We stopped for lunch in Ontario, OR and watched the Wendy's there burn to the ground.
Then Reed did a good deed while at a rest stop in Utah. A family pulling a boat were stopped trying to change a broken wheel on the trailer. The dad was on crutches. Reed went over and helped the family. What a good man.


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Quick Update without Pictures

Guess I will give a quick update while I scramble to get everything done. Alas there are no pictures because I don't have time. So on to the update. Since last I posted, I have pulled off a family reunion for my side of the family. We had 60 people camping at our cabin by the river. I planned and pre-prepared all the meals except for breakfast which was assigned out to different families. We had a GREAT time. I hope to get pictures up. We made 2x the money for the next reunion AND raised money to reside the cabin and replace windows.

Jessica has started her new job and so we don't see her or hear from her like we used to:( I miss having quick access to her, but she is very happy working and we will get to see her for 1/2 of our vacation. We got to take Jessica and her roommate up to camp and sight see at Mt. St. Helens after graduation and had a wonderful time! I will post some pictures from that too - someday!!

Let's see, then Keegan (my 6 year old grandson) broke his arm. Reed and I had gone up to the temple and to talk about becoming ordinance workers. That has to be put on hold. We are way too busy and I have a new calling and responsibility at church that will probably postpone it for a while. Anyway we came out of the temple to a text message from Jackie asking us to meet her at the hospital because Keegan has broken his arm. Brave boy never cried, just calmly told his parents that he had broken his arm. They didn't believe him at first until he removed the hand that covered the broken arm. Glad we were up in the area and could meet up with them, take the baby and stay with the younger kids while mom and dad were at the hospital with Keegan. Kind of changed plans we had for how the summer was going to go.

Jackie then came down to our house for 2 weeks of swimming lessons and the reunion. It was fun to have all those boys here and the house sure filled up with people!!

My sister and her husband arrived from Indiana as well as her daughter and son from Georgia for the reunion. Meanwhile my house is under construction AGAIN!! What started as a residing project became a major remodel as we found major rot problems. So fiascoes continue daily with that. But I am getting used to all that now. Just a major mess in my home with the downstairs basically out of commission until everything is done! Norma and her family made it to the reunion and it was sooooo good to have them here. After the reunion we had 17 people staying the night at my house and that was with the downstairs and bedrooms out of commission!!

Life is never dull around here. This week I have been sewing like mad for a family in our stake that is going on TREK. Trek is where they enact the pioneers crossing the plains in handcarts. They will be hiking about 25 miles in 3+ days. Everyone wears pioneer costumes and they are organized into "families" and have a handcart that they must push/pull along the old Santiam wagon trail. Thank goodness my knees are not up to that kind of torture (well sort of). So instead I said I would help. So in one week I have made 4 bonnets, 2 dresses, 1 apron, 2 pioneer shirts, pantaloons, and altered 4 shirts for the family. All this while I have 2 different construction crews pounding, hammering, taking out windows so I can't run my AC and showing up at 6am to start work. Not to mention there is still the lab, workers in the trees and and a high school student doing yard work for me. Oh did I mention that I had a 16 year old young lady that stayed with us for a week while her family was away. She is in summer school and could not go with them.

So today I actually cleaned my house, ran errands and did the laundry. I am trying to get my brain to function so I can start packing cuz we are leaving to drive across the country. I think I am totally insane!!!

I will try to post pictures as we vacation with the kids back at the beach house. Is this really a vacation? Stay tuned and next time I promise pictures.