June 2013 Salt Lake City, Idaho, and Provo Trip!

I've been dragging with a nasty summer cold this week and decided to stay home from church today.  It's a good opportunity to pray, read my scriptures, rest, and get caught up on some things, like updating the blog!

Last week we went on a family vacation up to Utah and had an amazing time.  On the 14th we drove to Las Vegas and stayed at some Embassy Suites overnight.  The hotel was great!!!  That night we ate dinner at the famous Rio Carnival Buffet (WOW--pricey but good!).  Wade "had prime rib twice" and liked their fried chicken; Rhiannon and I liked the desserts!  Thanks, Dad, for an amazing, "you only live once" dinner!  We checked into our hotel afterwards and walked down to the Strip--it was a good walk and I had to repent for being grumpy on the way there ("are we there yet?).  Rhiannon took some fun pictures--hopefully she won't mind me "stealing" these from her:

 

 

On Saturday morning we woke up and enjoyed the hotel's buffet for breakfast, then got on the road to Salt Lake City.   We made great time (gotta love those 80 mph limits!) and started off our Cushing cousin time with a bang--pizza from the Pie and Little  Caesar's, and games (Cranium and Wits and Wagers).  We sure appreciated all the aunts, uncles, and cousins coming to spend time with us!

 

Sunday was "The Day of Celebration"--that night Grandma Deb and Grandpa Rod had a big crew over to celebrate Father's Day and Matt and Sam's birthdays.  Dinner was delicious (pulled pork and pulled chicken sandwiches), and we loved catching up with Great-Grandpa Rod, Nan, Nicholas, and Aunt Rochelle, too.

 

Monday we swam at Great-Grandpa Rod's and Nan's condo pool, and that night we celebrated all things Sam at All-Star for his actual birthday.  They had a great buffet there and TONS of games (yay for Laser Tag, mini golf and mini-bowling, not to mention all of the arcade games!)

 

Tuesday Rhiannon and Wade enjoyed some shopping with Grandma Deb, and that night we met up with the Murray Cushings and Murray Croppers for a Salt Lake City Bees baseball game.  The stadium was PACKED, but we had a good time sitting on the grass in the general admission seats.  There wasn't a whole lot of baseball watching going on, ha-ha, but great playtime with cousins and people-watching, for sure!

 

 

On Wednesday we drove up to Paul, ID to spend the day with Grandma Sue and Uncle Max.  Grandma and the dogs met us at the door, and Uncle Max got off work to spend the afternoon with us.  We had a great lunch, good visiting, and lots of fun playing on Uncle Max's keyboard.  Wade brought along his Lego set, and both kids enjoyed the dogs Sally and Hoover, too.  Jason and Max shot some skeet out in the backyard--I know Jason loved that!  We ended our visit with a tasty meal at Steve-O's and said our goodbyes.  I loved being up in Idaho, thinking about old memories!

 

 

 

Thursday was low-key; we got some Crown Burger for lunch (YUM!!!) and went to see Man of Steel--it was EPIC!!! :)  That night we enjoyed some more time with Cushing cousins and GAMES!

 

On Friday we slowly started to pack up and took it easy.  Then we drove down to Provo to have dinner at Jordan and Amelia's new place.  It had been a while since we'd seen them, and it was fun to meet baby David for the first time and play with the cousins.  Thanks for a great visit, guys!

Time with family is so precious.  Thank you so much, Grandma Deb, Grandpa Rod, Uncle Brett, Aunt Jaymie, McKaleigh, Colton, Alex, Aunt Heather, Uncle Matt, Sam, Tyler, Lilly, Charlie, Great-Grandpa Rod, Nan, Nick, Aunt Rochelle, Grandma Sue, Uncle Max, Uncle Jordan, Aunt Amelia, Jonah, Nolan, August, Reta, and David, for the wonderful memories last week!  We love you!

Home is here in Ridgecrest

A few months ago Jason sat us all down and asked for our help.  He was getting (good) pressure to take a job in Eglin, Florida and wanted us to pray and think and ponder.  He also asked the kids to be open-minded.

Rhiannon was not excited.

Wade was middle-of-the-road.

I was ready to move the next day, thinking, "Hey, we'd be that much closer to Texas!" 

We didn't share this "opportunity" with family and friends because there was nothing set in stone or settled.  We prayed, we thought about things, and I spent a great deal of time day-dreaming and looking at houses and schools in Niceville, FL.

One night our good friend and bishop Ephraim Washburn came by to release Jason from his job at church as Young Men's president and ask him if he'd serve as a ward missionary.  We felt we should let him know about Florida, and he gave us some very wise counsel.  He said he'd support our family in whatever decision we made, if it was the inspired, right thing to do.  I made a comment about how I really wanted to get out of California, and he cautioned us, saying that he'd personally known friends who'd "fled," their only reason being they wanted to get out of Dodge, so to speak, and they ended up having a really tough-go of things in their new areas.  He also said that California needed good Latter-day Saint families, too!  His remarks caught me off-guard; I definitely needed to hear them.

So weeks went by, with more prayers and more conversations, but finally this past week Jason declined the job.  With the current furlough and sequester situation, the money, among other things, just isn't there to help us relocate.  We had some very specific criteria that needed to be met for us to move, and it just didn't happen.  We were waiting for the magical Washington DC experience, where everything fell together seamlessly, and it didn't, so we're staying put in the High Desert!

On Sunday Jason shared with our church congregation about our experience with this Florida thing.  He said what we could take away from it was that we had a good thing going here in Ridgecrest, and many, many things to be grateful for here. 

I agree.  I'm thankful for Jason and his good job, for sunsets over the mountains, and clear blue skies.  I'm thankful for summer heat and winters without snow.  I'm thankful for good friends, good teachers, great neighbors and a caring community.  Who knows when the next opportunity for adventure and change will come, but, for now, we're happy to be here, in the middle of nowhere, in Ridgecrest!

A teenager lives here!

Rhiannon had an "epic" 13th birthday!  Thank you for all the phone calls, thoughtful gifts, and well-wishes!  Her birthday was also the last day of school and a minimum day, so she and I went to lunch and did a little shopping.  That night was the "Feller's Cake Bake" at Wade's pack meeting, so Jason and Wade baked a cake in Rhiannon's honor:

Wade and I decorated it--we thought the "piano keys" out of vanilla wafers and Kit Kats added a nice touch!  Then AT the pack meeting Rhiannon was presented with ANOTHER birthday cake from the Cubmaster Sister Grant:

We were blown away by  her thoughtfulness.  I had made a random comment at a committee meeting the week before about how Rhiannon's birthday was the same day as the pack meeting, and Sister Grant wanted to do something nice for her.  She even had the entire crowd sing Happy Birthday to her!

The next day Rhiannon had 7 friends over to swim.  We kept the gathering as low-key as possible, "gifts not necessary," since it was an "off-year" for parties.  But Jason was totally right when he said Rhiannon was old enough now to just have friends over for kicks!  They swam, ate, and talked for 3 hours and had a fantastic time.  Many thanks to Jason who ran to get more pizzas when we ran out, too! :)  Teenagers need sustenance, right?

That night Howard and Sandi joined us for dinner (more pizza, ha-ha!) and cake.  They gave Rhiannon a super cute gift--a bag of 13 items.  Rhiannon had a lot of fun opening that one!

That's a DR WHO shirt--she is a BIG fan!

Another "teenager" perk--getting her own Facebook account!  She is LOVING it!

On Saturday Jason took Rhiannon shopping for a BIG gift--a brand-new bike!  They went to TJ Frisbee's, a specialized bike shop in town and got her "the works."  She was a little rusty after not being on a bike for almost 5 years!  But she hopped right on this one and has had so much fun riding around the block and on bike paths with her brother.  So FUN!

We love you, Rhiannon!  We'll get through these teenage years just fine! :)

Pieces from Rhiannon and Wade's Spring Recital

 

Rhiannon performing "Stay," a Rihanna song (no, we're not huge fans of Rihanna; but this song is really pretty!)

 

 

 

 

 

Wade performing "Crazy Cars," without any sheet music!

 

 

With their wonderful teacher Melanie McDonald

It was a nice recital; the kids did great!  They each played two piano pieces.  I was especially proud of Wade, who came in just after his final baseball game of the season (a loss), and then kept going after he messed up a little on his first piece.  I was partly to blame because I told him to try it without his sheet music (he'd had it memorized for a while). He knew the piece but said he got his fingering wrong.  He kept going and got a lot of compliments after the recital for hangin' tough!

Way to go, Rhiannon and Wade!