Another beautiful day at the Washington DC temple

While Rebecca was here for Christmas we had the wonderful opportunity to take her to the Washington DC temple to go through for herself.  It was a beautiful day at the temple.  We had to get up early and head out to make it there by 10:30 in the morning.  It was worth the effort!  It was so wonderful to be there with Rebecca and see her joy at attending the temple. She has always loved temples.  At one time she made power points of every operating temple in the world.  She has worked hard to prepare to go and she has changed her life.  I was so glad to be her escort.  I love that the Washington DC temple doesn't have an aisle down the middle of the room.  Rebecca got to sit right between me and Neil.  What a perfect spot for someone going through for the first time.  I hope she will keep her love of the temple and attend at least once a month.  I love you, Rebecca!!

Introducing Rebecca to Virgina

Rebecca flew to Virginia for Christmas on December 15th.  We didn't have a lot of time to show her our home for a year, but we did show her a few things.  She absolutely loved Virginia!! I think she is planning on moving to the East Coast if she can figure out how to make it work.  We went to Lexington.  She loved Washington and Lee University and the Stonewall Jackson Cemetery.  We also went to Staunton and took her to the Shakespeare Theater.  She really wants to see a show there someday.  We also went to Washington DC.  I think Washington DC was her favorite.  We only had one afternoon to see the monuments and we didn't even go in a museum, but I think she will be back someday.  We had a wonderful visit with her.  I really needed to have her home.  I love that she loved the area we are living in.  I am so glad we got to share it with her, even if there wasn't enough time to see everything.

Here is a link to what she wrote on her blog.  You can tell she loved being here.
Link to Rebecca's Blog Post.

Boxerwood

We went to Boxerwood in Lexington Saturday afternoon.  Dallin had been there for school, but none of the rest of us had gone.  It is a great place that has lots of habitat area and a great play area for kids.  Joshua and Lydia loved the mud kitchen.  It had a kitchen area with all kinds of pots and pans and a bathtub filled with mud to play in.  Lydia loved making chocolate muffins.  Joshua and Lydia came home with mud on them and smiles on their faces.  Dallin loved showing us the way to the wetlands.  Neil, Emma, Matthew and I followed Dallin to find the wetlands. There was a fun teamwork tightrope.  Matthew and David worked at it and finally got across it.   It was a fun family afternoon.

No snow day, but a day off anyway

The kids have been waiting and waiting for a snow day off of school.  We haven't had any snow yet, but the kids got Monday off of school for a different reason.  There was a felon that shot at a police officer in Buena Vista during a traffic stop on Friday night.  He ran away and was hiding out somewhere near Enderly Heights Elementary.  The school district didn't feel good about having the kids go to school on Monday because he still hadn't been found on Sunday night.  He was finally found in a church attic Monday afternoon.  The kids enjoyed the day off. They are still waiting for snow to come.  We understand that there were 19 snow days last year.  We have hardly ever had a snow day in Wyoming so the kids are excited to miss a few days of school this year.

The National Zoo

We decided to go to Washington DC the day after Thanksgiving and see the National Zoo.  It was the perfect day to see a zoo.  The weather was perfect and we didn't even need our jackets.  We really enjoyed seeing the zoo.  It is so nice that the zoo is free. Neil dropped the kids and I off at the zoo and then went to find a parking place.  He rode his bike back to the zoo.  There was a baby panda born in August and it was really neat to see it.  I am so glad that we were able to see the zoo while we are here.  Joshua was so excited to see an anteater.  Here are some pictures from our day at the zoo.

Right out my kitchen window

I have a bush right out my kitchen window and sometimes a beautiful cardinal will perch on the bush to eat the berries. I love that little cardinal.  He is so beautiful with the brightest red feathers.  I have tried to take his picture, but he is very shy and always dives deep into the bush when he feels like we are watching him.  One of these days I am going to get his picture, but until then I am posting a picture off the internet so I can remember how much fun it was to see the cardinal right out my kitchen window. Somethings in life are elusive just like my little cardinal.  I have come very close to getting his picture but have always just missed it.  I'll keep trying.  We have to keep trying in life when things don't happen as fast as we want.

Event Staff

When I was a teenager I thought that the perfect job would be on the event staff at BYU.  Think about it, you would get paid to be at football games, and as a bonus you would get to wear one of those great orange shirts that say Event Staff on the back. Others would tell me that you had to stand with your back to the game, but I was sure that would be the absolutely perfect job.  Well, I finally got the chance to experience being on the Event Staff.

SVU had an opportunity to bring volunteers to the Virgina/Virginia Tech game the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  Since a lot of the students were gone there was plenty of room for Neil and I to go.  The money that SVU was paid for each volunteer was donated to a local family with medical expenses.   We met up at the SVU vans at 7:30 in the morning to drive to Charlottesville.  The trip there was pretty uneventful and much faster than the trip home.  We got the stadium about 9:00 to learn how to do our job as ticket takers.  We got to wear yellow shirts that said event staff with our khaki pants (they really didn't go together at all).

We opened the gates and started taking tickets at 10:30 for the game that started at noon.  Right now the school had heightened security after the Paris attacks.  Everyone coming into the game had to go through a security check. You can imagine that everyone wasn't particularly pleased with the situation.  I noticed that Neil and the others around me had more people coming through their lines than I did.  I wondered what was up.  When I asked Neil what he thought about it, he told me to look ahead at the guy doing the security for my side.  He was a very intimidating looking person.  He was big, and looked like he was taking this very seriously.  If I had to be searched by him I would have chosen another line.   After the lines got busy and closer to game time my line got busier also.  At the very beginning my scanner wasn't working, but then we got it figured out.  I am glad we got to start well before game time so when the rush hit we had it all figured out.

When it was almost game time the lines were really long and people were frustrated with having to go through security.  The security lines made a lot of people late to the game.  We stayed very busy taking tickets right up to half time.  It was kind of interesting to watch the fans come in. There were families that had on both Virginia and Virginia Tech shirts.  One family all the girls were Virginia Tech and all the boys were Virginia.  One man had on a Virginia sweatshirt and a Virginia Tech hat.  I told him I was confused about who he was cheering for.

There were several fans who had too much to drink before coming to the game.  One young man fell down a couple of times trying to come down the steps.  A police officer told him he couldn't come to the game and helped him leave college property.  Another man was told he would have to wait an hour and then see if he could come in.

One of the interesting things with taking tickets was seeing how many people came in late to the game.  The last person to come into the game through our gates came in with one minute to go in the game.  One minute!  Why even bother to come in then?  You would have to fight the traffic afterward and not see any of the game really.

I think the event staff in the stadium could see the game at least some.  As ticket takers we really didn't see any of the game.  I saw a football twice when they punted.  We could see the score board and figure out what was happening by watching where the ball was and how many yards to go for a first down.  We also watched the crowd to figure out who had a good play.

We got to under the stadium and catch a bus back to our van. The player were down there after the game.  It was cool to see them come out to catch their buses.  It took us about an hour to make it back to our van.  We stopped at a pizza buffet place in Charlottesville and then headed home.  Our van ended up blocking an intersection and I am sure that the people who couldn't go were a little upset.  We decided that there were SVU logos on both sides of the van so everyone would know who we were.

We got home about 7:30.  It was a long day.  I wouldn't want to do it all the time, but I did enjoy being on the event staff.  I learned what a Hokie is.  I am still not sure why the Virginia Cavaliers have a section for the Wahoos.  Virginia hadn't beaten Virginia Tech in about 5 years.  It was a close game. Virginia Tech won with a field goal at the end. The score was 23-20.  I was just glad it didn't go into over time.  I was cheering for Virginia since they hadn't won in a long time.  It was the last game for Virginia Tech's coach, so I was kind of glad they won for him. We forgot our camera so we don't have any pictures in our beautiful event staff shirts. Even if we had taken the camera we were told not to take any selfies in our shirts.