The End of the Trip

Hello my dears,

Today was a quiet end to a marvelous trip.

We got up in Spokane and visited the Temple there. It is one of the small ones and is beautiful. They all have such a peaceful feeling and individual beauty. Even though it was much like other small temples we have been to, it had little differences also. One of the most gorgeous chandeliers I have ever seen. I loved it.

We changed clothes in the Stake Center and hit the road.

The road between here and Spokane is a nice drive. We stopped for lunch in Ritzville, stopped at the Thorpe fruit stand, stopped to see the Franklin family on the ridge, and drove into the driveway just as our odometer turned 2,290 miles.

This was a chance for a wonderful road trip, and I am glad Dan and I took advantage of the opportunity. I will post some of the pictures tomorrow.

We are going to gear up now and be ready for everyone to gather together and celebrate on the 4th.

Goodby, goodnight, we love you all!

Dan and Nic

ALAS AND ALACK, WE ARE ON OUR WAY BACK!

Hello my darlings,

We are on our way home!
It is so surprising how quickly two weeks fly by. Each day full of adventure. At the beginning of the trip two weeks seemed to stretch out so far. Nope! Here we are on the way home again and time has zipped by.

We got up this morning and ordered yummy room service while we packed. Dan took a few more pictures, some of them of the area where they filmed River of No Return with Marilyn Monroe and Robert Mitchum. We will need to rent it to watch. There is still some foundation of a little cabin left that was supposed to be her dressing room.

Afte breakfast we called the bellman, payed the bill, loaded the car, and bing, bang, boom--we are on the road again. We meandered around by Lake Louise and cut through the forest going west through a few little tiny towns. There are a couple of beautiful lakes on this side of the divide.

At the border crossing it only took 12 minutes to drive through and voila, my navigator worked again. And instead of moose, elk or bear signs on the road, we saw beware of cow signs. Sigh!

We drove through to Bonners Ferry in Idaho and stopped for dinner. We ate in a little local diner, splurged on fattening food one more time, because technically we are still on vacation. After dinner we continued on to Spokane and my navigator went on the fritz and didn't work anymore. Wouldn't you know it would happen.

It was odd reading miles on the spedometer instead of kilometers, but I am sure I will get used to it again by the time we get home.

We got to our hotel and had driven just over 8 hours. Since we were still a little sore from the horseback ride we went for a walk around the neighborhood to warm our aching selves up and get the blood flowing. At one stop when it took me a long time to get out of the car Dan asked what was wrong? I could only answer that my get-a-long must be broke.

It must have been in the eighties here today, because at 8 pm. it was still quite warm. I think the warmest the weather had been on the whole trip.

We are going to get to bed early tonight, tomorrow is our last leg of the trip.
We love you all and can't wait to see you.
Dan and Nic

I'm So Sad to Leave This Place Blues

OK, loved ones all.
Today was our last day in Banff. This hotel is amazing! A Castle on the mountain, and people taking care of us, feeding us, planning our activities, handling all the help, room maids, magicly apearing clean linens. We loved being here!

I just read that over again and it kinda sounds like a good retirement home. Maybe it won't be too bad moving in somewhere after all.

We had a full day of activities. Some of the people went home today so the few that qualified to stay one more day had some special treats. After breakfast we got on a bus and went to the ski lift at Lake Louise. It is a glacer melt lake high in the mountains and to say it is a gem does not cover how beautiful it is. From the top of the ski lift you could see this beautiful little aqua colored lake. And the next stop was to go to Lake Louise. There is a majestic hotel there also, and we were able to go canoeing on the lake for 40 minutes. Then on to lunch, catered in the hotel for about 40 or so of us. We were in a small dining room that had views out on the lawns and across the lake.

After lunch you will never guess what we did next----wait for it----Dan and I went horse back riding. For 90 minutes we were at the mercy of the horse in front, the line wranglers, and the horse under us. Horses are big, and contrary to what some people told us, they had opinions about what is going on around them. You could see it in their faces when we got there. They must have been thinking, "Oh Crap--There goes my peaceful afternoon". Also there was some--"What noisy humans we have to deal with!"

I got to ride Spot. Who was an old horse who didn't like to be crowded, didn't like going down hill, and wanted to eat and drink several times on the trail. Both which are no no's. If someone got to close behind him he would lay back his ears, start to complain, and if they didn't get back away-he would start to kick. Did I say before horses are big?

I managed to have Dan ride behind me. He seemed to have had no trouble with his horse, he can't even remember his name. Every time my horse got grumpy I would say "are you too close?" Sometimes the answer was yes. At one point the trail wrangler in the middle told Dan to keep his horse closer and I said absolutely not!

It was a gorgeous ride, and we went clear around to the other end of the lake, by the mountain with a glacier on it before we turned around. I am really glad we went. Even though there are a couple of tender places on me that may give me a little trouble tomorrow.

We saw a Grizzly bear on the side of the road leaving Lake Louise. The guide on our bus said that in all of his 15 years of living in Banff this sighting was definately one of the top three best sights. They are beautiful creatures.

We also saw 3 moose for the first time. Several people said they would rather come face to face with a bear than a moose. I guess some people had gotten out of their cars to take pictures of the moose and a part ranger came pretty quickly and had them move along.

Dinner was great. They do things so fancy when we are out. And the after dinner entertainment today was Jodee Messina. She was so much fun. She said we could make requests and people kept asking her to do these really old songs. She just laughed and did them. I am talking Patsy Cline vintage. What a good sport. After we were able to meet her and have out picture taken with her. She will be in Tacoma at the end of October. We will have to see if we can get there to hear her again.

What a fun few days, what a great time catching up with old friends, and meeting new friends. It will be hard to hit the road again and leave this place, even though I am so looking forward to seeing everyone in a few days!

We love you all and can't wait!
Dan and Nic

Saturday News

Hello my friends and family,

Just like yesterday, Dan got up and went to his meetings. I guess they were even more fun this morning. A group that did about 45 minutes of Frankie Valley numbers, awards, and a wonderful speaker that does nature photography. Still I missed it because I slept in. Oh Well!

At noon Dan and three friends from ING went golfing. Now, the course here is an incredibly beautiful one. No-one has said a single thing is wrong with it that I have heard. One of the interesting rules in the official golf literature here is that when you hit the ball, if you hit an Elk, you may play another ball and take no penalty. The Elk are so plentiful here that at certain times of the year it is hard to get through a whole game without hitting at least one.

I went on the scenic tour of Banff. It was on a short bus and the tour director, Hannah, was german and very funny. She has lived here for 30 years and she was originally on her way to South America, she just never moved on from here. She said that when her kids were going to school she made a deal with them. If the temperature outside was less than 20 below, she would give them a ride to school and they wouldn't have to go and wait for the bus. Only she would get up early and put her hands on the thermometer so it wouldn't ever read less than 20. It took a few years for the kids to figure out what she was doing. She didn't want to raise her kids to be wussies. There was one point last winter that with the wind chill factor the temperature reached 50 below. That is COLD. It takes less than 1 minute for skin to freeze at that temperature.

We had many photo ops today, several little walking stops, a great continuing nature lesson, and an incredible ride on a gondola to the top of a mountain. We were at a view point at Lake Minetonka and a little group of Big Horn sheep just meandered on by. Not even concerned that people and cars were so close. They wander on the road and cars just stop. At the end of the trip we had a chance to go into town for a whole hour. It was so much like the down town of Jackson Hole. Little shope and galleries, lots of junk, and a few treasures.

Dinner was a dress affair tonight and the first group that performed for us after dinner was "Little River Band" I didn't recognise them, but when they played I knew a couple of their songs. After the first group they bring in more of a dance type band and this group was so cute and perky. From England, they were "The Tzars".
Too bad the group was a pretty big dud by that time. Dan and I left after 4 or 5 songs and are getting ready for tomorrow.

We love you and miss you all.
Goodnight all,
Dan and Nic

Western Theme Day--June 25th

This morning Dan got up early to go to the business part of the meetings and he reports that it was a very good meeting. The keynote speaker was a guy that climbed Mt. Everest and was a great speaker and had a good message. I am sad I missed him. But not sad enough to get up in time to go to the meetings.

This morning I slept in, listened to the rest of an audio book while I did a little organizing in the room, took a long shower, and got ready for the day.

We went to the buffet lunch (food as always is very good at these events and it is hard to turn anything down). And after lunch Dan and I went fly fishing. We were supposed to be on a river but they said it was too full and so we went to a private lake about half hour away. It was gorgeous (of course) and we piled into the pickup trucks of the guides and headed out. No One Caught Anything! I heard someone got a nibble, but I think that they got caught on a weed.

We had an interesting lesson and it was fun to learn how to cast the line out so far. You can feel the line slide out as you whip it back and forth. Usually, if it is going right that is, if the wind is blowing and you lose control---you hook yourself in the butt, like I did. Or you hook the owner of the company in the butt, like one of the ladies in our group did. Either way they were the only two catches we had all day.

For dinner they put us on busses and we drove out to a place that had a converted horse arena. It was roofed over and had about the biggest firepit I have ever seen in the middle of it. We had roasted beef, beans, salad, baked potatoes, grilled veggies and pie and ice cream for dessert.

The entertainment for the evening was two guys that sang country, and there was a break while the Canadian Western Stunt Fighters put on a show and a fight and a gunfight. It was a little graphic, and the bad guys kept trying to hide behind people from our group. And there was more singing. Dan and I have never closed down a function before, but we stayed to the end today, and rode the last bus home.

Tired and still full, we bid you all goodnight!!
Happy Birthday Angie!
Dan and Nic

Thursday June 24,

We finally made it to Banff…8 days after we left home. What a beautiful place!! But I get ahead of myself. We got up this morning, packed, loaded the car, and were on the road by 9:00 am. Rather than take the more direct route; i.e. the boring freeway, we decided to take the scenic route…a system of 2 lane roads called the Cowboy Trail. We had a map, but every time we turned on the navigator, it kept trying to direct us back to the freeway. As we ignored its directions, it kept saying “recalculating” and then it would try to take us back to the main roads again…how boring.

We made our way following the map, and the navigator finally quit trying to redirect us and let us pick our way...first Hyway 5, then Hyway 6, then Hyway 3, then Route 561, then Hyway 40 to Route 1 into Banff. Six hours...and many lakes, farms, small towns, a mountain pass with snow AND big horn sheep on the side of the road...and we arrived. What a gorgeous drive. We stopped and took many pictures, but it is hard to capture the majesty of the mountains and lakes with a small camera.

When we arrived at our hotel in Banff, it was another spectacular sight. It is literally a castle built into the side of a mountain. We have a gorgeous view from our room as we look down on a raging river and up at several snow-capped mountain peaks.

After renewing several friendships with ING people during a welcoming reception we had a wonderful dinner. The before dinner activity was a chance to hold and have your picture taaken with several endangered birds. One was a blind golden eagle. Another that I held was a great horned owl. It was a fun thing to do. The birds were so beautiful. The dinner was set up with stations of different kinds of food and you could wander and have some of whatever you wanted. I had bites of lamb, salmon (which was barbecued and sweet and was called indian candy) Caribou, moose liver pate', and smoked salmon. It was delicious.

After dinner we went for a walk with some friends and hiked down to Bow Falls where we came upon two beautiful elk grazing right next to the trail. Unfortunately our camera had no battery left and we missed getting any pictures of them. We waited until lthey were done eating and moved on because they were there first and their antlers were bigger than ours. When we got back to the hotel the rest of our group went into the bar to finish celebrating the evening, and Dan and I came to our room to settle in for the night. Dan has meetings in the morning and we will have tons of story to add tomorrow night.

Well that is our story for the today, my dears.
Everyone have a good night.
From the ma and pa.

Oh, what a cute town Cardston is!

Here we are in Cardston, Alberta. The weather today was beautiful and we have had a busy day again. I will need to come home to rest, cause so far on this trip we haven't done alot of that.

Driving around Cardston reminded Dan of Preston, Idaho alot. The Stake Center, right across the street from the Temple, is almost exactly the same as the church building in Grace. And the rolling farmland and pastures are just like it was when we were driving home to Idaho for weekends from Utah State Univ.

Cardston is a little Mormon town settled in 1887 by Charles O. Card. He brought 11 mormon families with him from Logan, Utah to form a small community in the hopes that the Canadian government would allow them to continue living as poligamists. The government said no but they stayed anyway and helped develop the region. He brought only his 4th wife with him to Canada, and she was the daughter of Brigham Young. Imagine leaving as a prominent citizen with wealth and luxuries and moving into a little (very little!) cabin in the wilderness with your family of four. Not the life for the faint of heart.

They turned his original house into a museum, which we saw this morning. The whole downtown is only about 6 blocks long and we walked to the Cards home and had breakfast and walked back.

After breakfast we went to the Carriage Museum. Oh, I know what some of you are thinking! Carriages????? But it was very fun and interesting also. Just to give you a couple of highlights:

It is the largest collection of carriages in North America.
They repair or restore carriages for people from all over both countries.
They have some that have quite interesting personal histories. (like the queen rode in two different ones on a couple of occasions)
And we sat in a replica of a stage coach that was used to film Shanghai Noon. (I sat where Jackie Chan sat!)

Fun stuff huh?

After that adventure we stopped at the grocery store and came back to the hotel to get ready for a Temple Session.

The Cardston Temple was incredibly beautiful and very unique. They used wood for the interior from all over the world. And when they redid the front of it to enclose a little pond, someone had stored enough of the original granite so that the whole new edition could be built out of the same stone. The other thing I have to say about it is it has more stairs you need to climb up and down on than any where else we have been. What a workout.

When we went outside to take pictures of the outside, a gentleman in the visitors center told us about owls that have made homes high up in the window ledges of the temople and have raised two sets of babies up there. They are enormous, Horned Owls. The story went that the Temple was having a problem with pidgeons and the people were praying for a solution to the problem and the owls showed up and nested. Owls scare away any other birds and prey on local rodents and small animals in the vicinity. A win, win situation for all (except for the pidgeons and the rodents).

This evening we are organizing our clothes again. Condensing our bags (we brought so many because we were in the car and had the room). And doing laundry. OK Dan did two loads of laundry while I checked blogspots, facebook, e-mail and did this blog. Hopefully we will get to bed at a decent hour(too late...it is almost midnight) and get some good sleep cause tomorrow will be another busy day!

Love and Kisses to all, squishes to the babies, and a big good night!
Dan and Nic

The Trip to Cardston

This morning we got up and got ready to go to the Edmonton, Alberta Temple. We needed to be packed and checked out before we left the hotel so we were busy for a couple of hours.

The temple is the smallest one we have ever been in. The dressing rooms so small we had to wait in the lobby until there was room for us to change. It was very beautiful on the inside though. We really loved it.

And after getting in the stake center next door to change into driving clothes, we had a little snack of apples and cheese and off we went. We had a little rocky start because we headed off in the wrong direction. But once we got the navigator up and running we did fine.

The drive took us about 6 hours and we stopped once to eat and a couple of rest stops. The weather looked frightening for most of the afternoon. The eastern sky was so black and stormy looking. We only drove through rain a couple of short times. I was worried about driving all day long in the rain because that was the forecast, but what do they know?

When we got to Cardston about 8 p.m. it was a gorgeous evening. Sunny and beautiful. Cardston is a very small town. About the same size as Preston, Idaho. And we have tomorrow to do our sight seeing, visit a couple of historic sights, organize our clothes and do laundry, and visit the Temple here.

Going to be a busy day!

Love you all,

Dan And Nic (Mom and Dad)

Our Day at "The" Mall

I didn't think that we would spend the whole day at the mall in Edmonton. Honestly, how long do I usually hang around at the mall at home? Not much! Well today we went to the mall and walked for the first 50 minutes for exercise. What a fool I was for suggesting that dumb idea. After that I wanted to pick up a couple of things and by the time I had found a couple of stores and had done a little shopping I was about ready to drop. If you walk all the way around factoria mall, all the little hallways included, it is half a mile long. This mall has to be at least 20 times that, or more. Dan and I came back to the hotel to rest for a couple of hours before we went back for dinner.

It was pretty fun though. Today we had lunch in one of the two food courts, I had Indian food and Dan had Taco Time. And for dinner we ate at Jungle Jims. Not as good as the food we ate yesterday, but it was okay.

Here is some West Emonton Mall Trivia:

It is the world's largest shopping and amusement complex, encompassing 483,000 square meters (5.3 million square feet)--that's equivalent to 115 football fields.

West Edmonton Mall has:

Over 800 stores--including a large Lululemon store with a fantastic new manager
Over 100 resturants and places to eat
58 entrances
21 movie screens, including an imax theatre
325,000 light bulbs
Five postal codes
The world's largest parking lot (parking for 20,000 vehicles)
the world's largest indoor amusement park
the world's largest water park, covering five acres and containing 2.7 million gallons of water
The world's largest indoor lake (400 feet long)
The world's tallest indoor bungee jump

West Edmonton Mall Includes:

A 400 room hotel and conference center
A Medical Center
A Dental Center
A Post Office
An 18-hole miniture golf course
A Sealand attraction with live performing seals
Theme Streets; i.e. Bourbon Street with 12 major resturants, Chinatown including a Far East market, Europa Boulevard resembling an old European city, and two Main Streets
An NHL-sized ice rink, where the Edmonton Oilers (a professional hockey team) practice
A Casino
A bowling alley
Scooter Rentals for those who don't want to walk

West Edmonton Mall:

Cost over $1 billion to construct
Employs 23,500 people
Uses the same amont of electric power as a city of 50,000
Attracts 22 million people a year (over 60,000 per day)

All of the above is under one roof. Wow!
Now maybe the need for a nap halfway through the day makes more sense.

The weather was interesting today. In the morning it was very sunny and warm, later on in the day a storm system blew in and brought a couple of funnel clouds on the other side of Edmonton. Yikes! Tornadoes in Canada, Who Knew?

Tomorrow, after going to the Edmonton Temple, we will be driving into the south of Alberta where there has been a ton of rain and problems with flooding. I don't know how close we will be to the flooding. I think it is in the next town over, but the weather is supposed to be rain for the next few days. We will see how it goes.

Not alot of action to report for today(except for alot of walking, but we will be on the road again tomorrow and will let you all know how it goes.

Miss you all,
Dan and Nic

Sunday Flies By

We have had a very hectic Sunday. Because I wouldn't let Dan set an alarm for this morning---we overslept. Yes, for all you doubters out there, Dan slept until 8:45 this morning and woke in a panic and a rush. We had to be checked out, packed, dressed and ready for church by 9:30. Even though I said it would be a piece of cake, there was continued rushing and panicing mode. We made it in plenty of time, we were at least 9 minutes early for the meeting and beat everyone but the missionaries and the Branch Presidents family there.

The meeting was fun, there were only 36 people there in total, including 5 visitors,2 missionaries, and the babies. The branch had only one young man who was absent, 3 young women, and about 8 in the primary. In RS. there were 3 visitors and only 4 other ladies there, including the teacher and president. It was quite an experience to paarticipate in such a small group.

The missionaries were fun also, one was from Kaysville, Utah, and the other one was from Ogden. The one from Ogden is going home on Wednesday and was one of the speakers in Sacrament meeting. He did a good job. Dan said this same missionary gave both the opening and the closing prayer in priesthood meeting (because he was going home). Very funny to visit with them.

After church we changed clothes in the church bathroom and hit the road again. We headed towards Edmonton, Alberta. We thought it would take about 4 hours, but we made it in just over 2 1/2. We found our hotel and walked across the street to the big mall for dinner. All the shops were closed, (I wasn't going to go shopping on Sunday!) but we were starved so we had dinner in a place called Moxie's.

After dinner we walked the mall briskly to find lulu and check out the lay of the land for tomorrow, and after about 50 minutes we had only covered about 2/3 of it. There is alot to see. And we will have the whole day tomorrow to check it out.

After the mall we took a practice drive to the Alberta Temple. I am glad we did cause it isn't very far away, but it could be a little tricky with regular business traffic on the streets. We stopped and took pictures because the weather was beautiful and you can't take for granted that Tues. will be nice.

Since we got back we have just relaxed and watched a little TV. Dan is reading one of the several books he needs to read for business. But as a treat for Fathers Day I bought him a copy of "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest". He is very excited to start reading it when he has more business reading done. I don't know if I mentioned the fact that I downloaded the book to my I pod on Wed. evening after we got to Langley, and had finished the book Fri. morning before we left the hotel. It was very good! I loved the characters, and the suspense.

Well that is it for today.
Love you, miss you!
Nic and Dan

Saturday News

This morning we got up in our beautiful B&B at the base of Mt. Robson and bid farewell to the sight of the great mountain. The information booklet said that the mountain is clear of clouds only 11 or 12 days a year. We were fortunate enough to have two of them.

We drove through Jasper National Forest and stopped in the town of Jasper. It was so cute. All a big tourist trap, but beautiful. After Jasper we went to see Lake Maligne. It is so beautiful and a very scenic drive up the canyon. There is a spot you could stop and see where the river was on it's way to making a mini Grand Canyon. It was so deep, and narrow, and curvy. I know the pictures won't do it justice.

At the end of the road was the lake. It took about an hour to get there but it was so worth it. The mountains around the lake
were just gorgeous. And along a couple of ridges they were lined up in a row and looked almost like a serrated knife. They were so pointy and sharp. We stopped along the way and took plenty of pictures, did a little hiking, and had a little something to eat. So we managed to enjoy many different things today. Not necessarily smelling roses, but there was something in the mountains that smelled so good---we just couldn't track down what it was. Maybe next time we smell it.

We did run into a little rain today, and the mountains smelled so good! All fresh and green. The smell of the wet grass and pine and roads is so good. But as it rains and you are walking along, if it is raining hard enough for puddles to start forming and water to be dripping off the trees--that same amount of water is dropping on the top of your head. If the trees are dripping, so is the water running off eyebrows, ears and necks. It was so cold for a few minutes and we were soaked through. Walking fast doesn't help avoid any wetness. And we were having fun any way.

We are spending the night in Hinton, and it is a small little town. I will just put it like this, the travel book recomended a truck stop for dinner, or the diner in the Holiday Inn. That says it all.

The days are about 17 hours long and even though it is 10:30 here it is still light outside. It looks like a late sunset, with the clouds all pink, and light still coming around the mountains. I really like it this light. So sad that in just 2 days the days start to get shorter already.

Well that is it for today. Love you and miss you all.
ma and pa

Friday news

Today was our longest travel day so far, at 420 miles and it will be the longest drive for the trip. We had a great day for traveling. It was beautifully sunny in the morning, we had a little rain going through the mountains. But when we got down to the B&B at the base of Mt. Robsen (13000 feet tall),it was downright balmy at 72•F and we were able to sit on the balcony and on a bench by the river without freezing for quite a while. The scenry has been gorgeous. We are at the base of the highest mtn. In the Canadian Rockies.

While we were driving today I had pulled off the side of the road to let following cars pass me, and Dan said "well I almost had a chance to get out and smell the roses". What cheek he has!

We have been having a great time and will update again tomorrow.

Love you all
nic and dan

Day Two

Today we left Langley and drove into downtown Vancouver so Dan could go to a seminar given by Dan Sullivan, from the Strategic Coach. The drive took almost an hour, twice as long as we thought, because of traffic and construction. The normal things that happen when you decrease three lanes of traffic into one. And on top of that we were driving into the very downtown section of Vancouver that was nuts with traffic and one way roads. And shoppers, tourists, and pedestrians galore. ACK!

The seminar was in a nice hotel and while Dan was there I read, walked around, shopped, and stopped and had lunch at this great Thai place across the street. I had Drunken Spicy Noodles, and it was very good.

After the seminar was over we left the downtown area and drove to Fort Langley. It used to be a real fort and is now a tourist attraction. We stopped in the town area and it was a great little area for tourist walking. Alot of galleries, antique shops, places to eat, bookstores, and even a fabric shop. We did some strolling and shopping,(ok, we both strolled, Dan read a book while I shopped). I found a couple of crocheted lace tablecloths I think will look nice at home when.

We came back to the hotel and Dan watched a game on TV. and worked a little and I kept reading The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest. I am more than halfway done already, it is really good.

Than we had a late dinner next door at a little place called Tim Hortons. They are all over the place and are alot like Starbucks, with sandwiches and doughnuts and soup available also.

Dan is already asleep and snoring, so I am going to say good night for today.
Tomorow will bring another chapter.
Love you all,
Ma and Pa

Canada, oh Canada

Hello my dears and friends,
Today was the first day of our trip and so far we have had a great time. Dan and I managed to leave only an hour later than we planned to and still arrived almost two hours earlier than we needed to. We are going to have to get better at stopping to smell the roses on this trip.

We started out with a little rain, but after a couple of hours it cleared up. Not quite to sunshine, except for about ten minutes, but to decent driving weather.

It was fun watching the navigator as we got closer to the border. Once we made it through, and it only took about 15 minutes, the map simply stopped. No roads, names, or anything. Very weird.

Also we are staying in an area of Langley that is quite commercial. Like a hotel right in the middle of downtown industrial/commercial south Seattle. There are tons of shope and resteraunts to choose from.

We had a 6:30 apt. at the temple and it is only about 10 minutes away from the hotel. It is a beautiful, little Temple and we really enjoyed seeing it. It also has a beautiful font for baptisms. The Asst. Matron was on hand to show us through and was very kind and informative.

After the session was over we stopped at Red Robin to eat dinner. A little different menu than we are used to, but pretty much the same. No tortilla soup though. I had French Onion. Dan had a hamburger.

We are back in our room and planning to leave pretty early tomorrow for your dads seminar in Vancouver.

So, more news tomorrow. We love you and wish every one a Good Night!

A Little Catching Up To Do

I have heard the phrase "it's been a loooooong time since you have updated anything on your blog" so I will start catching up with the current news.
Of course starting at Christmas, where I left off.
Trying to be creative with the picture this year we decided to do an "ugly sweater" picture. The funny story about that is that Dan was so excited and said "Oh I have just the sweater for that picture", and out of his dresser came the sweater he is wearing. Not so funny when he realised I gave him that sweater just a couple of Christmas's ago. I wish I could have captured his expression at that moment.
After the picture we went for the traditional dinner to Red Robin and enjoyed the funny looks and coments we got on the outfits.
Christmas day was Amazing Fun! We had a lazy breakfast and took the morning to open presents. It was fun to have Aaron back home with us. And we are grateful for all the cheer and fun we have together. Wishing more of you were here so we could share the day with everyone.