Hello

Last week was busy (and the couple of weeks before that too come to think of it). This week will be busy. BUT  today was not busy.

I actually got a work out in. I committed to take care of that from here on in.....Self care is not selfish. I've been pushing so hard with every spare kid-free moment that I've not taken the time to work out for about 6 weeks.

Today I got to say HELLO - Holly! Holly is a new chaplain's wife. She and her daughter, Eliza, have driven all the way from NC to CA by themselves!  They're rock stars.  Tim, Mr. Chaplain, is at COT - officer's training school of some sort. This is their first assignment.  When we found out where they were staying we offered to give them a base tour and host them for dinner. The Gherkins were 100% supportive of our endeavors to pull this off. Keep in mind this is MONDAY  - they day after SUNDAY - AFTER a Fall Rally - AFTER a vacation....so um...this house needed some TLC to be company ready.  I was proud we didn't let the lack of fancy food rob us from visiting with Holly and Eliza. LOL I'm progressing in this hospitality thing. I was hardly flustered at the lack of fancy food at all. ::wink::

We had a great time figuring out which base home may be the one offered to them....we even got out and looked as closely as we could. LOL

It's been a wonderful day. The Hellos make the Goodbyes a bit easier to handle.

Choosing Joy!
©2014 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

A Weekend to Remember

Friday found me scurrying around, loading the car, decorating for Fall Rally and well - there simply isn't a reason to list all the snafus that eventually resulted in a great event. LOL  I spoke a bit on our local year's theme "Be Imitators,"  "Therefore Be Imitators of God as beloved children. Eph 5:1"  The remaining four sessions were Beth Moore via DVD. I believe we heard a sustaining word - a word that will continue to grow and bear fruit in our lives.

 

Stephanie

Saturday we were back at the chapel by 0715 to set up and be ready for the women by breakfast time. It was a great time.

I enjoyed working well with a new team. I enjoyed hearing women share how God had met them where they needed to meet him.

The chocolate fountain did not work. User Error - I didn't check the auger....BUT we handed out spoons, plates, and put a mess of chocolate on plates with the dippers. LOL Chocolate fondue - a pretty good idea Katie and I had. LOL

Katie and Rachel

 

S'more Bar worked....

At 1500 I saw the G team walking in the chapel....Michael and the Gherkins!  They loaded things into the van to take to Far West. The kids went with Stephanie to play with her kids - we had a party to attend that evening.  Michael vacuumed and we mopped... then we unloaded things at Far West and headed to Father Lowe's for dinner. It was nice to just relax after the busy weekend.

Sunday was church. Always a joy to gather with God's family. I made copies for Wednesday morning's study kick off.   I think I took a long nap Sunday afternoon.

Choosing Joy!
©2014 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

The Day After

I still have to blog Wednesday but I have too much to process to blog that tonight.

First days home are ALWAYS nutso but THIS day will go down in family history.

Arielle and I left home at 0815.  We went to the clinic and had another fun doctor appointment. This one ended in the doc agreeing with me and doing some lab work for Arielle. She is doing WELL. She is gaining weight....so since we had an appointment anyway I asked for some testing for her sleep issues. Enough said at this point.

We delivered some items to a chaplain. Headed to Foothills Chapel to check on a few supplies. Went to the commissary and ordered trays for the rally as well as finished buying food.  Took food to Katie, who is cutting up fruit for me!  Took other food to Foothills and put it in the fridges.

CAME HOME....Krista will leave early tomorrow a.m.  While they ate, I did some rally stuff. While they played a game - I did some rally stuff - and that was fine with all of us. We knew I'd have to do a bit of work today with the Rally starting the day after leave.

QUELF

 

Such an odd game....

We watched Mercy Rule together, went to Subways, walked down Plumas Street, visited a Farmer's Market, found a local business that has a fun venue for events and will do tea parties, and went to Dairy Queen.  Stacia has enjoyed calls and texts from Grandmas and older siblings all day. Oh - and sat in the hot tub....time for bed. Krista leaves in seven hours and I need to be up sprinting to the Rally.

Choosing Joy!
©2014 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

Tuesday in Carson City, NV

We had no idea we would end up so close to Reno or I would have called Tim and Diann.

We set out this a.m. to explore the Nevada side of Tahoe. We discovered we prefer South Lake Tahoe. I'm sure if we'd drive further around the lake we would have found nice areas on the Tahoe side - but mostly we saw big casinos, fancy house and pay areas. We prefer being able to park our car and hike.

We headed to Carson City to add Nevada's state capital to our list of visited capitals. We did a self-tour through both the Assembly and State Capital buildings.

We walked around the town following Kit Carson's trail. Visited a nice museum and had lunch at 3 p.m. before heading back to the campground. Stacia and I walked through every exhibit backwards - but we got the gist of mining, battles, coins and ghost towns.

The kids had been aching to launch into the swimming pool at our campground - so they spent a couple hours of swimming before dinner.

Dinner was followed by s'mores, Patrick McManus and reminiscing around the campfire. In the midst of it all a new family camping memory was made. I was stoking the fire and heard Zander yell, "Nolan your butts on fire."  Maybe you had to be there but it WAS very funny. I immediately texted the incident to the older kids and Bowers who all remember the "burning marshmallow in the eye incident." Ah - the camping memories.

As we shared camping memories we realized Stacia had never been camping until recently. Zander remembers only one or two trips. It's the way the assignments rolled. We camped when the older ones were younger, and still camped through our first two assignments. Got really busy our 3rd and 4th assignment. We bought the trailer our 4th assignment. We did a bit of camping for that year and then went to Japan - while the camping supplies went to storage in TX. We've been here a year and have been to Gma's homes or TX on every vacation or leave time.  I was surprised when we started sharing camping memories to discover the younger two don't have any.....so now we're on a mission to make camping memories. We've started, "Nolan......."

Choosing Joy!
©2014 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

Monday at Emerald Bay/Eagle Lake

Look what I found this morning.

We drove around the South Shore of Lake Tahoe today.

Emerald Bay is beautiful!

 

 There is castle built by the Knight family at Emerald Bay. We didn't make it to it as there was no parking either time we checked. If you look below....at the center...Mrs. Knight built a little tea house on the top of this island in the middle of Emerald Bay.

We couldn't find parking spots at any of the places the brochures said to visit....so we stopped in a turn around, and hiked down a bit into a pretty wooded area with a great view of the lake for lunch.

 

Reverse photo bomb - the bagel overshadows Arielle

 

After we ate we hiked around a bit.

 

I may have a couple of new pine cones for my international collection

 

On our way back down the mountain, we still could not get into the area to see the castle we wanted to see - far too many people. We did notice a public parking/hiking area across from it and stopped. Eagle Falls Picnic/Hiking area.  The parking was free. There was an outhouse. We decided to try the hike. The signs gave no idea of the distance to various parts on the map. We noted there were several lakes up the mountain and so the kids changed into suits.

We made it to Eagle Falls. It was a bit of a disappointment after Bridal Veil Falls and Multnomah Falls. 

When we found this lake I was sad thinking the kids wouldn't get to swim...but we kept hiking.....

 

We saw this sign and kept hiking.....

I learned some things on this hike.

• A 50 year old woman who hasn't worked out since VBS madness maybe shouldn't try climbing in the Sierra Nevadas as her first work out - but it worked.
• No matter how far you have come or have to go - when you ask, "How far?"  The answer is sure to be "You're about 1/2 way."
• Hiking at sea level in Misawa, Japan is much different than hiking up a mountain in the Sierra Nevadas
• The person bringing up the rear NEVER gets to rest. All rest until you catch up and then take off again....the thinking being your pace is the same as a rest????

Shortly after the above revelation, I told them all to hike ahead. I'd get there when I was ready, but I was dizzy and planned to take it slow and rest when I wanted.  The kids went ahead. Michael, seemed concerned about altitude and by dizziness so he stayed with me. SCORE....a walk with the boy friend without KIDS, in a beautiful spot with TWO cameras!

Meanwhile the kids were swimming. They began to get worried when we weren't right on their trail. They asked an older couple who was between us if they'd seen their parents on the train.  Oh  - the shock.

Their response, "We saw a tall man, with a short woman and some serious cameras." ::snort:: Guess that's us.

Eagle Lake is beautiful! Well worth the hike. Michael and I  didn't swim but I did cool off my feet. It was much quicker on the way home.

Krista handled meal planning for this trip, so I could get Rally stuff done before taking off. She remembers a favorite camping a meal. I'd totally forgotten about this meal and the youngers had never had it. As we talked we realized it became a traditional, favorite camping meal back in our camping days with the Bowers. LOL  So tonight, we had fritos covered in chili and cheese....though several of us had vegetarian chili, olives, avocados on ours without the cheese.  It's still a good camping meal.

We followed dinner with s'mores and Patick McManus by  the camp fire.

 

 

 

We really  must make time to do this more often.


Choosing Joy!
©2014 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...