Saturday, January 30, 2016

Morning

This morning we rode our bikes by the beach.  They were setting up what looked to be a structure for the judges to watch the surfing.  

We park our car at the end of this street where there is a park, ride along the beach and then turn around.  This picture is on our way back to the car.  It was before 8:00 a.m. and I think the temperature was in the high 50s.
Last week I headed out walk/running going west.  When I turned and saw the sunrise I decided to head east.  The sunrises here are so beautiful!

Friday, January 29, 2016

The Clarks

Sister and Elder Clark started their CES mission by arriving at the mission home last night.  We had an enjoyable evening having dinner and getting to know them.
They have been living in Price for the past 16 years.   
The Floyds and Stewarts came for breakfast so that they could meet the Clarks.
Elder Floyd and President Felix are pushing up on the garage door because last night when Elder Clark pulled into the garage the traveling case on top of the car hit the frame and the garage door.  They had to get on the car to push down on the case.  We had a good laugh.
The Clarks will be helping with the Institute at UCSB, working with the YSAs in the Santa Barbara Stake and also the Spanish Branch.  We are so happy to have them here.

Sunday, January 24, 2016

Up North

Two weeks in a row we drove up north to San Luis Obispo.  Since the rain, the country side is no longer golden but green.  Dell took a bunch of pictures while I was driving.






The first week we drove up on Wednesday to do interviews in Santa Maria and then Thursday the interviews were in SLO.
We met the Astons for dinner in Morro Bay.  That is Morrow Bay Rock out in the ocean.
Friday was zone meeting and in the afternoon I went out with Sister Scoresby and Sister Israelsen.
President went out with the zone leaders and found a less active who was working at CalPoly.  Logan was working with pigs.  It was great that Logan accepted the invitation to go to church that Sunday after hearing a short lesson on the Restoration.  We attended all three wards in SLO so we saw him there.
Ryan Reynolds (one of our RMs) married Bailey Mason from Atascadero.  They were sealed in the Logan temple and had one of their receptions in Atascadero.  We were so excited to be able to attend.
The second week we drove back to SLO for Stake Conference.  Bishop Waddell of the Presiding Bishopric presided.  President spoke in the Saturday afternoon leadership meeting, we both gave talks in the evening session and we were scheduled to each take 7 minutes on Sunday.  On Sunday as the meeting was going on we could tell our talks were getting shorter and shorter to where we realized we wouldn't be giving them.  Prior to me getting up it was announced that Sister Felix and then President Felix would share a short testimony.  Yup, it was short.
We loved being around Bishop Waddell.  Saturday afternoon, President found a connection to him.  He asked Bishop Waddell if he had an older brother who served in Argentina.  Yes, that was his brother.  Glenn Waddell opened up a new area with President (each had different companions) the last four months of Dell's mission.  That area now has a stake.
Driving down the grade from SLO.

This area in Santa Barbara is my favorite!  It is glorious!  Palm trees boarder on the sides and the hillside is filled with homes and behind them are mountains .

Last week I went out with Sisters Coulon, Lambert and Barnum.  The lesson was planned to be The Gospel but he didn't fulfill his commitment to read from the Book of Mormon.  We took turns reading 1 Nephi 1.  Steve asked each of us who was our favorite prophet in the Book of Mormon.  I told him that is hard to say because of so many.  I did talk about Nephi though as he's pretty special.

Friday, January 15, 2016

MLC 1/12/16

We did breakfast for the MLC. I wanted to do pull a parts but had only one bundt pan so hoped it would work in a 9x13. 

 It took full body movement to turn the pan over. 
It worked!  The missionaries loved them. 

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

El Niño

The local people have been talking that El Nino would be coming this year.  Well I think it has hit.  We had rain yesterday and a lot today.  I was very grateful that we were not out in it.  Dell went out on the deck to check it out.  Water was gushing over Foothill and down the hill in the back.  It was a little river running through the property. Both of our phones received a flood alert which startled me.  The rain caused damaged as we saw tree branches that had fallen to the ground and a lot of debris in the streets.  



This is the roof of the mission home.  Those are rocks.  
I looked out on the deck off of the living room and wondered what the little things were on it.  They were rocks from the roof.
We drove to Goleta after the rain had stopped but we were concerned that with the fire that had been off of 101 that there would be mud slides.  There was some but crews were cleaning it up.  
We've talked with the missionaries about safety issues and being wise ("O be wise!")
We are looking forward to driving up north next week because it will be so green.
January 11th - The results of the rain from last week.

Monday, January 4, 2016

2015 - 2016

The Cullimores flew into LAX, rented a cute mustang and drove to Ventura.  We were so excited when they arrived.  We have had a tradition for many years to go to dinner on New Years Eve.  The tradition continued.

Before dinner we took them to the cross and then we ate at the Lure on California Street.  We had a 45 minute wait but it was OK since we had a lot to talk about.  Fortunately we were seated in a corner where it was not so noisy.  Dinner was great.
We enjoyed playing Mexican Train (dominos) and greeted the new year with Martinelli's Sparkling
 Apple-Pomegranate
We left for the beach at 7:00 a.m. to get a good walk in.
We took them to Elder Yager's district meeting in Westlake.  We wanted them to see some of our missionaries.  After going to lunch at the Island Grill we drove back to Ventura.  Friday evening we watched McFarland USA.  The Cullimores put up with our interruptions in doing our "duties."  We don't have a nurse in the mission right now so I have been taking the calls.
Yes, we're taking a P-day.  Saturday morning we drove to Simi Valley to the Ronald Regan Library.


We planned to go to the library ever since we got to the mission but wanted to wait until either the Cullimores or Stewarts came as we knew they would love it.


Air Force One
We're in line to go through it.






This mosaic picture is made with jelly beans.




Heisman!
There was an exhibit of football -- mainly jerseys of NFL players long ago and recent. Many  autographed footballs were in glass cases.

We are outside in the back.


This is overlooking out the back.
We had a wonderful weekend with the Cullimores.  It was just too short!