The Ice Chain and this and that

In case you are missing it (because you live in sunny AZ or parts of Texas), here is winter!

Our rain chain has been frozen for most of the month!
Some drips from it today, however.

Fresh snow during the night

Blue skies peeking out
Finally a relief from some of the haze of the inversion.....

Scott and Chantel have (or did have) even more amazing sight at the townhouse.

Major icicles!! There was even ice
along their brick.  They have their
guests go through the garage.

solid ice patch on their walkway

It appears to be caused by the angle of their rook and the direction their house faces.  They get snow melt on top but the bottom remains in  the shadows except for the early morning times.

One more outside shot:

 

This owl was on a tree outside of the bowling alley on Saturday.

I have heard people talk about seeing owls in Syracuse, but this is the first time

I have seen one.  He was very content for me to take several pictures of him so

he must be used to people somewhat.  I believe that this is the

first time I have seen an owl in the wild (unless any of my siblings recall a time from our childhood.)

Family up-date for the end of the month:

Jessica still working and helping raise their new beagle pup, Zeva.  There are good times and annoying times "She's a puppy".  No fun to take her out during our recent snow and ice storms.

Scott and Chantel are hanging in there.  Scott started his 300 hour internship at a fairly new assisted living center in Layton.  He started in the janitor department and has "moved up" to the kitchen.  He will spend 40-80 hours in every department they have.  I think it is a good idea but Scott didn't find 16 hours of detailing chairs to be very useful or educational.  He is a very busy guy with 30 hours there and about 25 hours at Red Lobster.  Chantel is studying to take a state licensing test which she hopes to take next month.  She celebrated her birthday a week or so ago and we had breakfast at Cracker Barrel where Tosha served us.

Ben still remains at the CRU in Layton.  Still trying to find some thing to relieve all of his symptoms.  It is very hard.

Tosha is busy working and not loving the snow.  She is loving her keyboard and plays it often at her apartment.

Jena is a busy girl with play practices, ski lessons, work, school and bowling with Special Olympics.  They had their tournament on Saturday.

Jena receiving her towel with some of her team mates.
This wasn't an official tournament so no metals.
Everyone was very happy with the towels.

Jena and Kaitlyn at the Area Special Olympic Dance in Ogden

Jena had a busy weekend with a party on Friday night at her good friend, Meggan and then a tournament in the morning, then she worked at the bowling alley for the afternoon part of the tournament and then she had a dance that night.  She is really a high school kid now.  She is going to her first Clearfield High Basketball game with the Laurels on Friday night so she is excited about that as well.

Unfortunately today both she and Gary are sick with bad colds.  It has been a long time since anyone has had colds around here so I guess we were due.  Still no fun for them.  Gary got sick on Saturday but still went and spoke in another ward in our Stake on Sunday morning before heading for the bed.  He also continues to snow plow out in this cold.  Jena hates to miss school but you can't send someone to school with cough, runny nose and yucky eyes.  Besides I don't want her to catch something else while she is sick.  I am heading off to her play practice to get the music and things for her.  I may take her as she is doing better this afternoon.  We will just keep away from everyone.  She can't sing much I would guess, but at least she could hear the music.

I did get to spend the day with my dad working on more of our family history things.  My sister Valerie called while I was there so we put her on speakers and all talked together about things.  Todd responded to questions by email.  It would be so awesome to be together and talk and share about these things.  I am learning more about my dad and his growing up years.  It is so awesome.

The Scout Room

What are basement looks like after 12 Webelos learn about drama and do skits?  Much cleaner than the art activity badge.....I love it (having the scouts here, not mess or lack of it  :)  ).

End of the semester

We got back for the second to last week of the term which meant Jena had some semester projects to complete.  For choir she was doing a poster on Julie Andrews.  We had done the research and printed off lots of things to sort through to figure out for the poster.  I came home from a meeting and Jena had put together the poster herself so all we needed to do was add the facts on it.  Here is the completed project.  She was very proud of it.

And then big smiles a couple of days later as we were picking out her new cell phone.  Now that she is working and starting play practice and the new YW lesson program, we decided a phone would be useful.  She loves getting texts and making phone calls to her borthers and sisters.  Even Gary and I have gotten texts, sometimes when we are sitting in the same room with her.  That makes her laugh!

San Fransisco--Last day

We found a nearby ward (which spoke English) which turned out to be a bit further away.  We attended the Willow Glen ward.  The Bishop said if we ever moved to the area, they had first claim on us. 

A vegetable garden in the yard of our hotel
Did I mention the single digit weather in Utah?

After Church and packing up at the hotel, we headed northeast on the Oakland side of the bay.  We were able to spend some time at the Oakland temple and go through the visitor's center.  There was a missionary couple there from Provo serving their fourth mission.  They both have turned 80 years old since arriving in Oakland.  Their kids have told them no more missions, but they are loving it.

 

 

It was a nice end to a great trip!!

 

Back to the cold weather.............

San Fransisco--actually Monterey and San Jose

Saturday we headed south and west to the Pacific coast.  Monterey Bay has a great aquarium that both Gary and I liked and wanted to share with Jena and his mom.

The drive is beautiful up and down the hills
which were covered with early morning fog.



Our first view when we walked in--
a scuba diver cleaning the window of a big aquarium

Face to face with a penguin

Coral

They had tanks and tanks of jelly fish of all types

Leaf seahorse

Jena and I

Jena watching the waves

Did I mention I am a "geek" in relationship to the ocean?  Gary knows how much I love to be at the beach so he dropped off Jena and I at a beach to enjoy it for a few minutes before we headed back to San Jose.  There was no place to park for free so it was just the two of us.  Too cold for swimming anyway but it was nice to touch the water and listen and watch the waves on the beach.  I couldn't convince Jena to take off her shoes so I restrained myself as well, but it was good to be on a beach, anyway.

We headed back to San Jose in the late afternoon as we had one more surprise for the day.  We got tickets for the evening performance of "Shen Yun", a classical and modern Chinese dance company.  The dancing and costumes were great and we all enjoyed it.  Very different from musicals which we usually attend but very spectaculor.  They had dances from different time periods and ethnic groups of China.  I wasn't sure how Jena would like just dancing but she loved it too.

(Weather still in the single digits in Utah!)

San Fransisco--Friday

The whole reason for the trip  was to go see the Broadway musical "The Lion King".  Our tickets were for Friday afternoon.  We had a slow morning and then headed back to San Fransisco.  The theater is right in the downtown area so we were able to walk around a bit, have lunch and then go to the play.

The Streets of San Fransisco



A door on a courthouse we walked by

The theater--built in the early 1900s--redone, reused, and then restored in 1980s
My dad remembers going here when it was a movie theater with his mom.

Door of the theatre

After the performance pose--this is painted on the
outside wall of the theatre

There is no way to describe the production.  It was amazing.  And afterwards, we paid $20 for a program (which seemed ridiculous on the way in) because it was so awesome.  The music, the actors, scenery and the costumes----the costumes were indescribable.  If you have a chance and you like theatre, go to see it.

The performance ended around 5 and Gary headed west.

We got to the coast in time to watch the last of the sunset as it disappeared into the western ocean.  I am a bit of a geek about the ocean so it was a fun thing for Gary to add to the day.

Panda Express for dinner and then we headed home and to bed.  It was a great day and we had another great day planned for the morning.

San Fransisco--Thursday

Still no fix for the picture problem on blogger.  It is a "known issue" and they are trying to fix it.  Why would it work for years and then stop working?  It is not as fun to write a blog without the pictures to show.  Afterall, a picture is worth a thousand words.... I guess I will add pictures later.  I don't want to get too far behind.

Thursday, Jan. 3rd, Gary, his mom, Jena and I headed off to San Fransisco leaving 9 degree weather behind and landing in 59 degree weather and blue skies.  This was a trip that Jena had started by finding out that "The Lion King" was playing "near us" according to the web site she had found.  She does searches from time to time for her favorite musicals to watch youtube and other sites.  In one of those searches, she found "Lion King".  When she told me about it she said that we needed to go and take Grandma. I pointed out that San Fransisco isn't really near us but it sounded fun so we decided to go.

The picture I texted our kids to let
them know we had arrived safely.

If you look carefully you can see our first view of the bridge.

We landed in San Jose and headed right up into San Fransisco.  This was Jena's first trip to here so we went to the the Golden Gate Bridge first---where all good trip to San Fransisco start.  We went to the north side visitor's center.   After taking pictures, Gary suggested that Jena and I walk across the bridge and they would pick us up.  I had never thought about doing it but it sounded awesome so off we went.  Jena doesn't like heights much but I was so proud of her.  She walked the whole way and even paused for lots of pictures along the way...even along the railing. 

north visitors center--San Fransisco in the background

Starting off

Jena taking a picture of me taking a picture of her
taking a picture of me...you get the idea

In case you wondered what it looked like
close up

The Pacific Ocean side

Looking back the way we came--
it was beautiful.

The city and the bay
We saw all sizes of boats and even a helicopter
flying under the bridge while we crossed.

Jena's "we made it" pose

I am so glad that we did it.  Gary and his mom had a bit of an adventure themselves trying to drive to the south visitor's center.  There was some road construction so it took them a bit of time to circle back around...and around...to find us.  After we connected we drove through town and up and down the famous Lombard Street.  We visited Coit Tower just as the sun was setting so got to see the lights of the city and the bridges turn on.  It was beautiful.

We got to "enjoy" rush hour traffic which reminded us one of the reasons we like living in our "neck of the woods". 

That was a lot for our first day..............

Let the New Year Begin.....

I texted that to Scott as we arrived home from our trip last Sunday night. He texted back that the new year had started for us with a great trip. It was a great trip...but the "real" New Year of 2013 starts now as we get back to "real" life. I haven't even made goals or set plans for much yet. And that turned out to be a good thing since some of "real" life has been a challenge.

Good thing that we had a Early New Years Eve Party as New Year Eve turned into a complicated day for us but even more for Ben. He had been working on making a change in medication due to some side effects which were bad for his health. Often when he switches medication there is a space for a few or more days when he feels better less sedated and more feelings. We have guessed that this is due to not quite having enough medication on board. However this time despite going slower down and up with the new medication quicker, he has gone "down hill" for the past 4 weeks. It has been very sad. There were some unfortunately events which also played into the whole thing as well. It came to a head on Dec. 31. Gary and I had wondered about possibly that he might need to be in the hospital even though in the past we had not done that for a variety of reasons. This time, Ben made the decision himself that he needed to go to UNI (University Neuropsychiatric Institute in Salt Lake) help with medication adjustments. And so he was there for 10 days until last Thursday. We are very proud of him and for his willingness to seek help when it was needed. He actually had a good experience there, but has struggled as he came home so has stayed with us since then.

Of course these things are never at a great time for the rest of your life (there is probably never a good time to have a child in the hospital). Gary, his mom, Jena and I had a trip plan to San Fransisco from Jan. 3rd through Jan. 6th. However, with Ben's support and his doctor's okay as well, we headed off for our trip on Thursday. Scott and Chantel stepped in and took care of our dogs for us while we were gone since Ben had been planning to do it for us.

It was hard to leave him even though we talked often on the phone.  In addition it was hard to manage conversations with medical personnel from long distance.  One call I had to take by leaving the small diner we were eating lunch and go to the street to hear her......then a fire truck and some police cars went blaring down the street.  Ben handled it very "matter of fact" and even said that he didn't know why we needed to call him everyday.  Well, I needed to talk to him so I guess that was for me instead of for him.

I will post each day by itself.  However if you don't want to have a picture tour of the area you can skip those posts.  Just know despite everything we had a great time.