A DREAM COME TRUE

We have talked about going to the Rose Parade for many, many years. It finally has happened. We flew to Los Angeles on Sunday, December 28 and stayed at a hotel in Van Nuys, California which is about 30 minutes from Pasadena. We went with the Elderhostel Program and are extremely glad we did. It was a most awesome and enjoyable experience. We had speakers and learning opportunities along with seeing the parade. This is such a popular Elderhostel program that it often is filled more than six months in advance. There were more than 200 at our hotel and about 50 more at another hotel. We were divided into groups. We had 45 in our “green” group. Most of our meals were at the hotel.

We listened to the 1988 Rose Queen on the first night. She explained the process of becoming the queen and what the responsibilities were after that. The first day we had a get acquainted session with our group and a video on band selection for the parade. Then in the afternoon we went to Bandfest and saw 8 bands perform their field shows.

There are three sections of Bandfest as there are 18 bands and two that perform at every show. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed watching the bands. It was too bad that our schedule was such that we could only attend one of the sessions. That evening though we were listened to three band members from the Alhambra Unified School District Band. They were excited and talked about the work they did to practice and be in the parade.

On Tuesday we went to help decorate a float. This was a truly unusual and utterly astounding experience. There are only 6 floats that are “self-built” and we worked on one of them. All of the other floats are made by professional float building companies. We worked on the La Canada Flintridge float. Our group glued flowers and cut roses. Bob & I glued the blue delphiniums onto the name “La Canada Flintridge” that was put along the bottom of each side of the float.

There were so many flowers and seeds.

We felt very possessive as “our” float came down the street and we found that it had won the animation award. What a memorable experience.

Tuesday evening we listened to one of the Rose Parade personnel tell about their responsibilities. It was amazing to find out that there is no monetary remuneration at the Parade. The awards are given but they are just an award, no money involved. That includes the bands, floats and horse units. It is just a high honor to be there.

Wednesday we listed to Dr. Tommy Cairns tell us how the floats are judged. It is his responsibility to teach the three judges what and how to do the judging. In the afternoon we had a bus tour of Los Angeles which was our least favorite activity. We ate lunch at the farmer’s market and even toured through the oldest house in LA. We had a very nice sit down dinner for New Year’s Eve and celebrated with the east coast. Then we retired early to bed as we had to leave the next morning for the parade at 6:15.

Thursday was parade day and it was awesome. We had great seats in the bleachers. We were about and hour from the parade start which is about half way of the entire route. What was the best was there were no commercials and we could hear all of the bands.

Friday was another early morning as we went to the Post-Parade Float Viewing. This was the time to take the close-up pictures and take pictures we did. Between the two of us we have over 1,000 photos of this trip. We were able to walk up next to each of the floats. It was quite foggy so the distance photos were not a much fun as the close-up. How interesting to see each of the tiny seeds and blossoms that cover the floats.

We also were allowed inside the barricades of the float that we worked on.

The program was then over and we returned to the hotel and then flew back to Texas the next day (January 3).

December - In Short

Well, December has been quite a month and I didn’t post anything at all. We have been from Kentucky and Tennessee to Texas, Virginia, Texas, California and then back to Texas. We spent one quick night at Deb’s after leaving Kentucky and had our teeth cleaned the next morning before we left for Texas. We drove from Nashville to Arkadelphia, Arkansas and took a freshman student at Ouachita University out for dinner. It was good to see her again. Her folks were with us when we went through our overseas training in 2005 and they serve in our region. She stayed in the dorm in Chiang Mai for part of the school year.

We drove on Saturday, December 6 to Grand Prairie and spent some time with our special friends, Jo and David. We also were able to attend our “home” church and see so many of our friends. On Tuesday we flew to Richmond, Virginia to go to our debriefing at the International Learning Center. The time was very well spent. It was helpful not only to reconnect but to process the “coming home” and put it into perspective. We flew back to Grand Prairie on Saturday, getting back right on schedule and were pleased to then attend the choir Christmas Program at our church. Sunday was spent visiting. We continually thank the Lord for our church and pastor. They have been such great support while we were in Thailand.

Monday we left the Dallas area and headed south. We stopped for lunch at Phil & Susan’s. It was the first time we had seen their house in Waco. We continued on to Montgomery, Texas which is about an hour north of Houston. We spent four days just recouping, resting and repacking. Then our schedule went sort of haywire. We had planned to spend Christmas week at South Padre but because of a hurricane in July the resort that we were to stay in was still closed. So, Bob, Deb and I stayed with Phil, Susan and James for Christmas week and had a great time. We visited, played games and just hung out. The change in schedule played havoc with our already purchased flights but we managed. Deb was originally flying into Houston so we waited there for her. Her flight was cancelled so instead of flying to Houston she flew early December 20 into Dallas. Jo & David picked her up. Bob & I drove from Houston area to Phil’s and then Bob & Phil drove to Grand Prairie to pick up Deb. What fun but we did get to spend our holiday together.

On Sunday, December 28, Bob & I flew out of Austin, TX to California for an Elderhostel at the Rose Parade. Phil drove Deb to San Antonio for her flight back to Nashville. We are thankful for flexibility. We praise God for 2008 and the time we have had to spend with family and friends.

Indiana - November 17-29

We have had a very busy two weeks. We spent 12 days at Coleen’s dad’s townhouse in Warren, Indiana and he kept us busy. Monday nights are game nights and we played euchre at the main house. Tuesday morning is choir for all 3 of us. Then Bob & Dad play pool while Coleen does chimes before she plays pool until time for lunch in the employees’ cafeteria. Tuesday afternoon can be ice cream anytime from 1-3. Tuesday night we went to the first Huntington North girl’s basketball home game of the year.

Wednesday afternoon we spent about 2 hours examining and measuring a house like what ours will be. We took notes and made quite a few decisions. Bob is going to draw each room so that we can continue to make more notes. We will meet with the builder in March. On Friday we did some repacking in the van, drove to our storage unit and exchanged some of our items for others. We drove on to Fishers and stopped at Coleen’s brother’s house before going to see Once Upon A Mattress at Hamilton SE. Coleen’s niece was in the musical. Saturday night we saw Annie Jr. at the Pulse Opera House in Warren. Sunday was chapel service and in the afternoon we went to the swing choir performance at Huntington North.

It was cold all two weeks and there was some snow but not very much. I did do some walking in the mornings. We even found time to play some card games. I did some sewing to finish some Christmas presents and also altered a foam mattress for Dad. I had the urge to do some baking and made three kinds of cookies that my mother used to make. Wednesday before Thanksgiving I cooked all day. I cooked the turkey, dressing, gravy, butternut squash and creamed onions. Thanksgiving Day we did the mashed potatoes and then just warmed the rest. It worked great.

We had a great Thanksgiving Day. Family came from Ohio and Fishers. There were 15 of us and we were in a room with a kitchen in the main house. Once everyone arrived we also had ham, green beans, eggplant casserole, deviled eggs, appetizers, homemade rolls, pies and cranberry sauce to go with what I had fixed. Needless to say we did not go hungry. We divided up the leftovers afterwards to take home. It was a day to be thankful, to reminisce and to visit. God has given us so much and just to have time to spend with family is a blessing.

We left Indiana on Saturday and went to a timeshare in Cadiz, Kentucky. We have spent our time relaxing, catching up on email and organizing our scrapbooking items. We left the sewing in storage and this time will work on our scrapbooks. We stayed up late and slept in late. I haven’t set an alarm all week. We have a couple of busy weeks ahead so we wanted a time to just do some vegging-out. Thursday we will head to Debby’s for one night and then head to Texas.

Iowa, Illinois to Indiana - 3 I's

It was still cold when we arrived in Panora, Iowa. The timeshare was located at Lake Panorama and is about an hour or so west of Des Moines. We got there on Sunday afternoon, checked in and unloaded (Bob). I arranged and unpacked. The condo was two bedrooms and there was plenty of floor space and a washer and dryer which I made use of right away. We enjoyed a delicious breaded tenderloin sandwich at their restaurant for dinner. We only spent four full days here as we needed to get to the Chicago area on Friday.

Three days were spent in the condo completing Christmas presents which of course I can’t put the picture up until after Christmas. I also sewed a couple more patches on Bob’s vest for him and made us a quilted cover for our spa pan and supplies.

We spent one day sightseeing in the area. There are five small towns that have put together a drive of about 25 miles with 20 items to see along the way. It is called the White Pole Road
and the telephone poles are painted white for about 6 feet up from the bottom. We saw some buildings that are on the National Historic Register, one of which was a beautiful Catholic Church that is under repair because of the damage caused by arson in 1995. We saw an interesting oval brick community building and a train depot.

We saw a bank that was robbed by Bonnie and Clyde (it is now a police station), the place where the Barrow gang was arrested (except for Bonnie & Clyde) and also the site of the first moving train robbery by Jesse James. We decided that this area was quite infamous.
There was a chocolate factory in the basement of a house. The highlight was the Freedom Rock which was first painted in 1999 by a 19 year old artist. He continues to paint it each year before Memorial Day and it takes from 3-4 weeks to do the painting.
We left Iowa for suburban Chicago on Friday stopping at the Herbert Hoover National Historice Site in West Branch, Iowa. We spent the weekend with Coleen’s college friend Cindy and her family. It was a great weekend, busy but with time to catch up. We even went to an indoor soccer game (Amber was playing). We watched the snow fall on Sunday evening (after Holly did some practice pitching) and the girls were hoping for a day off school but that didn’t happen. We drove to Warren, Indiana on Monday to spend the holiday with Coleen’s dad. It of course is still cold and there were spots of snow to see as we traveled.
Dad is keeping us busy. We went to game night on Monday night, to choir and chimes on Tuesday, played pool and had lunch. Tuesday night we went to Huntington North’s first home girl’s basketball game. Yesterday we did some computer work, oiled the bikes and then spent 2 hours at the model home taking some measurements and notes so that we can begin to plan for our house. Many of you know that we are planning to move into a house at Heritage Pointe in Warren in the spring of 2010. We will meet with the builders this coming March so we wanted to start getting our thoughts, ideas, desires, needs and some wants down on paper. We will be here in Indiana until after Thanksgiving. I probably will not post again until then but as I post this the snow has been flying and the ground is beginning to turn white.
We want to wish our friends all over the world a Happy Thanksgiving. It is a special time to give thanks for all God has provided.

Lots of Miles and States

Well, I am of course running behind but will post a short bit from two weeks ago. I am feeling much better now. We left San Francisco and crossed California on Saturday, November 1. We crossed Nevada on Sunday, November 2. We crossed Utah on Monday, November 3 and drove 100 miles into Wyoming. Then we drove to Cheyenne, Wyoming on Tuesday, November 4. It was a lot of riding and driving but as we traveled we found that we were one day ahead of the storm. The day after we came into Nevada it snowed over Donner Pass. The day after we went through Salt Lake City they had snow. We were so thankful that we didn’t drive in much rain or snow or sleet. It was cold though. We were amazed at the number of places that could be closed on Interstate 80 for bad weather.

We stayed three nights in Cheyenne and would like to go back there again. It was cold and the wind was blowing 40-50 mph which was too cold and difficult to walk. We did walk a couple of blocks in the downtown area, checked out the train depot, and then visited the capital building and the state museum. We also saw some of the boots. We stopped to see the LARGE steam locomotive, called a Big Boy because it was one of the largest ever built. We even found a resident on board.
Friday, November 7 we left Cheyenne and drove to Lincoln, Nebraska where we spent 2 nights. We shopped a little in the mall and rested. It was too cold to be out much. As you can tell we are not really enjoying the cold. Sunday, November 9 we checked into a timeshare in Panora, Iowa.

San Francisco

Saturday we did some exploring before we crossed the bridge into San Francisco. We went to Muir Woods National Park. It was packed with people because it is the 100 year anniversary for the park and it was a weekend. We didn’t spend too much time in the woods as we had been there before. Bob dropped me off and had to park about a mile away. The trees were beautiful and it is still awesome to see the mammoth trees. We came back down found a tiny lunch place and drove into Sausalito. I would love to spend some time exploring the town. However we actually were on a lighthouse and national park mission. We went into Ft. Baker where we took pictures of San Francisco across the bay. There were sailboats all over the bay. We could see the lighthouse on Alcatraz Island. We looked for a lighthouse on Angel Island but couldn’t see one from our vantage point. We were able to see the Lime Point Lighthouse and get a picture of it. We then drove west and up a mountain. We could see the Point Bonita Lighthouse from there. We also had some additional awesome views of the coastline and the bunkers in the hillside.

We did not hike down the trail to the lighthouse.

We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco and checked into our timeshare. We stayed in the Fisherman Wharf area. The below is a scene from our building.Sunday was a relax day. Monday we walked to Pier 39 so that we could see the sea lions.

We were here in 2001 and watched them. We understand that they began to take over the pier after the earthquake in 1989. They are noisy and loud, funny and smelly. They sleep during the day and in the evening they leave the pier and go out (we assume to eat). We took the bus up to Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill. Below is a picture of Lombard Street taken from Coit Tower. It is the street with the most curves in the world - 8 in one block.Tuesday we drove south to see two lighthouses – Pigeon Point and Pt. Montara. We drove through some farmland and saw all of the preparations for Halloween. There were fields and fields of pumpkins, corn mazes, straw mazes and much more. We took our salads for lunch and had a great day. As we were driving south Bob decided to pull off to the side so he could get a good look at the coastline. It is not quite a rocky as it was further north. Then he said “Look at the seals”. Out in the water we could see the seals swimming north and arching up and out of the water, one after another. There were probably over 100 that we saw. I was able to get some on the movie of my camera and managed just a quick still shot. It was too hard to time when then would be coming out of the water. We were really excited about seeing them. In the second picture you can hopefully see two seals on the rocks. We stopped at the Land’s End area of the Golden Gate National Park and were able to see the Mile Rocks Lighthouse on a tiny island. We spent some time driving through and around the Presidio. We watched the fog come in and marveled at the cloud that covered just the middle section of the Golden Gate Bridge. Then after dinner we walked around the area we are staying and went to Ghirardelli Square for ice cream. Wednesday we drove across the San Francisco/Oakland Bay Bridge and made a circular route checking out 3 lighthouses and 2 national parks. We found Rosie the Riveter and learned that the name came from a song during WWII. Then we drove north and found the East Brother Island Lighthouse on an island in the San Francisco Bay. It looks like a very beautiful spot on the island from where we could see it. We found the keeper house from the Carquinez Strait Lighthouse in Vallejo. The lighthouse no longer exists and the house was moved to the current spot. Then we went to the John Muir National Historic Site and spent a couple of hours learning about Mr. Muir. He really is the father of the National Park System. The site is located on a farm in Martinez where he raised his family. He truly was quite an author and lover of God’s beautiful world. Then we drove back into Oakland to find another lighthouse. This one was the Oakland Harbor lighthouse and it was moved 6 miles south in 1966 to Embarcadero Cove and is now a restaurant called Quinn’s Lighthouse Restaurant and Pub. We ate there and it was excellent. It was the most awesome Seafood Newburg Au Gratin I have ever had. It was full of shrimp, crab and scallops. Thursday and Friday were more typical San Francisco days as it turned rainy and foggy. We did walk most mornings down close to the harbor and usually about 1 ½ miles. Saturday was a travel day and for me a horrible one. I got the flu and was miserable. We ended up driving as far as Sparks, Nevada and from Sacramento on it was raining. We checked in about 3pm and I slept for almost 17 hours. Sunday was better as the really bad ache was gone. We drove all the way across Nevada and stayed 2 miles into Utah for the night. God is good. The weather is cooperating and we haven’t had to drive in the snow and the passes were open. We could see the snow on the tops of the ridges but it wasn’t down quite to the road yet. We enjoyed some CD’s and watched the scenery.