V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N!

Summer vacation started on July 8th with Janelle and I trying to get an early morning stand-by flight to LA. This way we would have 24 hours in Brea instead of 16 as scheduled. That's the problem when we had to make our flight 4 months earlier with Mars. We were successful and landed in LA at 11am. Jamie picked us up at the airport in her BMW convertible. Thanks goodness we didn't check bags because she hardly had room for our two small overhead bags in her little rag top car. From the airport we headed straight to Aarons home, so Janelle could spend the day with her best friend. Jamie and I then visited those we could, stopped at Cranberry Quiltworks to visit with friends at work, and dropped off three quilts to be sewn. We had dinner with the Guziks and Peters that evening and then spent the rest of the evening in our home in Brea. WOW, it looked great! The Rosells are doing an awesome job keeping it up for us. Janelle loved sleeping in her old room, Jamie had been staying in hers for 3 weeks while she worked at Cranberry. I slept in the guest room. Wednesday morning I was up early due to being on east coast time and called our BMW mechanic to see if he could find out what was making all the noise in Jamie's car when we ran the AC. I took it in and he was able to install a new alternator belt while I went to bookclub. It was so good to visit and see everyone there. The car was done by 11:30am and we were on the road by noon, headed for Provo, Utah. Jamie drove the whole way stopping only in Las Vegas for In-N-Out Burger and in Cedar City for fuel and ice cream. We arrived in Provo around 10 pm and all slept at our condo there. Thursday morning it was up and out to Lava Hot Springs for a Thalman Family reunion. What fun that was. The William Harmer family was in charge this year, with Eleanor and Janet (Joni's mom) doing the organizing. There was lots to do, including running the river. My first time down I crashed over a rapid, scraped my knee on the lava rocks, lost my Rx glasses and felt really stupid. I did it again, with contacts on this time, and a bigger tube and successfully ran it unharmed. The Harmer family had all of Albert's family, most of Bob's, all of Eleanor's, and our group only had my mom and dad, myself, Janelle, Graig, and Jamie. Graig came down on Saturday from Rexburg, ID only for the day because he was in finals at BYU-Idaho. Jamie, my Dad and Andrew drove Graig back to Rexburg so we could borrow his car for the week until he finished summer semester at school. Sunday we drove back to utah and spent the week visiting relatives. Be sure to check out my cousin Anna's blog to see some fun underwater pics at cousin Merrilee's pool, doing some minor repairs at the condo, and working on what to do with the bathroom there. We stayed with cousin Leslie Ewell out in Payson, UT and loved being with their family. Thursday we drove back to Rexburg to spend the evening with Graig at the home he lives in. Friday we drove to the lakehouse in Eastern Washington state after Graig's last final at noon. OK, is anyone keeping track of all the miles so far. Next post will be about our 3 week stay at the lakehouse.