Family reunion, Oregon trip

Here we are in Eugene, Oregon with Sam's Brother in law and his wife. David and Pam had invited us to stay with them, and after going to church with them, we had a little excursion to the coast. Sam and I agree, Oregon is our very favorite State. You have Sam to thank, that we are not moving there tomorrow. He said NO, it is too far from you kids.

Somehow we lucked out and got a super day without any wind, but the bluest of skies and warm and just an all around perfect day that still had great waves.

If you leave your pantyhose on after church, there is no wading for you.... so I got to take pictures instead.


Foxglove and wild Iris. It was so lovely everywhere. It sure was hard to leave.

Look at that surf!!! I was sure Pam would get wet, but she was just out of reach of the pounding waves.

On Monday we started out in Florence and went south along the coast. This is one of those sleepy little coastal towns, waiting for the summer tourists to arrive... look, one is already there!








This dreamy forest was on a path from the road to the beach. It was even prettier than the picture.

California coast Redwood park, we ran into the guy with the Ax and his blue ox Babe.... he even talked.... so not cute, but Sam wanted a photo. That is him there, between the guy and his ax.

Look at what $5 can buy you! And this was the only redwood at the attraction, but I have always wanted to do that. No, that is Sam driving, I just took the picture and told him that he fit thru just fine.... with about 1" clearance on each side of the mirrors.




Two little boys and their favorite uncle.

Dacia didnt bring enough motorcyles, so Alysia got stuck on the non-motorized one.

Brrrrrrrrm..... at every opportunity.

2cuties at the lodge. Love that bow.

2 more cuties

I think they like each other.

Linda was just amazing. Surrounded by screaming kids, she kept her calm and got them all to settle down. Some of those little ones had amazing lungs and an almost super-human endurance.... My grandkids, of course, were models of sweetness and loving behavior. It might have helped that their moms were around.






2 of our amazing cooks. Great food, really, I gained more weight than I want to talk about.

Muir woods, north of San Francisco. As soon as we got close, the fog set in. But it was still really pretty and majestic.

Hey! where did my picture go???? All I was trying to do was decrease the space between pictures, and suddenly the thing is gone....so unless it shows up again somewhere you'll just have to imagine it. It was really pretty.

This is the famous Boardwalk in Santa Cruz, where Sam and his siblings hung out when they were growing up in Palo Alto. I think it was a fun trip down memory lane for him, and I was glad to be along.

This was on the pier in Santa Cruz. The concerned look on my face is, because I was worried about my nice new camera in the hands of a stranger.... hoping that she wasn't going to drop it.

These big fat sealions were all over the support structure of the pier. They must have hopped up there the night before, when the tide was high.

We went on south, ending up at Carmel, where we had lunch at the beach, enjoying the surf. It was in the mid 50 there and a bit foggy. Just an hour inland it was sunny and 95+. I remember the first time I was in Carmel was in 1972 with Helen and Mary and my parents and sister. America was still the total wonderland and carmel seemed almost magical. I still like it a lot.

Here is the picture of the little candy store, where Helen and Mary bought my sister and me a truly gigantic lollypop. No, I wasn't tempted to have another one. I think the same picture is in Kira's blog... just not with Sam in it. She is lucky, she lives much closer than we do.

We went on the 17 mile drive and enjoyed Pebble beach and the beautiful seashore in that area. The surf was up and I just love digital cameras.... you just snap away until you get the one you want. My dad didn't have that advantage, and still his pictures were totally amazing.... maybe that's where Alan got those photography genes.

It took me a while to figure it out, but I have a super-zoom on my camera (great job buying that for me, Bugs, great job researching cameras for me, Dacia) thus I can bring these sealions in real close... cool.

The lonely Cypress, the Emblem of Pebble Beach.

This is really wiered, and thanks to my super camera, I finally got the picture I wanted. On the freeway outside Sacramento right there in the river are all those huge WWII battleships. It is like a used car lot for battle ships. It looks impressive.

And as usual, at the start of the blog, I goofed again, putting my first pictures last.... but nontheless, here are the pics from my quick trip to Vegas. What would normally take 7+hours took only 1 1/2 hours plus a bit of a wait and some securitystuff, but seeing Emily and boys by plane sure has its thrills. Esspecially since they turned down the thermostat for most of my visit, and I enjoyed my window open during most nights. But by Friday it was in the 100's and definitely time to go home and enjoy cool Idaho with all it's rain for a night, before we left for Oregon the next morning.

We spent part of Thursday at a Sprinkler Park. The boys had great fun, esspecially when it came to a water fight with Oma.... they got me drenched, which felt very nice. Jaxon, however is in big trouble. He was in charge of applying sun-tan lotion to my back..... I still have a very odd looking dark brown triangle on my otherwise snowy-white back.... tsk, tsk. Which means he did a great job on the rest of my back. Thanks, Jaxon.

This is one of those other hardship assignments, Emily had for me: Accompany grandsons to Coldstone and watch them eat ice cream..... in the company of a gazillion other little tikes and their moms for a church playgroup activity. They were so excited as they all got to pick their very own flavors and add-ins and got this amazing spoon to shovel it in with.

Aren't they cute? Even Caden didn't find me too objectionable anymore and actually did not mind associating with me.

Here are two more very busy ice cream eaters.

The End.

So I had a whole lot of cool pictures to post. I tried 3 times and every time it would not let me do it, so you will have a picture-less blog, until one of you figures out what's wrong and can help me figure it out.
This weekend is the first weekend back to normal.... and it is soooo quiet. Sam and I are ratteling around in our big house and it seems rather strange that there are no little ones around, no TV going, nobody fixing food.... could it be that we miss you all??? NO WAY! (j/k) of course we miss you, sillies. It had to be one of my favorite weekends of my life, having everybody here, having fun together and all getting along splendidly. You are the best. I don't mind having birthdays, if we get to celebrate them like this. Of course, it could have been even better, like real sunshine the whole time instead of the liquid kind, and everybody staying healthy, and no flooded basement.... we will aim for that next time; it would have been too perfect otherwise. So, hope you are all back home safe and busy planning out the rest of the summer. I would have more to say, if there were pictures to share. I am eagerly looking forward to the ones Alan took. Thanks again for coming, love you all.

Grace's birthday party

A little Grace came with her Mommy and Daddy to have her birthday at our house. Her mommy made her a very cute birthday dress and a Lady bug birthday cake.

She was very excited about all her neat presents

But the very best was the little shopping cart that she could walk behind and push all over the place



Then it was cake time....

careful little samples first, but the tast was great, so soon we took bigger bites, cookie spots firtst

This cake is the very best, Mommy! I love it this much!!!

And doesn't it look just lovely in my hair!

We're baaack!

Thanks to some fantastic planning on my part, we only have pictures from Montevideo and Buenos Aires.... All the other ones are on the other card that I took out of the camera and stashed in the cabin safe, since I was worried about pick pockets in Uruguay, and if they got my camera, at least they wouldn't get all my precious vacation pictures, so then I forgot them in the safe.... we are hoping to get them back somehow, but if not, we just might have to take that cruise again.... or not. We left on the 31st and spent the night in SLC. We flew to Atlanta the next morning and were surprised how short that flight is, if you don't have to stop somewhere else. Kim and Duane picked us up and we had a nice dinner and visit with them. Then it was on to Santiago, Chile. Sam had been there on his mission, and so somewhat knew his way around. We rented a car and took off for our hotel. Amazingly we found it without too much difficulty. I was ready to sleep for a while, with the all night flight and being really tired, but no rest for the weary, Sam decreed on a city tour now. We set off on foot and after a very long and hot walk, found our red double decker bus and were off. It was fun. Next day we located the Santiago Temple and went for a session. We got talked into staying for a sealing session, and that went well too, with Sam squeezing my hand when it was time to say"Si". He met a nice brother from another town in the locker room and invited him to ride with us, since we were going to his home town that afternoon. He got a free ride home and we had our free tour guide! We met his 2 sweet sons and even got to go to a baptism in his ward. The next day we had another tour scheduled to Valparaiso and Vina del Mar. Very nice too. We paid close attention on which roads to take, so we only got lost twice the next day, when we drove to Valparaiso to catch our Cruise. We had a balcony cabin this time.... that was the very best, we'll never be happy with anything less!.
The cruise was great, I say more about it when I finally get my pictures... hopefully.
Our stops were Puerto Montt, Puntarenas, Usuaia, Some Glacier, Cape Horn, Falkland Islands, Monte Video, and Buenos Aires. In Montevideo we did a city tour. It appeared a lot more drab and poor than Santiago. Everything was grey, most buildings were just concrete and not much green, since they were experiencing a severe drought. Somebody needed to point out to them that they were sitting on one of the largest fresh water bays in the world, and that they could put that water to good use, irrigating their parched parks and lawns!. We were not too impressed by Montevideo; Santiago was much nicer. Our final destination was Buenos Aires. Total chaos. After collecting our luggage, everyone was pressing towards the street and the place where the taxis stopped. There were roughly 4 lines of people, and 2-3 taxis would back up and people would load their stuff and drive off. It took us a while to understand what was going on.... this worked on the" greased palm" principle. If you paid off the guy with the clipboard, he would direct the taxi to you and load your stuff in the trunk, then you paid him for the taxi ride. If you didn't pay him first, he'd direct the taxi to a different line and you got to stand there until you had it figured out.. .A lot of things operated that way in Argentina. So, we finally got to our hotel and found the room adequate, if not quite as nice as the one in Chile. We went to talk to the guy at the desk to arrange for a city tour, when we started talking to fellow tourists... they had just been out walking around, when someone on a motorcycle drove by and cut his Rollex watch off his wrist!!! Argh!!! The guy was lucky he got to keep his hand. I later learned that if a woman was sporting an esspecially desirable rock on her finger, they wouldn't hesitate to use wire cutters, to relieve her of her ring.... and her finger!!! I left all jewelry in the hotel safe! That's when I discovered the missing photo card. We walked around for a block or so, me clutching my purse and my camera, and feeling very scared. The city tour was nice. We drove all over town, saw the casa rosita, of Evita fame (don't cry for me Argentina), one Evita monument and all sorts of other stuff. I will label the pictures. The next morning, after we had enjoyed breakfast, (and I must say, they do know how to dish up breakfast in south America! Nothing like the stale sweetroll and tang deal you get in US motels). At any rate, we were done with breakfast, sitting in the lobby, waiting for the tour bus to pick us up, when Sam said: look who is here! There are several million inhabitants in B. A., a gazillion tourists, tons of hotels, and all the other variables.... but who would be right there in the hotel lobby, but my visiting teaching companion and her husband here from our IF ward!!! What a coincidence! After a short visit with them, our bus arrived and we were off to the Goucho Ranch. We really enjoyed that, it was the best part of our B.A. visit. The bus dropped us off at the hotel, we collected our luggage, they let us use a room for a bit to freshen up, take a shower and then the taxi took us to the airport. The nice taxi driver noticed that I was hyperventilating in the back seat and took the next exit and then stopped so I could get out and take pictures of the Buenos Aires Temple!!! that just so happened to be right off the freeway on the way to the airport. After that, we thought, nothing could go wrong... little did we know. As soon as we got to the airport, we were there around 6pm, our flight was at 11... we had tons of time, so we thought, we were confronted with the saran wrappers. They insisted we needed to have all our luggage saran wrapped, to the tune of $12, all credit cards accepted. After they were done, they applied a large rubber stamp to our foreheads that said: "Sucker". After over an hour in line, we finally got to the ticket counter to check in. "Sorry, two of your suitcases are overweight, that will be $150 for each!" No, we didn't pay, but it took tooth and claw to rip thru the saran wrap to dig out our dirty laundry and lighten the suitcases. Now we got to drag that around in our carry-on, how delightful. Come to find out that the weight limit from here to there is 60 pounds but from there to here it is 23 kilos.... and their scales were off by 6kilos... if we had gone to the counter nextdoor, we would have passed!!! grrrr! The flight was long and totally uncomfortable, esspecially, since the guy next to me decided my shoulder would be a nice pillow and when I tried to push him back to his seat, he took over my entire seat, until Sam bonked him on the head and told him to leave his wife alone.
In Atlanta we had 2 hours to catch our connecting fligt... no problem, we thought, until we got to stand in line to get our passports checked for over an hour and a half, then it was coustoms, immigration and security, and 4 tramstops and the wrong gate at the end of the concurse.... and a missed flight. And they all couldn't care less. Matt later told me that airline passengers are no longer customers, but rather all potential terrorists. After not getting on the stand-by flight, we finally got on the next one, so instead of arriving happily at 10 am in SLC, we got there after 4pm. tired and grumpy with partially shrink-wrapped luggage. Our mood did change when a very cute and pregnant Dacia picked us up and took us to Buggy's were a very cute and adorable Grace was standing up and making funny faces and a very delicious dinner was waiting for us! On the drive home, all I could think was: A hot bath and my own bed, Yea!. It was great fun, but next time we are going to drive to our cruise port!. Sam was talking about Europe... I guess the FJ can handle a frozen Bering Strait.


A bit blurry, but that's Sam and me doing the tango NOT.
90% of the Buenos Aires residents live in high-rises.

El Buco area. By the big Soccer stadium

La Casa Rosita, with the famous balcony

The Evita memorial

Since so many live in apartments, they have their gardens on the balconys! I was puzzled why so many people had pulled off the freeway to the green areas next to the roads.... having picknicks... but if you don't have a garden, I guess you take what you can get.

Here hare some spontaneous tango dancers. The dresses are rather... skimpy and the dance is very suggestive. It looks very smooth and artistic, but sometimes it looks more like it belongs in the privacy of their bedroom!



Our surprise visit with the Hanks in our Hotel.

The Goucho ranch horse show, and the lady that greeted us with wine (or tang) and hot empanadas... south american meat pies... they were really good, I had two. Sam was stunned, because he thought he would have to talk me into having at least one bite.

And here is the Sammy Cowboy on his nippy horse. It tried and sometimes succeeded to take bites out of other horses rear ends. Mine only tried to brush me off by going really close to fence posts and under low branches. I told him in no uncertain terms that I didn't appreciate that behavior and yanked on the reins.... I think he understood English, because he started to behave a bit better after that.

The buenos Aires Temple.... isn't it pretty!

Our amazing shrink-wrapped luggage. We didn't see the big "Succer" forehead stamp until it was too late.(j/k)

Here we are again, welcome to the backwards blog, business as usual. Here are our christmas trees, I tried something different this year, and we do like it. This small one is the downstairs one with all the little ornaments from Rosi, and the ones I painted. The other one is the big upstairs one, with pointsettas and a cosy little place for our christmas elf.

After we delivered the kids to their very happy Mommy, we visited all sorts of nice friends and family. Sam got to hold all the cute babies, and I didn't because I have a cold... sniff sniff. Can't get rid of the stupid thing.

Yes, Grace had a tongue, and a really cute one at that.

Anya had piano lessons while she was with us, and was very proudly playing "Jolly old Saint Nicolas".

Does this look like Aaron might have missed his mommy and is glad to have her back??

Bathtime was always an adventure, I wondered sometimes who got more wet, them or me?






This would be the cute little Gwynneth, she was starting to smile at Grandpa.

Sam was a hit with the bedtime stories

And also was the supervisor for the magnificent gingerbread house. Not Graham cracker, mind you, real gingerbread, and the smell of it conjured up all sorts of lovely childhood memories for me.

Here is Nikolaus tag morning.... They woke up around 5 am, I heard them whispering, so I just told them to go back to sleep, it was still night time We didn't hear from them again until 9!!!!

Anya was a great help with the truffle dipping, not to worry all of those hands were washed, with soap and then sanitized. Truffles were great, thanks to Emily and her amazing recipes.







Anya and Aaron decorated my christmas tree. They also put up the village underneath. It really got interesting when the "Monster-Barbie" appeared and tipped over the houses!

We spent Thanksgiving in Atlata with Kim and her family. Of course, just for us, they had arranged for a record cold spell,with temps almost down to freezing! As soon as we left it got back up into the 70's. I got them all excited about Emily's super truffles and Beka and I made several batches for Kim to take to family and friends.... she called the other day to make some more, I think the family enjoyed them all gone, so there were none left to take to friends.

Before we went to Atlanta, we spent a few days with Emily and Kids. No rest for the weary here, she made us read stories (Sam) and put kids to bed, cook, shop, make truffles and hug cute boys. And she had the loveliest weather for us, we actually begged to have the IC turned on. It was a wonderful visit as usual. Can't wait to go back and escape our icky snow.














My goodness these pictures are in disarray, here is some more Nikolaus unwrapping going on.

And here is some more Atlanta visit with Kim and kids.

My printer, inspite of Joe's relentless patience and good advice, does not work. I just composed my Christmas letter, and now I can't even print it, so maybe this will be my christmas greeting to everyone. A very merry Christmas from the Clarks. We want to wish you all the very best for this holiday season and for the new year. We had a lovely year, if you check my blog, you'll get a scetchy idea of what we have been up to. (I am not a very regular blogger, since I spend all the exciting times with my kids and expect them to blog about it, besided they have much more time than I do;).

So here are some pictures of our recent adventures in Munchkinland. Anya and Aaron came to visit for a week and now I am hopelessly behind in all my Christmas preparations, but had so much fun, I wouldn't trade it for anything. One of those Aaron looks will wrap you instantly around his little finger, and Anya's sweetness with everybody, esp. her little brother will melt your heart.