San Francisco

We toured San Fran while little Ammo was sleeping - had to go to Lombard Street. It's a MUST! (this is some picture from online, I did not take this photo) There are thousands of photos online for this street. The flowers are beautiful and it's so crazy steep along with the winding back/forth.

 Love the sign reads 'NO VANS'. I'm guessing they mean no delivery vans, cuz we made it through just fine.

 Going down!

 Hands in the air! This was for the next street. One of those streets that you can't see it at one point because it's so steep - it appears as if you're going to fly.

And it wouldn't be a great trip to San Fran is we didn't cross the Golden Gate Bridge and of course pass Alcatraz - place where REALLY, REALLY bad guys go. 

 A look back

 Found Lucas Valley Road

 We may or may not have bribed them to go to sleep. Super grumpy, but also because soon we'd find grandma and grandpa. They'd want to stay up and play, but wouldn't get to if they didn't take a nap. :)

 As much as they despise having the other in their space (because let's face it, they don't mind bothering the other person as long as he/she doesn't bother back), they usually ended up asleep like this. :)

Then

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.

.

.

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saw a tractor - John Deere

 a cow

 And THIS car. Got a text from Jeff's dad - just passed some tiny town.......ummmmmm, so did we.
Just passed mile marker whatever......ummmmm, so did we.

Jeff sped up to see if we could find them. In turn, Jeff's dad sped up so we wouldn't catch them......Risenmays.....sheesh.

 and they woke up....back by the tractor. :) And were SUPER excited to be following the grandparents

Finally arrived at our destination of Irish Beach - more to come. For now this was the first 2 days of a 3 week trip.

Emergency preparedness month

September is emergency preparedness month. I am NOT prepared. But I'm working on it. Here's a few easy ways to help yourself and family be more prepared.
Backyard Farming has a 'Mother of all first aid kit' Here is a link to a google document. Print it out and add the items to your weekly grocery list. Over the course of 8 weeks more or less depending on your budget, you can put this together. You could even do more - 2 for the house, one for each car, etc.

Also Deals to Meals ℠ is having a giveaway for their own EXTREMELY prepared first aid kit. These are not your run of the mill first aid kits with bandaids and wipes.

Another way to be prepared - LDS or not, disasters DO NOT discriminate by religion, color, income, etc. Each family member should have a 72 hour kit. Here's some ideas of what and how to create these and another link from the same page about personal supplies to have on hand.

Don't forget to include: medicines specific to your family, baby needs: diapers, wipes, formula?, tylenol....etc.

And I can't stress enough about WATER, WATER, WATER. We live in the desert! Water is a must!!! And no matter where you live, if there is a disaster, you don't want to be drinking the water from the tap. Bottled water (which we are not stocked up on), but we do have 7 - 55 gallon drums filled with water. If we had to evacuate our house, we couldn't take those with us - this is where the bottled water comes in.

Not only do we need to be prepared for our physical needs, but also our spiritual needs - are you going to church, prayers, scriptures? Temple recommend is current? Are you fulfilling your calling with JOY? Do you reach out to others even though you feel you have nothing to give?? Only when you lose yourself can you truly find yourself. Also are we financially prepared - you'll need cash on hand (small bills). Most likely power will be out or down in some areas - no credit card machines.

Okay I'm off my soap box and will slowly but surely be putting together the first aid kits and replenishing our 72 hour kits. I thought the freeze dried baby food would be good for the kids - they love to eat it anyway, now they get to!

Across the Bay we go

Hoping we had enough money to pay the toll for the Oakland/San Fran bridge, we started scrounging for cash......it cost $5. I had 3......Jeff had 2!!! We made it across without having them track us down later to pay the toll. Now we just hoped we didn't have to pay cross out of San Fran across the Golden Gate Bridge........

As we crossed the Oakland/SF bridge, we passed a place called The Embarcadero. My Grandpa Clarke (my mom's dad) worked here in his younger days - it's where the big, BIG cargo ships come in to load and unload. I felt a little closer to him as we drove past his old stompin' grounds. Grandpa Clarke passed away just after his 80th birthday. I was only 7 years old.

 

 

 I'm not sure what they were building, but those orange 'lines' are the walkway up to the top.......basically orange netting with wooden dowels - SCARY! And that's only as high as the bridge, which is VERY high from the water.

 Alcatraz Island or 'The place where really, really, REALLY BAD, BAD people used to go'

We decided NOT to stop in San Francisco for a couple reasons: didn't want to find a place to park, didn't want to pay for parking (used all our cash to cross the bridge anyway), and mostly because this next picture finally occurred - NEVER WAKE A SLEEPING BABY!

Love you my little Ammo!

I love to see the Oakland Temple

Since we had time to spend, we took a detour and stopped at the Oakland Temple - it's beautiful! It was also Sunday (which we totally forgot about) To the left is a church building, to the right (can't be seen) is the Visitor's Center.

Went to the Visitor's Center first and it was definitely the right place for us to be. It was empty other than a missionary couple and 2 sister missionaries - one Canadian and one from Korea. I left to change Ammon and came back to Jeff talking to a man and his wife in Spanish. All the Spanish Elders were in church and neither of the sisters or the couple spoke Spanish. Jeff stepped in and helped out, gave them a referral card for the Spanish missionaries and got him a copy of the Book of Mormon.

It was neat to see him interact as a missionary - would have been fun to see him as a 19 year old missionary. :)

 Talking about prophets

Jeff thought it was really cute how she was teaching the kids, too bad she looked up right as he took the picture. haha! She had been out of the MTC for 3 days!! We followed a program they had set up there - something about the life of a family, starting at birth, through the resurrection and finally about Christ. I have seen it at the Mesa Visitor's Center.

It was a good reminder of how precious life is and how wonderful it is to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). That we can be together, FOREVER if we follow God's plan for us.

The view from this side of the Visitors Center is AMAZING!

 After leaving the Visitors Center, we wondered the Temple grounds in awe of it's beauty and peace.

 honestly?!

 I love this picture! For two reasons though - it's a beautiful shot of the Temple, but it's also funny of Lucas......did you even see him there?? He and Lea got in trouble for fighting over pushing the stroller. He chose this quiet spot to pout. :)

 Ammo was less than thrilled to be in a picture by himself.
I love to visit the Temples and feel the peace on the Temple grounds. I love the joy, happiness, and sometimes sorrow, but always back to joy as we follow the Lord's plan. Families are essential to His plan. We love our families and we love to see the Temple.

goal time

Not big on the New Years Resolution. How about the, I'm not 22 and can eat whatever I want, barely exercise (aside from walking all over campus) and still not gain weight, but now I'm 32, have 4 kids and am slowly gaining the lbs and haven't gotten rid of the preggo lbs from baby #4.

Goal: Lose 20 lbs by the beginning of December. I get a new dress (it's so cute and I love it with the sash!) to wear to my parents 50th wedding anniversary party.

Jeff's goal: lose 35 lbs, under 200 and he gets a notebook (computer, not a 15 cent paper notebook). :)

So there you have it. This is our goal. I'm starting at 150. Jeff thinks I can get to 130 - pre-baby#4 was 140ish. Last time I was 130, I had the flu. Not the route I'd like to go, but it does help. haha!

We're trying to eat better, more veggies, less eating out - haven't eaten out in several weeks.

Drink more water - it's 115, that's inevitable.

Exercise a little more even if the kids don't take naps. use them to exercise too. :)

I'm sure most of you are rolling your eyes thinking I don't have that much to lose....but I'd like to feel better about myself and not have to purchase a whole new wardrobe in a bigger size. I want to enjoy the clothes I have.

So here we go. We'll report back in every now and then to give updates on our progress.

California here we come

After sufficiently stuffing ourselves with homemade Costa Vida at the Beckers, we hit the road.

We thought we could make it all the way to Irish Beach, CA. Which by the way if you tell anyone about this place, noone claims to know where it's at or heard of the place. Great.

934 miles from Laveen, 16 hours 7 min according to Google Maps

Added drive from Beckers and the possibility of 'Car-mageddon' in LA, but we'd buckle down and make the drive.

We could do it, no problem. Didn't need to be to Irish Beach until Sunday for check-in.

We made it to Kettleman, CA - it's only visible on Google Maps if you zoom in REALLY close. (almost 9 hours into the drive) The only thing for miles around and we HAD to stop. Ammon had screamed for at least an hour.

My new bumper sticker: We survived 'Car-mageddon', but couldn't outlast a screaming baby.'

Our options for stopping: 1 hotel for $189.99 or hotel #2 for $69.99......sadly we chose the $69.99 Super 8. It was only worth about $19.99.

Besides the 2 hotels, there was an In-n-Out and a gas station. Hopping town.

Oh I forgot we drove past the new Gilbert Temple!! So exciting!

 This was before all the screaming......

 still happy. :)

 movies, leapsters, so much fun!

 Jeff plugged into half a library worth of CD's: John Denver and more oldies

 here come the tears.....but it's still daylight and we didn't stop til is was almost 10 pm.