More fun at home

Road Trip!

I'm kind of behind - sorry. In August, Kent and I did a road trip. It was the perfect trip - drive until we want to stop. Then sit/walk and enjoy the beauty of God's earth. These are all from Mirror Lake, in the Uintahs.





We walked all the way around the lake and saw so much "wonder". Kent has become a wildflower photographer and quite an expert on all the different kinds of flowers.

These are just a few of the many flowers we saw! 

 

 

Here are some of our other favorite things to do.

Look through binoculars:

Read under a pine tree:

 Have lunch surrounded by fresh air and pine scent:

This was our first day. We ended up in Evanston, Wyoming, where we spent the night.

Day 2 - Evanston to Vernal

After we left Evanston, we followed the Pioneer trail for awhile. We then went to a place called Sheep Creek Geological area and close by to Sheep Creek and Spirit Lake. It was beautiful! Our last leg to Vernal, took us through Ashley National Forest. Nature is good for the soul, isn't it??

I loved Main street in Vernal. It is so welcoming, don't you think?

End of day 2.

Day 3 - Vernal to Orem

Leaving Vernal we went west and then went off road up Rock Creek Rd to Upper Stillwater Reservoir. 

My happy driver. :)

I've never seen a dam from this perspective before. It was really impressive!!! 

Here's the top of the dam! We had lunch near here.

More off-roading up over the pass to Hannah

 

The sad part of this trip? It ended and we came back to sweltering heat in Orem. Love our road trips!!!

Fun stuff we've done since getting home from Jerusalem

Eating at Milagros!

 

This is our cute daughter Sarah - she and her husband own Milagros.

 

Going to a concert at Red Butte Gardens!

 

 

A Merle Haggard concert! :)

 

 

With 2 of my wonderful daughters!

 

 Some sights left a lot to be desired but overall it was a lot of fun!

Going to the cabin!!

[As clarification - the cabin belongs to Kent's sister and she very graciously lets our family use it each summer. It is the best part of the year! Thanks LouAnn.]

 

Grandma with 6 of the 8 grandkids. The hammock is the favorite hang out.

 

 Sarah and Jenny preparing lunch

 

 Alex & Dwight husking corn and grilling meat for lunch

 

 Haley and Ethan watching Grandma play a game

 

Becky, Aspen, Jenny having a serious discussion

Haley, Sarah, and Aspen enjoying a cool morning swing in the hammock

This is all but 2 of our children. We're missing Sarah's husband, Dave, and Alex's wife, Ashley



 

 Fun times in the cabin

 

Aunt Becky and Haley

 

Roasting marshmallows. The lovely lady next to me is Jonny's future wife, Emily

 

 Emily teaching yoga

 

More fun in the hammock - Max & Skylar

 

I told you the hammock was popular. Here is Uncle Dwight, Lexi, and Max

 

 

Feeding the ducks

 

Lexi & Haley playing a clapping game that Emily taught them. They are waiting their turn to play croquet

 

Here's Max helping Grandpa with his wild flower pictures

 

This is as close as we'll get this year, to a family photo. We're missing Dave, Ashley, and our oldest grandchild, Zoe

 

Okay, this has gone on long enough. More "fun" in the next blog.

 

What have I been doing since leaving Jeru?

APRICOTS!!!

 

Picking [mostly up off of the ground  :)]

 

 

 

 

 Freezing:

 

 

 

I also made a pie and some ice cream but I didn't take pictures of that.

 

WEEDING!!

 

 

 

UNPACKING!

 

This is actually quite an improvement. I'm standing inside the room - that wasn't possible in the beginning!!

 

More in another blog. :)



 





Getting home

Here is the story of our trip home.

 

Thursday, June 27th - flight scheduled to depart TLV at midnight: Mid-morning, Kent checks online to make sure our flight is still leaving on time. Hah - not only is it not leaving on time - it has been rescheduled for the following day at 3:00 pm! That means at the best someone will have to pick us up in Salt Lake in the middle of the night. Not acceptable.

Kent calls the travel agent that the Center uses and she suggests calling the local Delta office directly. She even gave him a number. He actually got to talk to a human!! By that time, Delta had opened another flight leaving at midnight on Friday night. We got the first 2 seats on that flight :)

 

Friday, June 28: Our good friend, Frank Judd, drove us to the airport. He got us there 3 hours ahead of time - which turned out to be a VERY good thing. In the Tel Aviv airport you stand in one line where security people check your passport and ask you where you are going, etc. etc. Then you put your luggage to check, through an xray machine. If you are lucky - the security person puts a tag on the bag and you go directly to the check-in desk.

We were partly lucky - 2 of our 5 bags received a tag. Kent took those 2 and went to wait in the check-in line. I took the other 3 bags and went to the "wait here until someone can search your bags personally" line. [Kent's shoulder won't allow him to lift bags onto anything]. Unfortunately, I was in line behind a group of 6, who all had each piece of their luggage THOUROUGHLY searched.

 

This is what waiting there felt like!

When it was finally my turn security checked all 3 of my bags in about 1 minute, tagged them, and I got to Kent just as he was ready to check in.

So THIS is how we felt waiting in this line. :)

Friday at midnight: We arrived at the gate as they were announcing the boarding. Like I said 3 hours ahead was a very good thing! The flight was fine - unremarkable - which is what you want.

We arrived in New York. We walked, walked, walked . . . . . until we got to customs, where we waited in line, showed our passports, and then picked up our luggage. Now, the plan is - you pick up your luggage, go through security, and then simply go to the recheck desk and drop your luggage back off to continue on to your final destination. Remember that our flight was not a regularly scheduled one and apparently Delta didn't inform their people in New York that we were coming.

This is what we found when we went to recheck our luggage:

 

After about an hour of hoping that someone would come to help us. Most of us went upstairs to the regular check-in desk.

 

This is what we found there. :( 

 

 

 This is me:

Kent finally convinced one of the workers that we didn't need to check-in, we just needed to give our luggage back. He opened up one counter for us! Yay!!! Now, we just needed to go to our gate and wait for our flight.

This is what we did for the next 30+ minutes:

 

 

 This is me:

We did eventually reach our gate and made our flight. And we did make it home - with all 5 pieces of luggage. So, all's well that ends well. But don't expect me to be flying ANYWHERE for quite some time!!!!! :)

More farewell party pictures

 

This is one of our sweet secretaries - who has been with us since 1987. Malak - Love you so much!!!

This is my and Kent's boss - Eran Hayet. What an awesome man he is. I think I miss him most of all.

Here we are surrounded by balloons - it was unbelievable!

 

 Here is a better picture of Tawfic handing me an axe.

 

 And here is a much better picture of the two of us with the amazing students who made the piñata and organized the surprise - Amy and Victoria!

 

It took us awhile to break the piñata. One, Kent's shoulder wouldn't let him whack very hard and two, we were both afraid of whacking each other!!!

Thank you for all of the love!!

 

Tonight was our farewell dinner. It was supposed to take place just a few hours before we left for the airport. However, our flight has been canceled and we are on a different flight that doesn't leave until TOMORROW night. ;(

Anyway, we had a nice dinner with faculty/staff/spouses. Here is a long view.

 

 

 Then the cooks brought in this wonderful cake that they had made just for us. :)

THEN we had 4 students play a wonderful violin piece for us. I'm hoping that someone took a picture, since we apparently didn't. And THEN all of the students opened up the Shekel Shack window and out poured balloons. More students dumped balloons from above us. They were cheering and chanting "Jacksons". Totally unexpected and SO sweet!

 

Here Tawfic is handing me an ax [on the right side of the picture] - I'm wondering why???

I found out as 2 students "rode" in on a Harley piñata.

 

These 2 girls, Amy and Victoria, spent all week working on this piñata! Plus, they made us a card that everyone signed. Here we are with our bats ready to whack! Kent is also holding a night stick or something, that Tawfic handed him. [to go with the ax?]

Then they blindfolded the two of us - I put the ax down - and we whacked a good amount until we finally broke the piñata. Confetti and candy every where. I'm hoping someone sends us pictures.

This is our ANE professor, Ed Stratford. Tawfic gave him some spiked brass knuckles so he was popping all of the balloons. I'm still wondering why Tawfic had all these "tools?" in his back pack! :)
Anyway, it was such a happy surprise and we feel very loved.
Now we have to find someway to fill up tomorrow.

Here is the aftermath - but the students cleaned it up!! The other amazing thing about this is that the students are in the middle of finals and are very stressed. That they would take time to do this for us is so awesome! AAAGH - I'm going to miss this place! [cry, sniffle]