Santa Clarita--Family Furniture

Sunday, July 22--After church, we drove down to Santa Clarita, about a little more than two hours south, to see Jeremy's cousin Brad Higley and his wife Deb and pick up a piece of family furniture.  They are in the middle of selling their large house, moving, downsizing and retiring.  We picked up a couch from approximately 1885 that had moved to Brad's house in the past few years from his mother Shirley's house.  Shirley and Dean are siblings.  Dean is Jeremy's dad.

What we do know about the piece is that it was "Dorthella's mother's piece" and that "Dorthella possessed it around 1920 and moved it from the Homestead to Ogden, Utah".  It maybe was in Ver and Madeleine's house before it made it's way to Shirley's.

We also know that the couch has been reupholstered and that the two tables (which we also brought back) were purchased by Shirley because they were "period-like".

We are keeping it safe for the time being before determining whether or not we want to keep it or potentially see if Jeremy's sister, Kristie, would like it.

San Diego

Friday-Sunday, July 13-15--The Naval base that we work at is on a Flex-Friday schedule.  That means that everyone works a nine-hour day and then has every other Friday off (excluding Jeremy and his "unique" job).  It's rather nice.  For the summer school break, I planned a little trip for each Flex-Friday weekend.  We spent this one in San Diego, having coordinated the dates with our long-time, good friends (who we met when we lived there and still do) the Jenkins and the Jones'.  We are all the same age, have the same number of kids around the same ages and used to be in the same church ward together.

Friday--We enjoyed frozen yogurt at The Yogurt Mill in El Cajon, which Allison remembered and requested.  We had dinner, at the suggestion of the Jenkin's at Taqueria Las Mulas.  We enjoyed some time and the sunset at the beach on Coronado Island.  We spent the night at the Jenkins house.

Saturday--we got up and drove around our old neighborhood and school area.  The Jenkins had spent Friday night in Santa Monica picking up their (and the Jones') oldest kids from EFY on Saturday morning.  When they arrived home, we all met at the Jones' house for swimming, pizza and playtime.

Sunday--we went to church with the Jenkins, which was our old ward.  It was fun to see so many familiar faces.  Recently, they have received a number of Congolese families, most of which have been in refugee camps for as long as 20 years.  It was so interesting to observe them as a culture during the church time knowing their past and current struggles.  For a late lunch/early dinner we all joined together and also took some photos.  (Extra child alert--second from left on the back row is the foreign exchange student from Spain currently living with the Jenkins.)

New glasses and haircut

Parker got glasses for the first time.  He needs a little bit of a prescription to help see far away.  He also got a coating to take away the "blue light" in classrooms to help see the white boards (and the various images on them--videos, computer screens, etc.).

Sarah finally moved from regular glasses straight to tri-focals (technically "progressives" because there is not a distinct/visible line on the lens.

Madison decided to cut a good 8 inches off of her hair when I ran a few of us in for haircuts.

Fourth of July

Wednesday, July 04--We stayed in town as Jeremy had duty.  Our town did not display any fireworks, an oddity.  So both ourselves and our next door neighbors purchased a few from the local stands.  Wind was sometimes a challenge.  We also enjoyed watching the t.v. version of the Boston Pops and celebrations.

Redlands/Lake Arrowhead

Friday, July 29 and Saturday, July 30--We all headed down to Redlands, in preparation to pick Madison up from EFY early Saturday morning.  We ran errands at JCPenney, a sports store and Cricket Wireless.  We had In-n-Out for lunch and KFC for dinner.  Plus, we swam in the pool.  Sarah and Jeremy attended a Beach Boys concert at the Redlands Bowl.

On Saturday, we picked Madison up and had breakfast at the hotel.  We then visited the Redlands Temple. 

We then made our way up to Big Bear Lake (whose water level was too low to go swimming) and had lunch at Subway.  

After that, we spent time in Lake Arrowhead and at the Village, and had dinner down the mountain at Rosa Maria's.