Road Trip with Natalie

On Wednesday, October 27, Natalie closed the trunk of the Mazda, which amazingly held most of the contents of her room, and we set off to cross the country from Virgina to Utah.   Here is a list of our fabulously interesting activities:

DRIVING

SLEEPING

WATCHING THE RAIN AND AUTUMN COLORS IN MARYLAND

BEING BLINDED BY THE SUN IN THE EVENINGS

SLEEPING IN COMFORT INNS (where they offer complimentary breakfast in the morning that includes  waffles!)

ENJOYING SOME PRETTY SCENERY (the color of the sky, and the play of light in the morning were amazing!)

ENJOYING THE DECOR OF THE COMFORT INN IN NEBRASKA

EATING IN THE CAR

EATING IN RESTAURANTS IN COLLEGE TOWNS (Ohio State and University of Iowa)
 *sorry, no pictures*

TAKING PICTURES OF OURSELVES

TRYING NOT TO BE BLINDED BY THE SUN

FINALLY ARRIVING IN UTAH ON THE EVENING OF OUR THIRD DAY!
        (yes - there was snow on the ground)

Five Days in Utah

Skip and I got to spend a few wonderful days in Utah. Kara picked us up and drove us to Orem, where Laura and Kart and their kids live. They have recently moved into a new home - a duplex of sorts where they live up, and their neighbors live down. They have a garage too, and a fenced in yard, giving them lots of storage and play space. They have a trampoline in the back yard, and I got to play with Emma and Aiden on that several times. (Sorry-no pictures of that.) I forgot to bring the battery charger for the camera, so I didn't get a lot of pictures, but here are a few:

This is Emma and Owen. Owen's grown so much since we saw him in the summer. He's crawling now, and is such a pleasant little guy. Laura works in the early morning at the cupcake shop, and Kart is a master at the morning routine. We had fun helping out a little with breakfast, and keeping the kids happy.



One morning we made fall leaf pictures with some stickers I'd brought from home. I use the foam stickers with my church nursery kids all the time. They're easy and fun:



Here are the finished products:





We enjoyed eating a lot of the leftover cupcakes from Cupcake Chic, but as if that wasn't enough cupcakes, and in our quest to further perfect cupcake goodness, we tried a batch of our own Oreo aka Cookies and Cream cupcakes. Everyone helped!



We did some shopping in Salt Lake one day. Laura wanted to check out some baking supply stores, and we found some needed things there, including cupcake supplies, of course! Then since you can't pass up IKEA, and Laura really needed a guest bed for all these Baird Family guests that keep crashing at her house, we bought a fouton there. Emma and Aiden didn't get to spend a lot of time playing there, but they had a few minutes at the rocking chair theater before we started shopping.



One afternoon, we spent some time at a pumpkin patch, playing and picking out pumpkins.




On Saturday, we drove past Salt Lake, to Kaysville to meet up with the Lincoln family - Uncle Ivan, Aunt Luann, and cousins Stephanie, Blythe, and Amy. Uncle Ivan got us complimentary tickets to Lagoon, where we spent a short time letting the kids ride every ride we thought they could handle - boats, helicopters, space ships, cars, etc. (We were a little worried about Emma who had gotten car sick twice in the past few days.) She survived though, and they had a lot of happy, smiley fun. After Lagoon we all met for dinner at Texas Roadhouse. Check out Stephanie's blog for pictures and more on that. We had a lot of fun there, and were glad Kara could be with us there too.

We had such a fun time, even though it was short. I think I'll have to visit again soon. Look for the Mom and Natalie roadtrip coming to a blog near you in a couple of weeks!

Some Vintage Fall Fun

Just wanted to post a little look at a few Autumn family memories:

Old Rag

Last fall Dara, Ryan, Kara, and I tried to hike Old Rag . Unfortunately, it turned out to be a somewhat rainy day, and we were advised not to attempt it. So finally we got around to rescheduling our planned hike (minus Kara unfortunately, since she's in Utah). It turned out to be a spectacularly beautiful day. We didn't have fall colors, but we sure had some vibrant green, blue sky, and 0 humidity. Ryan had done the hike before, but he wasn't too good about remembering exactly where and how far the top was. (How many times can we be "almost there"?) I knew about the "rock scramble" near the top - a lot of climbing around, over, under, between, and on top of huge boulders, but I was kind of surprised at how much rock climbing there actually was. It wasn't terribly difficult except for a couple of places that I was glad for someone (Ryan) to give me a hand up or a push from behind. The views were spectacular, and well worth it. Dara and Ryan were fun to hike with, and I'm looking forward to any future adventures they want to include me on.

The Rocky Summit

Dara and I

Ryan

One of many scenic views

Japan Meets America

This last week we had the opportunity to host a young Japanese student in our home. Her name is Riho. She's 14 years old, and comes from Yaostu, Japan. She and 19 other students her age toured New York City for a couple of days, then came to stay with host families here in Woodbridge. On Saturday, Natalie and I took her shopping at Tyson's corner. When we got home, I asked her what she'd like to do, and she said, "play piano". I found some music on her level, and she kept busy playing for over and hour. Skip cooked her a steak dinner in the evening. On Sunday, after going to church with us, we went with some of the other students and host families to the temple visitor's center. They saw "Testaments" in Japanese, and had their questions answered by a missionary assigned to the D.C. North mission, who happens to be Japanese. They toured in D.C. on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday, they toured a typical? American high school - Gar-Field. They had time to shop at Potomac Mills, then went to Occoquan for a different kind of shopping. After that, we dropped the students off at our chapel, where they decorated and practiced for a dinner/program in the evening. At 6:00 all the students and host families had a pizza party. After eating, they taught us some Origami, played a Japanese game, and performed a dance for us. Riho was very sweet and eager to learn about and experience life in our home. Her English was pretty good, and we tried hard to learn about her life as well. We learned some of her favorite foods are pizza, spaghetti, and chocolate. She loved Skip's special popcorn too - sweetened with a little corn syrup. This morning before she left, I made her waffles. That was a hit as well. For a going away gift, Natalie made her a CD of American music. I gave her a piano book and some other small gifts for her family. It's nice now that we have a pen pal in Japan. I'm sure we'll continue to keep in touch with her.

Temple visitor's center, Riho on the right


Pizza party!


Teaching Origami:



Trying Origami:



Finished Origami:



Riho announcing the dance:



A scene from the dance, Riho in the middle:



PIctures with the family:

It seems like I've been on the road forever! I'm finally back after about three and a half weeks. So here's what the Bairds have been up to during the last month and a half:

PART ONE - I tagged along with my Mom and Dad, driving across the country from Virginia to Idaho. We had a fun stop in historic Nauvoo, Illinois, where we took in the pageant and a couple of other shows, in addition to attending a temple session there.

Mom and Dad by the Mississippi River:



We ended our cross country trip in Idaho, stopping in Twin Falls for a few days to get ready for our Condie family camping weekend. Besides shopping, we were able to spend some time visiting with Mom and Dad's former mission president and his wife, who are soon to be the new Twin Falls temple president and matron. We also got to go to the Twin Falls temple.

Twin Falls' namesake:



Twin Falls temple:



PART TWO - The Condie Family Reunion

We camped at the incomparable Biscuit Canyon campground and pavilion, with deluxe outhouse and shower. Seven of my brothers and sisters were able to come. After a day of helping get camp set up, I was reunited with Skip and Natalie, who had flown into Utah and spent a couple of days there before renting a 15 passenger van to drive Laura's family, and camping gear up to Idaho. Beth and Mike came in their truck and brought Kara and Andy with them.

Here's the Baird family minus Ryan and Dara who were busy in Virginia finishing school and getting ready to move:



Here I am on the top of Monument Peak, the highest point of the MACLAIC property:




View of Carey from the top of Monument Peak:


We went to the Carey rodeo:



We visited Craters of the Moon National Park:



We enjoyed being with Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins. We ate, played games, hiked, visited, and enjoyed time around the campfire. Some of us got to do some shooting, thanks to Eric and Mike who had brought some serious weaponry with him. The ATVs got a lot of use, and were fun to drive or ride on, but Natalie had a little trouble with some barbed wire, and so one of our adventures was seeing the Carey EMTs who decided we should take her to the emergency room in Ketchum, about an hour away. On Sunday we had a sacrament meeting together before packing up to head back to civilization and further adventures.

PART THREE - Back in Utah, we had lots more family fun. Skip and I stayed with Laura and Kart, and Natalie stayed with Kara. Beth was able to stay a couple more days, even though Mike had to drive back to Vegas. We shared some yummy meals and treats together. Here are Aiden and Emma at Coney's:



Kara and Natalie:




We went to the park one day. Laura and Beth crocheted while I watched the kids on the playground:



Aiden and Emma with their babies:



Here I am with my four beautiful daughters:



With their Dad:



Skip and Natalie flew back to Virgina on Friday, the 30th. Before leaving, Skip was able to take Aiden and Emma fishing. They had a really good time, even though they didn't catch anything. Now they have fishing poles so they can try it again sometime. After Skip and Natalie left, I stayed a few more days to enjoy Laura and family. We went to the zoo one day:



We loved the Hogle zoo! It's not too big, and we were able to see almost all of our favorite animals. We especially liked the baby elephant and the penguins:






The little humans I was with were pretty cute too! They enjoyed their afternoon, and at the end got to ride the merry-go-round. Emma chose to ride a zebra - a logical mount, but Aiden chose to ride a giant Praying Mantis - just a little creepy!:




Before leaving Utah, I got to spend a day with Kara. I helped her move some of her things out of her house into a new apartment, did a little cleaning and shopping with her. On Sunday I went with her to her ward - the largest singles ward I've ever seen! After church we went for a brief visit to the Lincolns - Uncle Ivan, Aunt Luann, Stephanie, Blythe and Amy. It was really good to see them. We were glad we stopped by. After that, we drove down to Springville and had a fabulous meal with Kart's family, the Barnetts. After dinner we got to see his sister Linea's beautiful new house. I had so much fun in Utah, it was hard to leave, but there was one more part to my vacation.

PART FOUR - Las Vegas

I was able to fly from Utah to Las Vegas to see Beth and Mike. I had a fun three days at their little house. I think it looks like they live in an Italian village. Maybe it would look more Italian if there was a Vespa in their driveway instead of a big truck, though:



I had fun helping Beth with some projects. I helped her learn a little more about her sewing machine, and got her started on cross stitching and embroidery. I also loved helping her a little with her flower bed in the backyard. Playing with Roxy, the Rottie pup was fun. It was hilarious wathing Roxy "fly" down the last four steps! Beth's a great cook, and she made some yummy meals, but we enjoyed going out a couple of times as well. I took Beth and Mike out to eat to celebrate their birthdays - late on Mike's and early for Beth's. We all went to the wax museum at the Venetian as well. Unfortunately the pictures I took there got deleted before I could save them. Now I won't be able to prove I played a duet with Stevie Wonder :{

PART FIVE - Home at last in Virginia, the fun hasn't stopped. Skip helped Natalie finish her application for the Aveda Cosmetology school, I helped Ryan and Dara move to Charlottesville, Natalie had a friend come from CA to stay with her, and we got the guest room ready for a Japanese exchange student to stay with us for a few days. More to come......

Young Women Camp

Last week I went to Young Women camp, having been asked to go as a kitchen helper. I went with not too many expectations of what it would be like. I just wanted to help Sandy Johnson, the leader in charge, the best way I could to prepare 3 meals a day for 120 girls and leaders. I somewhat expected some time to relax and read, nap, or visit with other friends there. The reality was that we were constantly busy. It was extremely hot the first day, but thankfully the days got progressively cooler, and more endurable. I worked harder than I have ever worked before, but had a lot of fun with Sandy and the other worker, Kelly Hunsaker. For most of the meals we had help from a ward group of girls and leaders to lighten the load about an hour away from serving, and then to help us clean up afterward.



The meals turned out great for the most part, and there was quite a lot of food left over. My favorite was Chicken Alfredo night - definitely a recipe I'll try at home. There were tons of fresh fruits and veggies, including several bushels of South Carolina peaches, of which I ate at least two or three a day!

We learned a lot about cooking and serving a large group. Sandy was a fantastic leader, and we all went from saying on the first hot day that we would never, ever, ever say yes to this again to admitting that we learned a lot and wouldn't mind too much trying this again together. At any rate, we left a lot of notes and advice for whoever takes it on in the future.

Here's my ward, Lake Ridge 2 enjoying their lasagna dinner in the dining hall. For this one we served family style, with the food put out on the tables instead of them going through a serving line: