Philadelphia!!

We recently returned from a Wednesday - Sunday visit with Brigg, Havalah, and Luke in Philadelphia and had a marvelous time!  We were quite thrilled with how close New Jersey and Delaware are - we drove to Wilmington Delaware one night for dinner and crossed the Ben Franklin bridge into Camden New Jersey (home of Rutgers U) so we could say we'd been to New Jersey - actually we took a wrong turn onto the bridge but wanted to visit that state anyway!!  On Sunday we found a very nice branch of the church to attend, the Widener Branch, who were having only their 2nd Sunday in their new meeting place.  They were very gracious (they were hoping we were moving in!) and even when they found out we were just visiting were so friendly!  It's wonderful to go to church where ever you might be in this world and you get those same great feelings.  We visited Valley Forge, downtown Philadelphia with the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, Logan Circle, Franklin Institute of Science, Reading Terminal Market, 4th street fabric row where we had the biggest Reuben sandwich ever at the Famous 4th St. Deli, went swimming several times, and much much more.  I honestly think Luke had as much fun looking out of our 5th story hotel room at airplanes coming in and big trucks and buses going by!  We'd never been to this city of brotherly love before and neither had our kids, so we decided instead of going to Morgantown we would meet in Philadelphia - and we're so glad we did!  Here are a few of the many pictures we took.

La Conner, TULIPS

We spent the day in the Skagit Valley today drinking in the beautiful colors of the tulips and daffodils.  One of Marcie's FAVORITE activities.  So glad Scott indulges me in this!!

It was a beautiful, clear day in the 60's.  We could see many of the mountains, this is Mt. Baker. The other previous pictures are of the bay in Mukilteo where we spent the night. (I don't do this blog very often, these comments were supposed to be under the previous picture), This picture is just the parking lot of the fields and grounds we were going to see.

The beauties of the earth:)

New Shakespear baby- Dallen

Megan and Jeremy had their 5th darling child on March 1st, Dallen Frost Shakespear. They have four boys and a girl. Scott and Marcie each spent a week with them (separately-to give Meg an extra week of help). Meg is a wonderful mother and Jeremy is a great dad.  Here are a few of the pictures taken in those two weeks.

Paradise - at Mt. Rainier!

We took our youth to Mt. Rainier today - Paradise in particular.  We had sleds and tubes and the park has a wonderful area where runs are already prepared for that purpose.  We had a great time - here are some of the pictures taken:

Our YW president looks cold!!

Our new Bishop had a great time with his youth

Enjoying a hot lunch

Priests Quorum with the older man:)

Snow Storm 2012

It's a beautiful Saturday today but several weeks ago we got record amounts of snow - schools, offices, churches and even the post office were closed down!!  We were without power from Thursday morning until Sunday afternoon - we suppose that's a long time but not as long as some of our friends.  We felt quite fortunate that we had a gas hot water heater so we could wash and shower with hot water anytime, a woodstove that kept us quite warm downstairs, and plenty of food!  The day we got our power back we had gone to church and I ran home between Sacrament meeting and Sunday school to throw another log in the woodstove - the power crew was just finishing up restoring our power.  What a blessing - we took inventory and thought we did quite well but still made a list of things we need to improve for next time!  Here are some of the photos we took during those few days.

We took a walk Wednesday night (Jan. 18) after it snowed all day - we were surprised to find a snowman taller than Scott!

We woke up Thursday morning to freezing rain and a sheet of ice covering just about everything - the trees were very weighed down - and by mid-morning our power went out.  A tree had fallen through someone's power line down the road from us. 

The woodstove worked great - we warmed up soup and made oatmeal - it was amazing how quick things cooked once we got it going well.

We took this picture at night without the flash.....and then

with the flash

Scott's work opened back up on Friday - this tree had fallen across Maple Lane downtown and created a bit of distraction.  Downtown Olympia lost all power at noon so we were sent home.  Since we didn't have power we took our time getting home, stopping to eat and enjoyed the establishments who had power!

We had plenty of branches fall down but not like in years past.  Getting our two big trees down in the front really helped and we got our side trees wind-sailed at the same time.  So we got branches but not as many as our neighbor across the street.

With the snow nearly gone and the power back, we were grateful not to have to travel this path to the shed to bring in more fire wood:)  Actually, in spite of the hassel we were very blessed and grateful to deal with what we did - and will be even better prepared next time.