Bon Voyage...

So, I decided to blog about our wonderful trip to France in small increments. This way I get to upload more pictures (I want to put up all of them... and I probably will), write more about what we did, and provide more records for myself later.

It took a little longer than expected to make it to our final destination and the entire time I kept thinking of this scene from Recess: School's Out:

"Bon Voyage TJ!" We are on our way!

First, Joe and I flew from Tri-Cities, WA to Vegas - A two hour plane ride. Elise was gracious enough to pick us up from the Vegas airport and take us home to where the cats and the torrid heat greeted us. We soon met up with Momma and Pappa Meservy - man were we excited!

The next day, we flew from Vegas to Phoenix, AZ. We hurried to make our connection to Charlotte, NC, but to no avail. This third plane had technical difficulties and then when that was taken care of TSA decided to remove all of the plane's luggage because of a potential situation. We were grounded for about 3 hours and would miss our connection to Frankfurt. Now, of course none of us where happy about this, however, I tried to tell myself that at least we didn't have to walk across America to Charlotte and then sail to Europe. Isn't technology amazing? 

"Sitting in a chair in the sky."

When we finally made it to Charlotte, US Airways put us up in 3 hotel rooms and booked us flights for the next day with a more expensive airline. Cha-ching! 

Dad, Mom, Elise, Joe, and I in front of a statue at the Charlotte airport that Sunday.

That morning a fire alarm went off at the hotel; it was a false alarm. We also all gave devotionals, which were beautiful, and bore testimony of the Savior, because we missed church.

Then we were off! Before we knew it we were on our way to Munich in the biggest plane I've ever seen! I was so excited that I couldn't sleep. There was far too much to do and see. This plane had a downstairs... (okay... that may have been where the bathrooms were, but there was still a downstairs)! And there were tons of free movies... first time I've experienced that one! How fun! But most importantly, we were flying over the ocean. A true first for me. 

The sunrise as seen from my little window.

When arriving in Munich I went through customs for the very first time and Elise and I got our first passport stamps! The Munich airport looked very posh to me. Tons of stores and free hot chocolate! I may have gotten a cup or two.

Me and Elise being legit.

By this time it was also officially me and Joe's first year anniversary!

Joe's Tom Selleck mustache. The handsome devil.

Me and Joe on our anniversary in Munich. Père Meservy photo bombing.

We were all exhausted, but in a few short hours we would make it to Lyon, France! Goodbye, America! Hellooooo France!

The fam plus the missionaries. We are a good looking bunch if I do say so myself.

The next day we met up with Will, Kristen, and Evie, and picked up Ned! And this, my friend, is the day when I finally got to meet my brother.

Last Week At Work...

I made a 72 page manual all about how to do my job! I just wanted to post about it because I am so proud of it and I worked really hard on it. One of my bosses was so impressed she wants me to help with some of the other work process documents. It even has tons of links throughout the document, so that when someone is reading it they can jump to other parts of the document if they have questions, a table of contents, pictures, and a FAQ section. Good luck to the new map specialist who gets to read this! Sucker.

A few screenshots of the first 3 pages:

July 4th and More

Our fourth went off with bang and turned into a fabulous day.  Julia worked all day on her last paper for American Heritage.  The theme of the paper was significant events and policies in American history which and how they directly impacted her family history.  Naturally, Julia earned an A on the paper...par for the course.

We made a killer salad with red onion, orange bell peppers, tomatoes, carrots, romain lettuce hearts, and  balsamic vinaigrette.  Then we met up with W & K Meservy and J & A Ankenman.  We had a lovely delicious time eating black bean burgers beneath a large tree.  And, we even talked about book clubs, graduate schools, babies, and politics.

In the evening we joined J & J Harding, W & K Meservy, and J & A Ankenman to watch the fireworks go off on a secret hill behind Y View which turned out to be not so secret.  J brought great mango and tropical otter-pops and played Beach Boys on his phone.  Everyone seemed to enjoy (they were the Stadium of Fire performers) except for Julia who says, "They stink and all their songs sound the same."

Thursday we got soaked in the rain while playing Bocce Ball with J & J Harding.  We walked to our closest large park and although I took an early lead Julia was triumphant.  There were plenty of laughs and then the rain came and we ran for it.  It's been a long time since I've been so drenched by a quick downpour like that.  Afterward, we got warmed up and then did some very needed laundry at the Harding home while we watched Star Wars episode I and had hot chocolate and more otter-pops.  We had them over for dinner before Bocce Ball (fancy hot dogs, corn-on-the-cob, and salad).

Friday was quiet.  We watched The Pebble and the Penguin and had a HUGE mango/ice cream snow cone (from Snack Shack USA by Smiths).

Saturday, we woke up went to SEVEN PEAKS!  We did almost all of the cool rides including the Boomerang and Julia, who is normally afraid of water rides, tried some of the scariest ones and LOVED them.  She was wanting more fun all day.  We left around 1PM and went to help W & K move.  We also got to take our niece out for a long walk which was SUPER fun.  She is adorable and then we watched The Secret of NIMH.  

  

Key Differences Between "RomneyCare" and "ObamaCare"

LINK
*Check out this link to what I believe is a good contrasting of the two side by side.

Newsflash

Joe and I are living the dream. We get to go to work together and spend time together after that at home. I know we will miss this time when Joe goes to law school at Gonzaga and suddenly becomes really busy. Because we spend so much time together we get to do great things like:

1. Have horrible dinner ideas like ramen and black beans - we do not recommend the combo of Japanese and Mexican food.
2. Have lots of fun FHE's with friends and family
3. Watch seasons 1-5 of Psych
4. Make fun of Robert Downey Jr.
5. Talk about going to the BYU Paleontology museum... we'll get there.
6. Discuss lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of politics.
7. Joe gave me a BIG trophy for "The Best Wifey Award"
8. Go out of town a lot.
9. Play games like MadLibs, Life, Scrabble, Checkers, etc.
10. Impersonate John Huntsman
11. Go to concerts
12. Pretend to know about sporting events

 Me and my trophy. We think we might leave it for one of our friends up here when we leave. The caption will be: "Best Home Teachee Award!"

And here are my Easter Eggs from Easter. I wish I had the one Joe did! He made Adam, so there was a face and a leaf. Loved it.

God Bless America

Dangers With Technology

"I'm not suggesting that we give up anything.  I don't think that we're going to give up these devices.  They are giving us this possibility--this fantasy--that we never have to be alone even for a moment.  And there is something very seductive about that, you know, it's something that we--you know, it feels good...but it's not good." -Sherry Turkle, Prof. at MIT and author of Alone Together, from a CNN interview (2012)

How often are we working on making new friends as opposed to reading on facebook or some social media platform what some person clear across the country is doing?  How will we care enough to excitedly ask that person when we see them what they are doing if we've already been reading it.

"We learn to do by doing."
“It is not so much what we know that is important, as what we are and what we do.” 
"Do it."
-Spencer W. Kimball, now deceased prophet and President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints