Aaron's Alaska trip (again)

 This year 2 new friends came to Alaska with Aaron and Jay. 

Bryan and Mark were excited to go and took many pictures during the week.

On the way to the Russian River the boys stopped at the Portage Glacier.

Sunday evening on the Russian River. No fishing, just sightseeing.

Mark's first fish on the trip.

Aaron hooks a king salmon on the Russian.

Bryan's first fish on the trip.

Aaron CATCHES a king on the Russian.
First time he has ever caught a king on the Russian.

Jay and Aaron were watching this bear for 45 minutes.

Nice catch on the Russian.

They always stop at the temple.

Jay catches a grayling.

Aaron catching kings on the Klutina.

The boys all had a fabulous time!!!

Road trip to Omaha!

We arrived home from Utah late on a Thursday night. By Friday afternoon 

we were out the door again and driving the 20 hours to Omaha, Nebraska!

Friday night we stopped at a hotel just north of Chattanooga, TN and then 

Saturday we stopped to see Nashville.

entering the city of Nashville, TN 

We had no idea that Nashville has its own Parthenon!

We visited the Country Music Hall of Fame

Not gonna lie...all the party buses around town put a bad taste in my mouth for the city. 

We stopped for the night in Independence, MO and in the morning we drove by some church sites.
This is the Independence visitor center for the church.

The Community of Christ church (above) broke off from the church in 1844.

This piece of land (here and below) is not owned by the church but it will be some day and is prophesied that there will be a temple built here before the coming of Christ.

This property is currently owned by the Church of Christ Temple Lot.

snuggle time with Papa

looks like Papa took some kids to the gas station

before

afters :)

We kept busy this week helping Ashtyn get settled into her new home.

Leaving Omaha. Oh look...Corn! What a surprise :)

We made a quick stop to this church historical site. It was closed when passing through before but I really wanted to go inside to learn more about the time that Joseph Smith spent a very cold winter in Liberty Jail. Many important revelations were received during this difficult time in his life.

A replica of what it might have looked like.

These windows could never be closed and they were facing north and south
(both sides of the building) which means Joseph and those that were with him could
never close the draft nor ever get sun rays inside the jail.

We spotted this store on the way home, going through Tennessee, and we could not resist.

It was a busy week! So glad to be home safe.

Taking Jaxon to Utah/ MTC

Jaxon had a full week of home MTC and then on Sunday we flew to Utah. He still had until Monday at noon to finish home MTC so we worked around his schedule. We didn't want to fly on Tuesday because then Aaron would have to miss work calls. 

After landing, we drove to Bountiful to have dinner at Dad and Dalynn's house.
Grandma was able to come and visit with us too.

On Monday afternoon (after home MTC was finished) we visited the aquarium in Draper. It was nice to walk around and we met this family from Lake City Florida! To make the story even funnier, we saw their son about 15 minutes later but this time he was with (his uncle) Ryan Naylor who we knew in Temecula. Come to find out his wife Rebekah was also there and so I was able to say hello to her too!

We met up with Dave and Kristi for dinner at Cubby's in Lehi.

Melynn found this nice little hike for us to go on Tuesday morning up Little Cottonwood Canyon.

Later then we met up with the Bedell's to see their new home and go to lunch. When Keegan came downstairs he yelled out, "Elder Kendrick, thou art the man!" It was hilarious :)

Tuesday night we met up with these folks for dinner at Larena's

Wednesday morning the kids and I found a place to get something to eat close to the hotel. The morning was not as smooth as I would have liked. I will copy my Facebook post down below to explain my frustrations. I was so upset on Wednesday night that all I could think to do was get on Missionary Mommas Facebook page and vent. It ended up being the best medicine for me with all of the encouraging and supportive comments that I received.

Here is the post...

Yesterday’s MTC drop off was an epic fail! Hoping this post will either cause you to have a good laugh or help you learn from my mistakes

First, the back story- I was driving the car because my husband was on an “important work call” (um i should have just left him at the hotel), I had my two adult daughters in the back seat (one who is suffering from morning sickness) and then my elder who decides that that would be a good time to start to feel sick...he is currently taking an acid reducer because he has been known from time to time to have these nauseas episodes (If he was truly sick we would not have been dropping him off).

So here I am praying my guts out for my son while I am entering the MTC gate. The overly nice people welcome us there and we are instructed to drive through.....So as I am driving along, all of a sudden from the corner of my eye, A woman is violently shaking her hands out at me which startles me (only to find out she is just yelling “welcome to the MTC”). Good thing she didn’t cause me to have an accident!

We make it to the underground parking area. The cars ahead of me are instructed to turn a left down one row but they instruct me to move ahead and go down the next row (so i am the first car and no one is in front of me to have me follow). Not far after turning left to the “new row” I see a set of two orange cones ahead blocking my row but an opportunity to turn another corner so that is what i did. Well, this caused for some people to start yelling at me and I cant figure out what anyone is saying and my kids are telling me to go back and I am frustrated because its dark and I cant understand what i possibly did wrong.

A man approaches my window to say that I needed to go through the cones. At that point I said “Well then why on earth did you put two cones there to indicate it was blocked?” Now my kids are saying under their breaths but just loud enough for me to hear “mom, just don’t!” In other words..”oh boy, here it comes, mom is going to embarrass us”.

So I reverse the car a bit and go through the cones which now there is a back up of cars behind me. I pull all the way forward and now am pressured to hurry up even more so because of my mistake (I claim that it actually was their mistake) but anyhoo...We all get out of the car and I am frustrated but super sad as I hug my son for the very last time. At this same time this nice “week old” elder approaches us to help with my sons bags right when my son steps away because he is a bit nauseas (which now i think was anxiety). This elder is probably thinking “what on earth is wrong with this family!”

Everyone is yelling at me to get back in the car and drive away but I just want to park it, go talk to my son, and evaluate what is really going on with him before i drive off....Seriously, can everyone just take a chill pill!

My husband at this point takes the driver seat (oh good, he is off the phone!) and we drive off while I look back and see that the “week old” elder is pushing all 3 pieces of my sons luggage while he just walks along side of him. (I will have a chat with my son about that later)

I hope that soon I can laugh about all of this but right now I am not.

and I emailed my son a few hours later and asked him how he was feeling. I got a 3 word response....I’m feeling better.

I will have to get used to short emails for the next 2 years I guess.

You can see how stiff Jaxon is here, partly because he is holding his water bottle but I also think he was a bit nervous about getting sick and perhaps anxiety.

Jaxon ended up having a great time that week and I am so glad that he could go.

He is now in the mission field and I get updates from him weekly. He is so happy!