Category: Richard’s projects

Digger

Ah, home ownership. When the stop-and-waste valve broke this month, Richard shopped around for someone to replace it. The estimates were so high that he decided to dig the hole himself and just ask a company to replace the valve and not excavate. This saved us a lot of money.

Richard is really good at finding solutions like this, and this is one of the reasons the kids and I have lived a comfortable life.

Jackson, WY and Grand Teton National Park

I’ve decided to post photos from our trip in portions over the next few days because this seems to be the best way to honor the great planning that Richard did for this trip. Our days were full and we slept soundly every night.

The first leg of our trip was through Jackson, Wyoming and Grand Teton National Park. We began our audiobook of the trip, The Fellowship of the Ring, read by Rob Inglis. It was a great backdrop for our adventures in the hills and mountains. We tried different narrators, but he was our favorite.

We left on Sunday after church and enjoyed a picnic dinner in a mountain campground before continuing our drive to Jackson. We loved driving through the beautiful Star Valley as the sun set over the very green fields in this open valley. The Star Valley Temple was right on the main road through town.

On Monday morning, we drove into Grand Teton National Park. We couldn’t stop for everything, but we tried to locate the most interesting places.

One of our early stops was a group of pioneer houses called “Mormon Row.”

This view of the Snake River and The Grand Tetons was made famous by Ansel Adams, and it seemed to be Mark’s favorite view at the park.

In the line of the Teton Mountains, Mount Moran seemed the least of them until we drove a little closer and discovered how beautiful its reflection was on the water.

During the afternoon, the men went on a white water rafting trip. I rested in the hotel room because I am exciting like that.

In the evening, we went on a wagon ride to a chuckwagon dinner just outside of Jackson. The wagons were pulled by draft horses and we chatted with people in our wagon from Huntsville, Alabama and San Francisco, California. There was a live band with a fiddler and guitars for entertainment at dinner. I think the favorite parts of dinner were the beans and the cookies.

The boys shopped for shirts, hats, and candy in town.

This was a great first day of vacation.

New York City

I had never been to New York City, so Richard took me there this week. We stayed in an Airbnb not far from Times Square, but definitely on a quiet street. We could walk to our shows in about five minutes.

Vacations and major family events are tough to condense into blog posts. Trips planned by Richard are usually so full that it’s impossible to cover everything, and this trip was just the two of us, so it also feels more personal.

Still, I know that Paige will probably like to see her old stomping grounds, and the future me will like this place marker in time showing some of our adventures together, so here goes.

A bike ride through Central Park
Museum of Modern Art
Show #1
Manhattan Temple
The Starry Night was at the Met for a special exhibit.
We saw a lot of beautiful art, but this was one of my favorites, also by Van Gogh.
I cannot capture all we saw in the nearly 5 hours we spent at the Met.
Show #2. Delightful.
9/11 Memorial and Museum: Somber, heavy, dark, important.
Beautiful view at lunch in lower Manhattan
Brooklyn Bridge
Staten Island Ferry at night

Trip Stats, according to Google maps:

  • 12 miles of walking
  • 59 miles of driving
  • 6 miles of cycling
  • 13 miles on the train
  • 4,019 miles by plane
  • 11 miles on a ferry
  • 11 hours of culture
  • 8 hours in airports
  • 5 hours at parks

Moab Trip

The Ross family tour bus departed on Memorial Day, just as most people packed up their RV’s to come home. We passed masses of traffic traveling home in the other direction, and discovered that the places we visited near Moab were not crowded. Richard made excellent plans and accommodations for us. He is so good at this.

After such a wet winter, the landscape was more green than we can remember. There were so many wildflowers, that whole fields were dusted in color, mostly orange, but many other colors, too.

Do you spy Paige and Michael, and Daniel and McKenna traveling with us? Lucky us! My brother Joe shared his van with us so we could all ride together.

This disaster is actually a tender mercy.

Richard awoke at 3:30 am on Saturday and had an impression that he should check the furnace room. He found the beginnings of a flood in this basement area, and bleary-eyed, we cleared out the wet boxes and vacuumed up excess water on the floor through the early hours of the morning. We were able to discover the leak was from the water heater. There was minimal damage, and the carpets are fine.

We were disappointed, as we had plans to go to Susanna’s wedding reception on Saturday, which we had to miss. We were also without hot water for a couple of days.

The thing that we will remember is that we were so completely cared for by the Lord.

He inspired Richard to wake up so he could protect our home. The flood began before we were scheduled to be away from the house. Mark was home on Saturday and could help Richard move out the old water heater and bring inside the new one. Richard had tools, knowledge, skill, and some helpful insights from others so he could install the water heater himself, long before any plumber could come.

I don’t know why we were spared the trial of a fully flooded basement, but I know who spared us.

Snow pictures

Wednesday morning from the front door.
Richard in front of our snow mountain
The flag of Palau with a snowy backdrop

We had quite a storm this week. The last 3 pictures were taken a day after the nonsense, so the snow has had a chance to compact and melt a bit. We are thankful for the snow and for a high clearance 4-wheel drive vehicle.