Graduation Day in Iowa

 Back into the car we go - this time to head to Iowa for Nedelle's graduation!  At least I had time to get the sand vaccumed out of the car!

The thought of driving another 11 hours was a little depressing but we put on our smiles and headed out early Saturday morning for the trip!  And the drive was good - long but good - and we stopped in Kearney for coffee at Scooters so I was happy!  Between both of us driving, we made pretty good time and got into Jim's about 5:00!

Yes, this time we were staying at brother Jim's brand new house!  They have only been in it about a month and it's at the end of the street down from Patty's so very close!  We first stopped at the park as their grandson turned 3 and was having a party there - we enjoyed dinner and cake before heading up to Jim's and seeing their beautiful new house!

Brenda fixed us breakfast and while the guys went out mushroom hunting for a little while (with no luck), we talked a mile a minute before getting ready!  Jim and Brenda were heading up to our aunt and uncle's place in Charter Oak for their 70th wedding anniversary - there was to be a family reunion first and then it was open to the public!  I hated to miss it but with the graduation at the same time, it couldn't be helped!

We headed over to Onawa for the graduation at the high school!

It was a nice ceremony and Nedelle wore cords for National Honor Society, 3.5 and above GPA through high school and a special club she was in!

We're so proud of her!  She'll be attending Wayne State in the fall.

Her mom threw her a wonderful graduation party with a Hawaiian theme!  We had fun looking at all of the pictures and enjoying the great food!  Saw lots of family too!

Back in Soldier, we ate dinner at Jim's along with Patty and Leonard - caught up on all the news!  And Monday the guys went out mushroom hunting AGAIN and I walked down to Patty's and had coffee with her!  Then we headed back to Onawa to have lunch with Nedelle, Geri and Carl!  We spent the afternoon at Geri's house laughing of course (she's a hoot to be around) and then headed to Neal's house for dinner!

Poor Maggie fractured her foot at school that day so she was on crutches!  A nice evening with them and then it was back to Soldier for the night!  We headed out early Monday morning for the long drive home!  Yes, I am READY to just stay home for a while!

Mothers Day

 Saturday morning, we headed up to Ft. Collins from Denver - it was great to see the Savages' and we were just in time to get in the car to head to Parker's last flag football game!  It was a beautiful day out and we enjoyed sitting in the sun watching him play!  And yes, Penny comes along!

Parker's team played great and WON!  Once again they were undefeated this year, as they have been the past 2 years also!  It's fun to see how much Parker has improved - he's quite the player!

Afterward they had their awards banquet with refreshments!

We played cards that afternoon and just enjoyed being together!  Robby cooked some awesome ribs for dinner and Jill did some sides - I think we all ate TOO much and I was almost miserable from eating dinner and the rise krispie bars that I requested!

Sunday was Mother's Day - Aleah had a special gift for her mom and me - so sweet!

And my 3 wonderful daughters once again printed out my 2021 Blog Rollin' With The Flow!  I SO enjoy this gift every single year and look forward to receiving it!

Jill, Aleah and I hopped in the van to get coffee for me at Human Bean and a frappe at Starbucks for Aleah - and I guess Jill got hot chocolate too!  We headed to CSU for a nice walk that I always enjoy!  Some of the trees are in bloom which were beautiful!

But the BEST was the lilac tree behind the Occupational Building which was in full bloom - of course I had to pick a couple to walk around with!  But these trees were gorgeous too!

I always love this walkway of trees, even though they weren't really filled out!  Nonetheless we enjoyed the walk and seeing a few graduates having pictures taken!

After a quick lunch back home, we loaded up again with Parker and I took them for ice cream at tcby - they even had free ounces for moms!!  COOL!

It was a wonderful time in Ft. Collins but we left late afternoon to get back home since we'd only been back 4 days from Mexico before we headed north - time to start in on a few things back home!

North Bound

 After not seeing the kids for 3 months, we were both excited to see everyone!  Jaime's came over for coffee and cinnamon rolls one morning and we spent a LONG time catching up!

And even though we had only been home for 4 1/2 days, we headed out on Thursday morning for Denver - Evan had a track meet that afternoon and we were glad we were able to be there!  It was fun to walk into Jessi's house and see the beautiful floor that her and Gary had put down - wow did it change the looks of their house!  BEAUTIFUL!!

It wasn't long before it was time to pick up Gwyn at school so Jessi and I walked to the school and boy was I glad to hug that little girl - only she's growing like a weed so not so little anymore at all!  She talked a mile a minute all the way home!

We packed a picnic dinner and soon headed to the track meet which was about 45 minutes away!  Evan looked like a star in his outfit and sunglasses!

It was a beautiful day out - but we started in t-shirts (I had to borrow one as was so focused on bringing warm clothes for the evening that I forgot to pack t-shirts!) and that evening had on 3 layers!  Boy when that sun goes down it still gets downright cold!

It was fun seeing Evan run - he ran the 4x800 relay and they WON!  Impressive!  And he ran fantastic!  But after running he came over and said his foot was hurting.  And by the time his next event came around, we could tell as soon as he started running that he was hurting!  He was able to finish but of course was disappointed that he didn't run well due to the injury - the coach said probably a stress fracture in his foot!  It was a great time at the track meet!

Friday Jessi and Gary both worked and Evan was in school but the 2 girls had it off!  Luckily Jessi had saved time in the morning for us to have COFFEE!  Hooray - always a bright spot in the day!  She headed to work afterwards and I drove back to her house and gathered everyone and we went to the park to play!

Kenzie and Papa had fun hitting the volleyball and I watched Gwyn play on the jungle gym bars and swings!

Since Kenzie loves sushi, we went to King Soopers and we all picked out sushi and sashimi to eat for lunch!  Gwyn picked out strawberries but loved the sushi too!

Jessi fixed one of my favorite meals for dinner - crab linguine!  It's actually called spicy chicken linguine but a lot of times we substitute crab for the chicken - it was delicious!  Then it was off to Evan's jazz concert!

The concert was amazing - Evan plays saxaphone in jazz band #1 and next year will move up to jazz band #2!  They played some excellent music that night!

We headed to Dairy Queen after the concert for ice cream - yum!!  The line was long but it was worth it!  After breakfast, we headed out early for Ft. Collins for the 2nd 1/2 of our mini journey!

THIS FINALLY HAPPENED!

 It was a LONG, STRESSFUL haul for Jaime as she worked at the Fountain Safeway as pharmacy manager.  The pharmacy is one of the busiest in the state and when she took over, it was a mess!  But over the years, she has turned it into an extremely profitable place and the managers were thrilled with her!

When an opening finally happened in Woodland Park a couple of years ago, they passed her over, wanting to keep her where she was doing such a great job!  All of us were SO disappointed as the stress level was extremely high AND it was an hour to work each way!

But after lots of prayers over the last 2 years (and many hours of talking through how bad it was to try to do the hundreds of prescriptions a day along with giving COVID shots and flu shots), one of the pharmacists in Woodland Park retired and the job was Jaime's!!!!  HALLELUJAH!!!

This transfer happened while we were in Mexico so I couldn't wait to get home and walk into the W. Pk Safeway pharmacy and see Jaime working there!!!  I just couldn't stop smiling!

What fun it will now be when I go to town and shop and find her working!  

Good-Bye Baja

 The last couple of weeks of life in Baja were nice and slow!  Some of our friends left - and the ones that were there had several get togethers!  I enjoyed a lot of swimming and Glenn did his best at fishing, even though there wasn't a lot to catch since it was transition time in the sea from cooler water to warmer water!  The weather was NICE!  In fact, it was pretty darn warm a couple of the days and the overhead fans were on all the time1

We bought some great shrimp and not only had some done up inside one night but also kebabs on the grill - yummy!

Packing up to go home is always a little sad - but this year I was more than ready to head home!  There's always plenty to do the last couple of days to get ready and we enjoyed one last meal with our good friends before we headed out the next morning!

One last picture of the beautiful sky as we left at 6:00am!

And one last look at that gorgeous ocean!

Unfortunately we hit rush hour in LaPaz so it took a while to get through there but then we were on a roll all the way to San Ignacio!  We stayed at the yurts once again - always so peaceful there!

When I went to book a couple weeks ago, there was only 1 yurt left!  It was one we had never stayed in before since it had 3 queen beds in it but it was sure roomy!  We had a great meal that evening and enjoyed visiting with the owners!  Breakfast is always good and we said our goodbyes and headed out!

Glenn had decided he wanted to stay in Mexicali this year and not cross the border till early in the morning - that was a mistake!  We made great time and found the hotel - it was in the middle of a crazy busy part of town with lots of traffic!  But the hotel was nice and clean but pretty bare bones inside!  Luckily we could walk to a restaurant so we didn't have to get back in the car!

We headed out at 6am since we were only 5 minutes from the border but I guess everybody else had the same idea!!  We sat in line for 1 1/2 hours before we could get through - so we won't be doing that next year!  

It's always a great feeling to be back in the USA!  We were surprised at the high gas prices when we stopped for breakfast and gas in Yuma!  And then it was onto Albuquerque for the night, which was full of smoke from the fires! We drove by the fire the next morning and it still continues to burn!

6 hours later we pulled into home!  And a big smile covered our faces as we were finally home!