A busy week in June

This has been a FULL week!  It started off on Monday with a visit from Steven and Tamara.  They drove to Phoenix from San Diego that morning and we met for lunch in Tempe at a Costa Vida restaurant. (our mission president is CEO of most of these restaurants - although I don't think he owns the Tempe one).  My sister, Juli, also drove down from Payson to join us and we had a lovely afternoon eating and chatting.  We actually moved the party over to Mesa at Amy and Cory's place because the restaurant got uncomfortable (chairs, AC too high, etc).   We parted ways around 5:00 as Steven and Tamara went to her sister's house in Chandler.


Tuesday morning, just Steven met us at the mission office and we spent the day together.  (Tamara had activities planned with her two sisters that live here).  We had lunch at Dara Thai, a really nice and reasonably priced restaurant in Anthem and my brother, Jim, joined us.  Then, we took Steven to.....yes, you guessed it.....Cave Creek and the Rare Earth Gallery in their brand new remodeled facilities.

We enjoyed delicious ice cream at the City Creamery just down the street.

And then we went back to Anthem to visit until Steven had to leave to return his rental car and board an airplane.  Tamara is staying here an extra week.

On Wednesday, it was back regular business at the mission office where we welcomed twelve new missionaries to the Arizona Phoenix Mission.

Thursday, we enlisted the help of two of our "seasoned" sister missionaries, Berry and Brown, to help us pick up three more brand new Toyota Tacoma trucks.  They were pretty excited to be part of this adventure.  We had Sister Poulson drive us to the dealership and then we each drove a truck back (Steve, me, the sisters)  That is me, Sister Berry, and Sister Katie Brown below

On Saturday, Steve and I attended a Gluten-Free Fair in Glendale.  We wandered from booth to booth tasting and collecting free samples and coupons.  We easily recouped the $24 dollars I spent for our tickets.  

One booth required us to have our picture taken in order to get our box of spaghetti -

 American Gothic, gluten-free style

Progress is finally being made in the seminary classroom.  Workers have arrived at 6:00 am all week to frame and install sheet rock.  

We inadvertently discovered that not all Wal-Marts are equal here in the valley.  We had to return to the mission office Wednesday evening and decided to just do our grocery shopping down there and, lo and behold, eggs, milk and produce are significantly cheaper at the Glendale Wal-Mart!  I guess the Anthem one can raise their prices because they don't have much competition up in the far north.  So, we are changing our shopping routine accordingly....

We watched again the movie "42" on Friday night.  It was good a second time.  

What have we been up to these first two weeks in June?  Well, I have been craving old fashioned buttermilk donuts (ever since national donut day) so I tried my hand at a gluten-free version on Saturday.  They tasted good but I confess, it has been almost 20 years since I tasted a "real" one, so I really can't remember the taste well enough to compare.  

With the summer heat, our Saturday adventures have to be indoors as much as possible.  There is a Living Spaces furniture store right next to the mission office.  We drive by a Potato Barn furniture store every time we go to Mesa.  And, ever since I picked out the couch and love seat for the house we are living in, I have wanted to take Steve to America Furniture Warehouse.  So, on Saturdays, June 2, 9, and 16th, we visited one of the three.  Here is my report:

June 2nd - Living Spaces - nice selection of furniture -  90% of which we would be happy to have in our house, decent prices, low-key sales people
June 9 - Potato Barn - extremely expensive furniture - 90% of which we would NEVER have in our house.  Everything was BIG - meant to be put in huge houses.  It was in the shabby chic style but even shabbier that what I could stand.
June 16th - America Furniture Warehouse - HUGE selection of furniture - 90% of which we would be happy to have in our house, great prices, semi-low key sales people.  I wish they had one of these in St. Louis because I would love to buy from them.  Ultimately, we want a sectional living room set, a recliner for Steve, and one of those huge, over-sized chairs with ottoman for me.  We also need new dining room chairs. 

Last Saturday, Steve and I met my sister Juli at the Gilbert Temple where we had lunch at Smashburger, did a temple session, went to Milano Music in downtown Mesa, and then we visited our sister, Jerri. 



Steve and I did baptisms at the Phoenix Temple this past Friday.  We went to see Incredibles 2 last night.  We LOVED it.  Plus, we loved the Pixar short that was shown before the main movie. 

In the mission office:  I got to help serve the lunch at the Mission Leadership Council last Tuesday and got a free meal out of it.  Steve has been processing a bunch of new vehicles and decommissioning the same number of old vehicles. Over the past three weeks, I got to drive a couple of brand new Corollas and a Tacoma off the lot and to the office. 

During slow days, I have worked on TWO Young family reunion plans.  The first one is in November for all the posterity of my grandparents - John and Belinda Young.  The second one is next June and will be for all the posterity of my parents - Ike and Florin.  I am soliciting fun children's activity ideas.

I played cello in church two Sundays ago with the Carlyle family.  Mom played piano, two of the children sang and I played the obligato.  It was a nice arrangement.

Progress with the seminary classroom remodeling is going quite slowly.  In the past two weeks, it only looked like we had workers about three or four days.  Not sure what the hold-up is but I DO know that the wall they knocked out has some load-bearing studs still in place and just recently, we have seen some steel poles laying on the floor ready to be installed. 

Last week of May - start of June

Our short work-week was full of events.....

Elder and Sister Parker finished their mission on Thursday.  They had a cake brought in on Wednesday and we had a little breakfast on Thursday.  We will miss them.

(l-r standing) President Collins, Sister Collins, Sister Brown, Elder Brown, Sister Poulson, Elder Wall, Brother Poulson, Steve, me  (l-r sitting) Sister Parker, Elder Parker

On Wednesday, Steve and I took Elders Frye and Morrill (our bike repair person) to Chino Bandito's for lunch.  It is a Mexican/Chinese restaurant and it was surprisingly delicious.  And I had enough leftovers for two more lunches!   

this is the restaurant's mascot...

The mission is currently receiving a hand-full of new vehicles to replace some of the higher mileage ones in the field.  I helped Steve drive new cars to the mission office twice last week.  This was the motto on the wall of one of the dealerships.  I liked it...

Remodeling the seminary area has begun.  This is the garage and living room as of now.  Ultimately, it will be one large classroom.  

I finally finished my second, and last, rosemaling project.  On Saturday, I painted it with some varnish and put it to use.  I keep my recipe boxes inside.  Notice the cute ceramic dish by the side.  Kirsti gave it to me for Mother's Day.  It is a hand thrown juicer.  Sadly, the strap to the gift bag failed and it was dropped, breaking it.  Thankfully, it only broke into a couple of pieces and I was able to glue it back together.  Only, I dare not use it to juice.  It will hold candy instead.

I will close with a photo of the Phoenix temple as we pulled up on Friday evening.

Adventure over Memorial Day weekend - Monday

Monday morning, we checked out of our motel in Springerville, stopped at a grocery store to buy lunch and flowers, and we returned to the St. Johns cemetery to place flowers on Armus Arba's grave.

Next, we continued to retrace our steps back up towards I-40 and to the Petrified Forest National Park.  

This is hard to see but those light markings at the base of the rock are actually petroglyphs.  We were not allowed to get very close to them 

South of I-40 is the Petrified Forest. Connected to, but north of I-40, is the Painted Desert.

We could have taken hikes to further explore these places but we are not much for hiking these days plus it was hot and windy.  So, we just checked out visitors centers and made a driving tour and then made the long drive back to Anthem that afternoon.  We got home in time to have a nap, eat dinner, and watch a rented movie "Darkest Hour" about Winston Churchill.  VERY good movie.  And, a VERY good weekend!

Adventure over Memorial Day weekend - Sunday

Sunday morning, we checked out of our Holbrook motel and drove southeast for about an hour to the little town of St. Johns to attend church in a meetinghouse built in the 30's. 

 This little berg has significance for the Lambson family because the families of Steve's great-grandparents settled there.  Two of their children, Armus Arba Lambson and Rose Stradling, married and started their married life in St. Johns.  Paulos Byron, Steve's grandfather, was one of their sons.  Sadly, Rose died in childbirth and Armus Arba was killed soon after - rumor has it he was either a gunslinger or horse thief.  Their children were shipped up to Provo, Utah to live with Rose's sister Mary and her husband George.  And Paulos Byron, as far as we know, never returned to visit family in St. Johns again.  He grew up in Provo, married, and lost his wife at a young age and their three young children were also raised by Mary and George because Paulos abandoned his family in grief.  Steve's dad, Virgil George, was now two generations separated from family in St. Johns.  By the time Steve and his siblings came along, St. Johns was just a vague place in Lambson lore and whenever anyone would ask "are you related to such-and-such Lambson from (fill in the blank)?", Steve would simply have to answer "maybe".  

From an earlier blog, you already know how he met Neal Lambson - a third cousin.  Well, at church on Sunday, we met Neal's older brother, Delbert.  And HE, even more than Neal, looks like Steve.  He looks like Virgil George and Paulos Byron.  

After meetings, we visited the St. Johns cemetery and drove all around looking at tombstones for Lambsons and Stradlings.  We found mostly Stradlings.  Then, as we were preparing to leave, we happened upon a small ramada sheltering a cemetary directory!  AND, we found where Armus Arba was buried!  The headstone is not elevated so no wonder we couldn't find it driving around....and it is clearly newer than 1903.

We then drove about thirty miles south of St. Johns to check into our hotel in Springerville and to have dinner and spent the rest of the evening with Beverly and Chuck Martin in Eager which is right next to Springerville.

Beverly is MY relative - our great-grandparents were cousins - whom I found via Family Search a couple of years ago.   She was adopted by a Latter-day Saint family but her maternal aunt kept in touch with her to let her know her Fraedrich heritage.  Beverly and Chuck are amazing folks.  He was a mission president in the Ivory Coast in the nineties.  We had a great time with them and we will visit again after our mission to work on family history together.

Adventure over Memorial Day weekend - Saturday

We started our northeast Arizona adventures by driving up to Holbrook Friday night.   Our motel was on a newer business loop and it was only when we went to a grocery store Saturday morning to buy lunch fixings on the old Route 66 road through town that we found.......the Wig Wam Motel.  I wish we had known about this cute motel beforehand because we would have stayed there! 

Our destination for the day was Monument Valley - waaaaay up on the Utah - Arizona border.  But, along the way, we visited the Hubble Trading Post - a historic landmark found in Navajo country.  

Mr. Hubble started his trading post among the Navajo after their "Long Walk" - when they were expelled from their original lands and made to locate where the U.S. government wanted them to live.  In the middle of NOWHERE!  Mr. Hubble encouraged them to develop their jewelry and rug making.  The store featured these items.  Beautiful work and VERY EXPENSIVE!  I could only afford to take a photos.

Our next stop along the way to Monument Valley was Canyon de Chelly (pronounced Shay).  In retrospect, I honestly don't really see the appeal.  It is a large canyon in the middle of flat nothing.  Native Americans have lived there for centuries because there are ruins.  But, to visit the floor of the canyon, you have to have a Native American guide take you for a pretty hefty fee.  The other option is to drive the rim and stop at specified lookouts - which is what Steve and I did.

 

You can see that there is farming down there.  

Next stop - Monument Valley.  That took SO long to get there.  Continuing with vistas of flat nothing with an occasional rock mountain cropping up from the barren desert floor - a prelude to Monument Valley.  And, scattered among all this nothing are isolated Native American homes and occasional small towns.  

After driving forever, we finally arrived at Monument Valley.  We had hoped to check out the visitor's center but, unlike Hubble Trading Post and Canyon de Chelly, there was a $20 fee and a line of about 15 cars.  We were pretty road weary by this time so we got out, took some photos of what we could already see, and made a U-turn out of the line and drove the long trek back to Holbrook.

It was quite windy with lots of dust kicking up so the photos are not very clear but, I was able to catch sight of what I really wanted to see in Monument Valley......

What?  Can't tell what I am looking at?

Here is a close-up of......the Mittens.