Pressing Pause

 

After a nearly four month absence, I thought I'd just post a quick update.  2025 has been a busy year with many trips to Tennessee.  We're focusing on family and I'm not focusing on blogging.  There are days when I think about writing, but the urge goes away pretty quickly, so for now I'm pressing pause on blogging.

 

 

I won't be deleting my blog, there are too many things here that I look at, especially recipes! I have enjoyed blogging about family, friends, and trips.  My study of women of the Bible is one of my favorite things.

 

 

The pictures here are from a little getaway we took to Fall Creek Falls State Park in Tennessee.  We celebrated our 34th anniversary there at the end of May.

Aloha for now!

Friday Foto Dump

As usual, September went by in a blur.  I posted about our niece, Leksi, visiting us over Labor Day, but didn't post any pictures of her!  We went for a hike on Labor Day:

We had an earthquake on September 12th!  We definitely felt it at our house!

 

In between days of extreme heat, it felt like Fall for a few days.  The leaves are starting to change and fall:

We tried a new coffee creamer, Southern Butter Pecan, that had a special message.  If you can't read it, it says, "This Southern Butter Pecan creamer is just delicious.  Bless Its Heart!"

I got some new trail shoes.  They will never be this clean again!

I've already taken them on two different runs.  One was cool and cloudy:

 

The other was just as the sun was coming up:

Leksi was back for another visit last weekend.  God really touched her at church on Sunday.

We then met up with Brian and Barb Abernathy (Les's cousin and her husband) who were in Long Beach.  It was wonderful catching up over lunch!

From Long Beach, we drove to Anaheim to drop Leksi off at the Amtrak station.  We had just enough time to go to Holy Roly.  I had never heard of rolled ice cream before.  They use a special freezing technique, mixing the cream on a freezing pan.  It was so good!

This week feels like a blur as we are preparing to go to the Philippines!  We got a message late Wednesday night that there had been changes to our flight from LAX to Manila, but with the help of Sister White here at home and Sister Aida in the Philippines, we got it all straightened out.  Pray for us as we travel on Sunday.

 

I enjoyed a run this morning.  The actual running wasn't great, my legs felt dead.  But the sunrise was definitely worth getting out the door to see!

What Happened to May and June?

It seems like at least once a year I take a break from blogging.  It's never planned, I just get busy with enjoying life and don't write about it!  I still have a draft post about our trip to the San Diego Zoo for my birthday, maybe I'll get it posted this week or maybe not!  I don't get paid to blog, so when I lack motivation, I just let it go.

 

Let me try to catch up!  We didn't do much in May.  Les had one trip for work.  We celebrated our 33rd anniversary on May 25th.  We took Amtrak to Santa Barbara and enjoyed a lovely day, with very few pictures.

I found these cute mugs on Amazon and they were the perfect anniversary gift!

Our church celebrated Sis. White's 70th birthday on May 26th.  We love her so much!

Elder Tom Johnson made her a special guitar.  Now we're all waiting to hear her play it!

Early June saw wonderful running weather with lots of cool mornings.

I don't mind seeing snakes, as long as they're dead like this one!

We spent 10 days in Tennessee in June.  Our plan was to be there for Father's Day.  When we found out Les' sister, Lisa, and her family were going to Utah for vacation, we decided to stay a little longer.  Pops is still very independent, but it gives our family peace of mind to have someone close by.  We enjoyed Lisa's home, including early mornings on the back porch.

We visited the cemetery.  This was the first time we had seen Dolly's marker.

Father's Day at church:

And lunch at Crawdaddy's afterwards!

We both enjoyed riding in the Tennessee hills.  It is tough, though!  The hills aren't super steep, but they never stop.  The heat and humidity were both high as well.

I also did some running.  At the end of the Wearing's street is quite a collection of farm animals.  As soon as the goats see me, they come running!

The ponies also decided to come meet me!

While we were in Tennessee, we filled our social calendar.  On Monday night Les had dinner with a friend he has known since elementary school.  On Tuesday, our dear friends, Doug and Lori Long, came and spent the day with us.  You know you're having the best time when you don't take a single picture together!  We never run out of things to talk about!  Lance came down from Indiana and on Thursday, cousin Jonathan came over!

We came home to more heat, but that's what air conditioning and our swimming pool are for.  Next up - Fourth of July - I'll be making homemade ice cream and we've got ribs to throw on the grill.

The End of an Era

Les and I spent last week in Hawaii.  This time we cleared out everything we had on the island due to major changes with Les' employer.  In January the company was acquired, so Les has a new employer.  It has been great for him so far - he's busier than ever, but really enjoying his work.  

 

 

One of the policies the new company implemented was they would no longer pay for parking at the Hawaii office for employees that aren't in the office at least three days a week.  That meant we needed to get our car out.

Prior to COVID, we spent about 25-30% of our time in Hawaii.  That obviously dropped off during 2020 and 2021.  We thought it would pick up again, but we only made one trip to the island in 2022 and only one trip in 2023.  During each of those trips, we have thinned down the things we had over there, but we still had a lot!

The thought of trying to sell our car via Craigslist was not at all appealing.  We decided we would donate it to charity.  I spent the first couple days of our trip calling various organizations with little success.  The numbers were national call centers and they couldn't get a pickup scheduled in just a few days time.  I finally had success with Wheels for Wishes (part of the Make a Wish Foundation.)  But at Bible study on Tuesday night, as Les was giving Pastor McGriffin an update on our situation, he told us of a young man who had recently started coming to church and was in need of a car.  We were happy to give it to him instead and set up a time for Thursday evening.

 

I took some things to Goodwill while I still had the car, but by the end of the week we were down to what would fit in our suitcases.  One bag was about 38 pounds, but the other squeaked under the 50 pound limit at 49.7!

One of the pairs of shoes that I hadn't planned to bring home were sandals I had been wearing to church for more than a decade.  When I put them on Tuesday night, they felt "off."  Sitting in Bible study, I noticed the reason...

It wasn't all work while we were there - I enjoyed some great running and Les was able to get in a few bike rides.  We enjoyed some amazing food and especially enjoyed Bible study on Tuesday night.  We will be back from time to time, but not for the long trips like in the past or as frequently.  Hawaii will always have a part of our hearts.