Spring Break 2014-Part 1

(Due to time and amount of info and pictures, this post will be broken up into 2 parts.)

It's been years since I've gone anywhere for spring break. When I returned to school a few years ago my break was all about working as many hours as I could. Since we had about 12 days off work, we decided to make the most of it. Without really trying, we filled our days off to the brim and had a great time.

First was a trip to Virginia Beach. Neither of us had been there but I'd heard good things from my family so I was really looking forward to it.

Dan and I trade off driving so the other can rest. I shut my eyes for a nap and woke up to our gps saying, "Turn around when possible." Uh-oh, Dan was busted. here we are, a few hours from home, and he decides to not pay attention to the gps. Not really a big deal except he wasn't using a map either. He knew we needed to get onto Delaware Highway-1 and saw Highway-1 signs for another state thinking that they would be the same. We learned that isn't the case. It wasn't too bad but funny since he gets after me for not listening to the gps when we're in places I know and he decides to ignore it when we're going somewhere new.

We selected a longer drive down to Virginia Beach to see more of the country than we would otherwise see. The drive even included time on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. Not having any idea what to expect, we headed south and drove through some amazing countryside. The bay bridge-tunnel goes over the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland and is just what it's called, part bridge and part tunnel.

Photo from here.

 We arrived there at night and it was a bit unnerving to drive across the bridge knowing we were surrounded by nothing but water. I don't think I breathed until we were safely on the other side of the Bay.

On the bridge section.

About to enter a tunnel section.

That's a tunnel section of the bridge from the beach side.

Glad we experienced that but not sure I'll worry about doing it again in the future.

We stayed at a great hotel a few miles from the beach, The Founder's Inn and Spa. Even though it didn't have beach access, we still liked it and enjoyed our stay there.The room was quaint, the tree outside our room window was beautiful, and the hotel was elegant and had beautiful grounds:

My expectation was to spend some time soaking up rays, stepping a toe or two into the Atlantic, and sitting on the beach watching the waves roll in. Sadly, Mother Nature had other plans, it was overcast, COLD and WINDY not conducive for relaxing on the beach at all. That meant we bundled up and tried to stay warm. Oh well, it was still fun and I got to see the Atlantic and hear the waves crashing on the sand.

Cold as it was we saw a few dedicated surfers trying to catch the waves.

These signs cracked us up. We wondered what the penalty was for using profanity but not enough curiosity to use some and find out the hard way.

Dan and his antiquated phones. All he could hear on this one was the ocean.

As we strolled around the beach, Dan struck up a conversation with some women in a booth on the pier. Of course, they weren't just hanging out, they were trying to get people to buy condos and Dan accepted an invitation to hear the pitch; it was only 90-minutes after all and we would get free stuff.

Well our 90-minute sales pitch ended up being 3-hours! Several people who started when we did and came in after us were leaving long before we were, our salesman would NOT. Shut. Up. I think he told us about each and every property the company owned in the whole WORLD! 

Of course they pulled out the book of properties and a contract ready for us to sign our lives away. Dan told them we weren't interested. Magically, the price lowered and free week offers grew. Again we said we weren't interested. The manager came and the price dropped even more with more free weeks, "it's the best we can offer." When that was refused, the manager sorted through his list of properties and magically found one even lower than what was previously offered. (With each lower offer the salesman would tell us what a great deal it was and how he'd never seen one so low.) We kept telling them "no," Dan would explain that our son was getting married in a few months and they countered with, "wouldn't it be great to give them free lodging at a resort of their choice anywhere in the world?!" (Sure it would be great but we aren't paying for them to fly to that "free" lodging and the kids can't afford it either.) Or, they would remind us that these properties can be deeded, so we can leave them as property in our wills. Our children for many generations can continue to enjoy our time share purchase. Still not interested. 

After 15-20 minutes of not being listened to, I explained that it was an amazing and tempting offer, however, we had other financial goals that needed to be accomplished before we felt comfortable taking on what they were presenting. We may leave and regret our decision to walk away, however, it is what we needed to do. FINALLY THEY ACCEPTED OUR ANSWER OF "NO!" Not sure if it was the silent one in the couple finally speaking up or that I was able to present our "no" in a manner they understood.

When we EVENTUALLY walked out the door, so did a few employees. Our salesman was persistent but certainly NOT paying attention to any verbal and non-verbal clues that we were done, ready to leave, and not interested which came out within the first 5 minutes of our being there. In fact I hit a point that the more he talked, the more determined I was to turn him down! Funniest part about it, we haven't given it another thought and don't regret our decision one bit.

One of the freebies we earned was dinner at a famous seafood buffet restaurant, Captain George's Seafood Restaurant. The restaurant was huge and could hold several hundred people at maximum capacity. It was also insanely busy, but we were able to have a "free" meal at a restaurant we probably wouldn't have chosen ourselves.

Just some of the seafood fare available at the buffet.

One of their two stained glass domed roofs. We didn't sit in either of the rooms, those must have been for the customers who purchased the properties for sale.

Another "free" gift was tickets to the Aquarium for us. We'd planned to go anyway and having the admission fee paid for was a nice bonus. We opted to do this our last day in town, so did everyone else in town. There needs to be more to do there when the weather isn't ideal. Regardless, we strolled through the exhibits and spent several hours seeing what lies under the sea.

The fish wouldn't hold still for pictures so some are fuzzy.

We have one more "free" gift, a 4-day/3-night stay at one of their properties. We haven't cashed this in yet and don't know when we will. We haven't read the fine print and are afraid our stay will somehow suck more time away from a vacation to sit through another sales pitch and end up costing us our limbs.

Before leaving the Virginia Beach area and heading to our next vacation destination, we stopped at a couple other must see items.First up, Old Cape Henry Lighthouse within Fort Story military base. After our car was searched and we were deemed safe visitors, we headed to the lighthouse.

At the base of the lighthouse is a gift shop and you can learn the history of the lighthouse from some very enthusiastic and dedicated volunteers. We paid our fee and headed up the 200+ steps to get a view from the top.

Back down we go...

...returned to the ground, safe and sound.

A few yards from the lighthouse is the Cape Henry Memorial Cross and First Landing State Park; where, in 1607, the English colonists first landed and erected a cross in gratitude for their safe journey. From a point in First Landing State Park you can capture the two lighthouses; the Old, built in 1772, which is no longer in use, and the new, built in 1881, still in use today.

After all this, it was time to leave the beach behind to turn our gps to other planned adventures elsewhere in Virginia. Our next destination was...

Backing Up and Bringing it Forward

Even though it will be out of chronological order with my previous posts, I'm going to back up to January and move forward to more current information.

End of January:

Winter blahs set in about January 6th. It was a long, cold, snowy, and hard winter this year. Many people said it was very atypical; colder and more snow fell than this area has experienced in about 30 years. When we came in and heard that the winters were mild and not much snow we were thrilled. Now we think they might have lied to us to get us to accept the job and move here. That or moving and getting record breaking winters is a Broadbent curse. (That happened our first couple winters in Illinois; coldest on record and most snow on record.)

Regardless, we survived and even managed to get out to a few school boys' and girls' basketball games; in between school cancellations, game reschedules, and late starts for school.

Girl's JV Game at the half.

Same girl's game final score.

  

 
Despite only making it to a few games, we enjoyed watching the teams play and cheering them on; no matter the score. Another fun aspect was seeing so many of the students we've met by visiting their homes. As of today we've been in 41 Senior Division homes and 2 Middle Division homes with an average of 11 students in the homes, that's a good portion of the school's population!

Most of the student homes we've been in have intercom systems. Some homes use them all the time and others not very much. Majority of the student homes had some remodeling done within the last decade; however, once in awhile we have been in a home that's soon to be remodeled with older intercom systems--ones that would be straight out of the Brady Bunch:

It even has a cassette tape player! Now THAT's Old School.

February:

Sometime in the fall we saw that Kristin Chenoweth was giving a concert in Lancaster, PA. We decided to splurge and purchase tickets. Since it was a weeknight, we took the evening off and headed the 30 minutes or so away to get some dinner and then attend her concert.

Such a special night deserves...McDonald's?!?!

The concert was FABULOUS! It was wonderful to be in the audience while she performed. She was very touched by the reception she received from the audience. Her family had lived in the Lancaster area and so she felt that she was coming home. Her concert was 90 minutes with no intermission. We would have gladly listened to her for another 90 minutes with or without an intermission! Listening to a singer who is also an actor makes a huge difference; she became the character she was singing for. Such a marvelous night!

The day before the concert we were covering a boy's student home. That morning Dan headed out to scrape off and start the student van for me so I could take the boys to school and he could head to his doctor's appointment. It wasn't a big deal except that day we had a late start that was quickly creeping upon Dan's previously scheduled appointment to follow up on his back.

He'd been outside for a little while but I wasn't too concerned. When he came it he didn't look ok & told me he'd slipped on the ice and hurt his knee. He headed off to his appointment and I took the boys to school then tried to get chores checked and such before he returned from his appointment. We then went over to the worker's compensation doctor's office to have his knee checked and found out he sprained his knee and couldn't work. He walked out of the appointment with a crutch!

Having watched some others from our training group and other houseparents fly solo because of spouse's being injured, having a baby, or surgery, I wasn't thrilled by the prospects of me flying solo. Thankfully he was out only 4 weeks and I survived the time ok. It was strange to work without my spouse for that time. We had been together all the time and to suddenly not have him with me was odd. I even went to a couple student homes he's never been to which is strange too. But we survived and are stronger because of it. (Yea, whatever.)

We've seen the following on bookshelves in more than one student home:

Whenever we see it, it just puts a smile on our faces. We can't proselytize but we look for this wherever we go.

Before Dan returned to work there was a large drug bust on campus. When the Home Live Administrators learn about drugs on campus, some of the students might be immediately terminated from the school (if they are selling or the middleman). Those who use or purchase might be spared expelling but they are on detention. The Home Life Administrators will often go search a room to try and find the contraband items. One of the homes I was helping had a student who's room was searched. This is what it looked like when the adults finished searching for the drugs:

Hopefully that left no doubt that the administration doesn't take drug use lightly. The student had to clean everything up. Lucky for him, he turned in all he had and wasn't hiding any in his room. Some other students weren't so lucky. Wish we could say it's the last we'll have of that problem, but we're not living in a perfect society.

And with that, I think I'm up to March!

With Lights all A-Glow

Since Thanksgiving I have been wanting to visit the Idaho Botanical Gardens for their "Winter Garden aGlow" display. We learned about it when Dan asked his boss about ideas of things to do while my parents were visiting over Thanksgiving. We didn't make it while they were here but I suggested we brave the cold and go see the display on the 26th.

It was their 16th annual display and they boast: a "dazzling display of nearly 270,000 sparkling lights artfully displayed." I know Christmas lights are Christmas lights but it's still fun to see how each place decorates with them. The Botanical Gardens did some things I found very creative (though I didn't think to take pictures, what was up with that?!) such as bunching the lights together to appear like grapes hanging from a vine, shaping them to look like ears of corn on a stalk, and combining them to look like other summer fruits and vegetables.

Even if I didn't get pictures of the more creative displays, I did manage to capture some fun pictures that evening:

 

This is what happens when you hand your camera to someone who doesn't know touching the screen on the back will take a picture.

 

The displays by the entrance were the most amazing. But the further you strolled from the entrance the fewer the lights (probably the fewer the outlets too). They have a trail that takes you above the garden where you can look down on the lights and see some of the Boise Valley in the distance but there weren't many lights along that pathway. Having been to Temple Square's light display, this wasn't as impressive throughout and it lacked the spirit that is present when strolling through Main Street Plaza and Temple Square (not to mention that it wasn't free and I think it was overpriced); however, we had a great evening out together and ooo'ed and aaahhh'ed at many of the lights and the creativity of those who put it all together.

 

The World Didn't End So Christmas Did Come

For Christmas this year Dan and I stayed in Boise. We really wanted to be with the kids this year, however, finances made it difficult for us and Amanda and Jake to be together. Sid came for a visit the Friday following Christmas to attend a wedding in the Boise Temple and stayed a few days extra with us. (A post to come; all things in their proper time and order.) He was kind enough to be our delivery person for all of our out-of-state gifts this year. No Post Office lines for us!

Our celebrating began on Christmas Eve as we joined a few others from our ward at our Bishop's home for dinner, visiting, children running everywhere, singing carols and a mostly reverent reenactment of the nativity.

Dan with the Three Wisemen...the threesome of Elders currently serving in our ward.

Dan was the narrator.

Everyone had costumes, even if they objected at first.

 

Since the Bishop, and other families, had younger children we left their home fairly early. We then headed over to Dan's brother's where we visited together, frosted some sugar cookies, delivered a Secret Santa gift, then looked at a synced light display (along with several others in the area-it took us about 30 minutes to get in front of the house and 10 minutes to see the lights syncing with their personalized radio station).

 

 

Even if their neighbors didn't like it, we found it quite spectacular!

 

Then we headed home to finish our final preparations for Christmas Day and get to sleep so Santa could visit us as well.

 

An advantage of not having young ones any more, we slept in until we woke up which ended up being about 7:45 am. We then got ready for the day and started our gifts about 9:00.

 

Santa found us and left us some practical and traditional items in our stockings. The gum is a different brand but keeping with tradition.



 

The gifts were dispersed....then opened to see what treasures they held:

 

Blankets for both of us from Lynette's family. We love that the their girls helped with our gifts.

 

After we opened our gifts we tried to take a picture of both of us together, this was our best attempt...

Time for the traditional breakfast: scrambled eggs, bacon (instead of sausage this year), orange juice, and cinnamon pull-apart. It doesn't get much better than this: YUMMY!

We ended our day by watching my new movie, We Bought a Zoo. It was relaxing and enjoyable to be together and visit with so many of those we love!