Category Archives: Vacations

Alan, Family, Michelene, Phillip, Vacations

Spain Trip to see Marta, Pere and kids…

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After 21 years, we finally got to see our friend Marta Estrany Borrut again! On July 11th, Phillip and I flew to Barcelona where we were greeted at the airport by Marta and her cute family. Alan joined us a week later. We were able to sight see, play at the beach and spend great time getting to know their family. And of course, I got to have a Spanish language immersion experience! I took way too many pictures and of course am probably putting too many in my blog, but hey, it’s my blog right? Here are a few of the highlights from our trip:

Vilafranca…

The Borruts actually live in Vilafranca, about 40 minutes from Barcelona. Vilafranca is known for their vineyards and the Castellers (human towers: see videos one, two, three). We visited a castle, swam in the Mediterranean, enjoyed paella with some of their friends and attended church with them where Pere is the bishop.

 

Barcelona…The Sagrada Familia

The Sagrada Familia was our favorite thing to see in Barcelona. Designed by Goudi and started in 1882 with a predicted finish in 2030, it is a spectacular cathedral inside and out. We really enjoyed the headphone tour. Thousands of people tour it everyday, so if you decide to go, save yourself a long wait by buying your tickets online ahead of time. The most amazing thing is that we actually found 2 parking places right on the curb of the cathedral next to the huge line of people. When does that ever happen?

 

Barcelona…The Olympic Stadium

Do you remember the cool bow and arrow lighting of the torch in the opening ceremonies of the Barcelona 1992 Summer Olympics? The Olympic Stadium is a fun place to visit especially since while we were there, the 2013 International Swim Competition was taking place. It was fun to go home and watch it on TV after sight seeing there!

 

Madrid…

It was fun to spend a few days in Madrid. Phillip was our excellent tour guide. The first day we walked to the Plaza de España, toured the Palacio Real and walked to La Plaza Mayor. Not as humid as Barcelona, but still hot…I took my fan everywhere with me. Now I know why all the Spanish ladies have fans to flip open…I bought two!

 

Madrid…The Temple and Plaza de Toros

Saturday morning we took the metro to Spain’s Temple Square and attended a temple session. It’s a small but beautiful temple. It was fun to see the MTC where Phillip served as a missionary four years ago. On our way back into town we stopped and took a tour of Plaza de Toros in Ventas. They were getting ready for a bull fight the next day. It reminded me of “Ferdinand the Bull.”

 

Madrid…Retiro Park

Sunday evening we decided to take a walk through Retiro Park. It’s basically like Central Park in New York. There were lots of people…fun to see all the families. We enjoyed a picnic dinner and seeing all the statues and fountains. Europeans love their statues and fountains!

 

Madrid…Museo del Prado

For sure one of the highlights of our trip was touring the Prado museum on our last day. So much beautiful art. I’ve included a few of my favorites. Seems like the artists of the day either painted the birth of Christ or the death of Christ with a few portraits thrown in here and there.

 

We feel so blessed to have been able to take this trip. How wonderful to be with Marta, Pere, Sara and little Pere. We love them and miss them. What a great experience for all of us.

Family, Michelene, Tess, Vacations

Arizona Trip

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Tess and I spent a fun weekend in Arizona! We are both big Alfie Boe fans and when we found out that he was giving a concert in Phoenix, we decided to use our frequent flier miles to fly down to the concert and spend a few days with my sister Melinda and her family. If you don’t know who Alfie is, he was Jean Valjean in the 25th Anniversary cast of Les Misérables. Check it out here. Just before we left for Arizona, the Church announced that he would be the guest artist singing with the Tabernacle Choir in their Christmas concert this year. We are crossing our fingers that we can get tickets!

Alan, Clark, Elliot, Family, Michelene, Vacations

A bit of Church History, US History, family and friends…

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Eleven years ago we took all 6 kids to see Diane in Boston, our friends the Collettes in New Hampshire, Niagara Falls in Canada and the church sites and pageant in Palmyra in New York. Since Clark and Elliot were so young and don’t really remember the trip, we wanted to take them back as teenagers and this was the summer!

Our friends the Collettes have daughters Miranda and Jennica that are the same ages as our boys. They have been to our house often, so it was fun to spend time with them in their “neck of the woods” (literally!)

We arrived at Niagara Falls in the late afternoon, took the Maid of the Mist boat tour and then were there as it got dark and they turned the lights on the falls. The falls are just so amazing!

 

The next day we visited the Church sites in Palmyra and then saw the Hill Cumorah Pageant that night. This year the pageant is celebrating its 75th anniversary.

 

Alan’s sister Diane lives in Ithaca, New York, working at Cornell University. They have a saying there that “Ithaca is gorges” and so it is. Diane took us to see two beautiful gorges. It was great to see where she lives (with her dog, Happy) and where she works at the University. Brown family sleepover!

 

On our way back to New Hampshire we stopped to visit the Norman Rockwell Museum. He produced over 4,000 works of art – over 300 covers for The Saturday Evening Post magazine. We especially liked seeing his barn turned studio.

We finished the trip with a few more days in New Hampshire, including a day at the beach and a day in Boston checking out John Adams’s houses, Paul Revere’s house and The Old North Church. Can you have too much fun on a vacation?  I think we did!

Alan, Michelene, Vacations

Aloha!

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Rather spontaneously we found ourselves in Hawaii last week with the Lundgrens, our good friends and neighbors. The stars all seemed to line up and we decided we were ready for a much needed get-a-way!

We spent our days lounging on the beach or by the pool, sightseeing with our friends, visiting with family, attending the temple, snorkeling in Hanauma Bay, playing games, watching movies and eating fresh pineapple.

The weather was perfect and we were in Paradise….

Clark, Family, Vacations

Clark goes on the Waterford Interim Trip

Our school has a tradition of taking all the upcoming 9th graders on a backpacking trip together.  The idea being that following the summer, they should all get reacquainted and become best friends before school starts. This year they backpacked into our very own Wasatch Mountains.  It is actually an awesome trip with teachers hiking in everyday to bring supplies, teach and bond with the kids. Clark had a great time!  He only got a little bit sunburned and was able to get a head start on his bug collection!

Family, Vacations

A week on the coast of Oregon!

After 7 years and much anticipation, our whole family was able to spend a week together on the Oregon Coast.  Loren’s wife Anne has recently gotten a new job, and was unable to go with us, but was sweet enough to suggest that Loren still come with us.  Since there were too many of us to fit in one mini van and — reminiscent of earlier family vacations — we decided to a rent a “Hugo” — a passenger van that could hold us all!

We did the drive over 2 days making a stop at the midway point in Weiser Idaho to visit and stay with Anne’s parents, Gerry & Carol Bogue.  It was fun to see their “project” house; an old house that was built in the early 1900’s that they are slowly but surely restoring to its earlier beauty.

 

The part of the coast we decided to visit this trip was Netarts Bay Oregon (near Tillamook).  We could walk a long the coast quite a ways in either direction.  The surprise to the north were the Three Arch Rocks — 3 big boulders just off the coast. I just love how beautiful and bouldery the Oregon Coast is!

 

We spent most of the time just relaxing, walking on the beach together, playing cards and watching movies.  Loren and Phillip created some beach art, and we did do the “smore” thing.

 

One day we did drive about an hour north to Cannon Beach for breakfast at the Pig ‘n’ Pancake and an afternoon at the beach flying kites and enjoying Haystack Rock….oh, and getting just a little bit sunburned…oops.  Our other little field trip was a visit to the Tillamook Cheese Factory — yum.

 

Perhaps the most exciting part of our trip was when we were are about to leave I happened to look in the kitchen only to see tons of suds coming out the bottom of the dishwasher.  Turns out I (yes, I can only blame myself…much to my children’s relief) put liquid dish washing soap in instead of the liquid dish washer soap. So our departure was slightly delayed as we bailed out all the soapy water.  We must have cleaned it up well enough as we weren’t billed later for any hardwood floor damage…much to my relief. That could have made the trip just a bit more expensive 🙂