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A place for Chase's mission to Portland, Oregon to be written in history... his history at least.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

1st Annual Chick Trip

So it's the Evenson girl's 1st annual chick trip. We decided to use our trip to drop Ali off in Denver for her Greece trip as our excuse to start an annual chick trip. What a riot the girls are.

Day 1 - Friday -- We thought we'd get an early start by planning on leaving at 7:00. We got out at 11:00. Typical... Anyway, we drove 8 hours through Wyoming with Brooke in the back seat, reading Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Ali manning the radio and talking the whole time about her boyfriend, Travis, and me driving, thinking about where the 2nd annual chick trip will be. By the time we reached our hotel (very nice, however, very close to a railroad track and nightly we wake up, several times, to the sound of a train engineer who is horn happy.), Brooke had a fever. She had absolutely no energy and slept the entire evening while Ali and I played Nerts. I was worried that Brooke would not feel well the entire weekend but she, once again, proved that she can recover faster than anyone I know.





Day 2 - Saturday --We woke up at 8:30 (felt great to sleep in!) We went to breakfast at IHOP and had a fun time watching Brooke be amazed at the diversity in Denver. What a sheltered child. After our bellies were filled, we got pedicures. We love doing this on vacation. Then we went shopping. What? The Evenson girls shop? We were able to hit two of the four malls that we plan on going to. Great mall. As evening approached, we decided we needed to get dinner and since we were right by the Hard Rock Cafe, and we were starving, we'd eat there. We didn't realize when we put in our names for a 1/2 hour wait that we would end up waiting about a full hour due to the fact that it was Denver's prom night. We had a good time watching all of the high school couples parade around in their prom attire. At the same time, we were able to watch a table of middle-aged couples get plastered as they were having a 70's flashback night. They were decked out in KISS wigs and rock duds. Two women were dancing on the tables. Wow, Brooke really does live a very sheltered life. I think she had sensory overload. We decided at this point, 9:00 pm, that we were too tired to go out to a movie so we just bought movie theater popcorn and went back to our room and watched 27 Dresses.

Ali's feet with her toes ready for Greece



Day 3 - Sunday. Long day when you keep the Sabbath Day holy. But it was a nice day. We decided that we needed to feel like we were spiritual so we listened to church music while we got ready and dressed in dresses. Immediately as we stepped out of our hotel room and saw that we were the only ones in dresses, the girls felt over-dressed. I reminded them that it didn't matter and since we were going to find the Denver Temple we needed to be dressed appropriately. Then we took off and were on a quest for the Temple. After going in the wrong direction for 20 minutes, I backtracked and finally found it. Beautiful but anti-climatic because I thought they would have a visitor's center or at least we could walk around it. So we took two pics and then hopped back in the car.
Denver Temple (as close as we could get)
Ali taking our picture in a window. Coldstone Ice Cream, just can't get enough of it!

One of about a hundred pictures of the girls freak jumping into the hot tub



As you can tell from the pictures, we are definately enjoying ourselves. We miss our boys and will be happy to get back... well, without Ali that is. We will be dropping her off at the Denver airport tomorrow for her flight to Germany and then on to Greece!

Next year's trip? Maybe New York!

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Why can't time stand still?

I'm thinking today about a lot of things. You know those days where your mind just keeps on going, jumping from thought to thought? I would love to freeze frame our life as it is right now. All of the kids are like mini adults. All of them have fun personalities and I'm enjoying being a mom but there's never enough time to enjoy it all. I think someone sped the clock up and it's going faster and faster.

Ali is leaving for Greece in 25 days, actually Brooke and I are driving her to Denver in 21 days and then she'll leave 4 days later. I'm amazed at the incredible goal that she set and has accomplished. I'm afraid to admit that deep down I didn't think it would really happen. I'm impressed and want to thank those that have contributed to her dream.

I am also thinking about:
Spring, fixing up our yard, fixing up our house (after 9 1/2 years, things are looking like they need fixing up) the blessing of work, the blessing of THREE new babies to our extended family, my darling next-door-neighbors (Lindsey and Ryan, our new bishop), Chase's constant singing love songs to me and the extra long hug he gave me this morning, Ali's best friend now married, listening to the sound of Tyler playing basketball and him announcing to me that he is going to run for senior class president (GO TY!), our busy busy lives right now and how I wouldn't change it for anything, the desire I have to learn charity, looking forward to conference weekend, the proud feeling I have about my dad and how good he's doing, my visit with my brother today, missing my mom, looking forward to summer and hopefully BOATING!, ...

I could go on and on. Life is good!