Trip to Zion with Best Friends

Our campsite below Sentinel Mountain and beside the Virgin River, just outside the park in Springdale.

We left Friday morning, May 14th, for a short trip to Zion National Park to meet Connie and Sherm. The weather was perfect, the campsite was right next door to the Shermans and we had a wonderful Saturday, Sunday and Monday with them. Saturday we went to Coral Pink Sand Dunes and that was beautiful. Sunday we went to Kolob Canyon, part of Zion at the North end. Also visited the Rockville Cemetary where Dennie and Connie's Great Grandmother, Amy Hansen, is buried.

This is the Sentinel, an Indian face, on Sentinel Mountain, towering above our campsite.

Sadie kind of liked the river, although she won't swim.

Indian Paint Brush.

The Virgin River, not quite as muddy as usual.

This is down the canyon, almost to the "narrows". The narrows was closed because of high water.

The Court of the Patriarchs. (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob)

Such a good girl!!!

Coral Pink Sand Dunes National Park. Look close and you'll see that the wind has blown a little twig all the way around making a circle in the sand.

On the way home, just past the carved-out canyon where the highway goes through.

What a great trip. We're looking forward to more like this after Dennie gets laid off and retires!!! Soon!

My pond garden....

Almost a year ago, while I was visiting kids and friends in Oregon, by myself, Dennie and Ethan undertook the creation of a pond for me! Although it was a bit more of a job, I think, than they thought it was going to be, it's now a pretty cool garden. I'm landscaping it with “water-wise” plants because of the high cost of water in this area and having fun learning about the drought tolerant plants and buying them locally from the Ramona Garden Club Sale and local nurseries. We've visited the Cuyamaca College Water-wise Garden a couple of times and bought plants there too, and I recently went on the Ramona Garden Club Tour. I think whatever you study and learn about, you end up loving. This is true with drought tolerant gardening! (And I realize roses are not 'water-wise' but I love them and I'm converting some lawn areas to more drought tolerant plants so I can have the rose garden. At least it saves on buying cut flowers!) The pond was crystal clear in the winter and we have eight fish, five Koi and three Goldfish, but now with the warmer temperatures and more sun the water is getting kind of murky again and we're going to have to do a little more research on the problem. Here are some pictures of plants in my pond garden and some birds (I've also become a “birder”) that I've seen since the pond was completed. Most of the pictures are closeups because it's a work in progress and there are still a lot of areas that I don't know what to do with. But I did include one taken from the gate looking at the whole garden, or almost.

Eight weeks later....

Eight weeks later.... he's now in Rijeka, Croatia. Here's his letter:

so im finallz here in croatia. if you see any mistakes like the one earlier (y and z mixed up) just swith them in your head. im still getting used to it. its really weird.

so its a lot like san fran here. or downtown san diego. its super crowded housewise. and its reallz steep. ill try to send a picture to you all so you can see the view from our balcony. its amazing.

i really love the peopl here. everyone and i mean EVERYONE who invites us in gives us some kind of snack and a drink. the first place we went was to go pay our rent and he gave us really good juice (everyone here has juice) and croatian pancakes (totally danish pancakes) with an apple filling stuff that was SOOOOO good. it was awesome. and then we went into slobodans house and he gave us little waffers and juice. and we went to smirjanas house yesterday and had water and a apple pie-cake thing. it was SO good. i loved it.

we arent teaching a whole lot of people here. but hopefully itll be more. the people here are catholic or jehovahs witness. (i cant fine the apostraphe). wećve been tracting a ton already and we usually just get the doors slammed in our faces. we have onlz been invited inside by ONE guy. he was awesome too. he just wanted to find out who in the world we were and why we came to croatia FROM america haha.

we had church yesterday and we had 12 people there ( not including missionaries!). i had to get up and bear my testimony in croatian. crazy stuff... there are some FUNNY people here. dragan is this older guy who is hilarious haha. and there is a man, ivan, who is really cool too.

i can understand a lot of what people are saying. mostly get it from context. but its so much harder to respond. especially when they direct a certain question toward ME. oh well. im getting better. and a lot of people know a little bit of english so they kinda can help me along. and they of course know croatian so they reallz help me with that. we have english classes every tuesday and thursday. so that will be fun.

when i got here i started unpacking my garment bag suitcase thing. you know what i mean hopefully. anyway... i had all my white shirts in it. my other suit. my 3 suit pants. all my ties. anyway. tons of stuff.... and the whole thing was SOAKED. i dont know how. it must have just been from the connecting flights and it was outside or something. cause it was snowing in ohio and raining in paris. so yeah. it was just plain wet. through and through. a lot of my ties are pretty bad and my suit isnt doing too well. but maybe i just need to get it drycleaned. we will see... ive been wearing the same suit for a week straight now haha.

funny thing. theres music in here (internet cafe) and its all been in english so far. ice ice baby. crazy little thing called love. and a few others. they listen to a lot of english music i guess.

you know that saying that missionaries say about "that wasnt the language i learned in the mtc"? well thats not the same for me. its totally the one i leanred and i understand a ton. just need to learn how to speak it better. so yep.

my comp is elder wood. he is pretty cool. nothing much to say yet.

here are some new things about this keyboard.

€čćšđž. thezćre all in the place of our puncuation (<--- as you can see) haha. the picture that is (hopefully) attached is from our balcony. i have tons more. hope everything is going well back home. elder jacobsen

Leaving....

We took Ethan to the MTC on December 16th, 2010. It was hard to see him leave but also a joyful event! I love you Ethan. I'm so proud of you. See you in two years....

Thanks for coming with us, Ivy and Owen. You helped to lighten the mood and made it way easier!

Bye, we love you!!!