Summer Nomad Adventures

June 14th, 2010

Hi Family!
Mom doesn't know where we are, and Allison was thoroughly confused with our travel plans, so I thought I'd send a quick update on where we are and what we've been up too.

Last week, we drove from Marietta to Niagara Falls where we spent a fun day or two with the Romeros. We flew out of Buffalo the next day and landed in Las Vegas. We drove to Phoenix the next day to hang out with the Ellsworths, and after 3 days met up

with the Quinns back in Las Vegas. Early this morning, most everyone headed out to hike for 4 days in Havasupi....did I spell that right?...and Valine and I are watching babies and chillin' at the resort.

The Romeros are doing great, and our prayers are with Ruben as he prepares for heart surgery. They're so fun! Our time in AZ was a blast. Our first day there, we had ice cream three times: morning snack, afternoon snack, and on waffles for dinner. Ah, it's good to be an Ellsworth. We had lots of fun at the Heard Museum and Science Center, and just hanging out playing games and watching movies. I hope we can have a back yard like theirs some day. I felt like I was living with the swiss family robinson.

Our few days with the Quinns have also been a blast. We discovered shuffle board, which I always thought was for old people, but turns out to be really really fun. Who knew? The boys and I have checked out the strip a couple of times, and spontaniously saw The Lion King Saturday night. We left here at 7:30 and made it just in time for the 8:00 showing. I've been wanting to see it since I was in eleventh grade and wasn't disappointed. Much of the music sent me back to Africa and songs sung from the bottom of the soul. I can only sing that uninhibited if I'm about a mile away from civilization.

This morning Anthony, Nate, McKay, Paul and Camille left for their mega hike, and Ira is napping, Valine is quilting, and Truman is playing with his little soccor ball and looking sweetly mischievous. Life is good.
I love you all!

Sharon


June 26th, 2010

Let’s see, since my last update we’ve cove

red lots of ground…literally. After Las Vegas we headed to California to visit my mission. I looooved it. We were able to Visit Aunt Janet, the Holbrooks, and then a handful of people I taught on my mission. I was happy to see that they were active and had been to the temple and sealed to their families. Is there anything in this world more happy than that?

Ira's been a dream travel baby, with the exception of all of his pooplosions. That's word that Allison taught me and I'll bet you can guess it's definition.

It's been so fun to be back with the Quinns and we're setting up visits with friends we haven't seen in what feels like forever. We're looking forward to the Quinn/Arave family reunion at the end of this week!

Love ya,

Sharon

                                                    Grandma playing with Ira in Las Vegas!

 Mesa with the Ellsworths!

The Holbrooks! Uncle Bob is recovering from his stroke well, but he says he still has trouble remembering people's names and anything math related. Janet is teaching Preschool and Zach and Alvin are cool!

Aunt Janet is as cool as ever.  She let us use her hot tub, gave a piece of her pottery and hosted a yummy breakfast with an old investigator.

We enjoyed the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield.  Mmmm.  All the free samples you want.  Their new flavors include Mango Chillie and Babywipe, and both taste freakishly accurate.

                                    Beautiful Fort Bragg along Highway 1.  This is at Glass Beach.





Avenue of the Giants
I'm proud to say that the whole avenue is in my old area.

                                                                 Ira's first camping trip.

Developing Ira

Ira's been growing up so fast. Every day we wake up he seems a little bigger. His fascination with mirrors continues strong. His silent laugh is slowly giving way to a cute little giggle. Yesterday we played peck-a-boo with him and he laughed more than ever before.We played more than 50 times and every time he laughed.

He is entering the stage where he wants to put his mouth on everything he sees. He will focus on something and slowly his mouth opens and he starts leaning toward it making little licking motions. It's cute. Along with that his motor skills are improving really fast. He is good at inching himself toward things and he is getting good at reaching out and grabbing things.

He loves bath time in the sink, he can see his reflection in the

faucet and tries to eat it.

Like I said he loves trying to eat everything.

He loves picking things up and of course putting them in his mouth.

Our New Home

Last week was a whirl wind. We've been waiting to hear where we would be working on our first rotation forever and were excited to learn we will be in Danbury, CT.

Tuesday morning we drove out to Danbury to find ourselves a place to live. We've been looking forward to this and also dreading it because we've been spoiled with Provo and Pittsburgh rent prices, I would say Danbury is at least twice as expensive as anywhere else we've lived. Connecticut also has some weird real estate laws we found out. Anyway, it was an extremely hot three days of patrolling the streets on the look out for a nice neighborhoods and places for rent. It was a head ache trying to get appointments lined up too. In the end we were able to get in and see about 10 places. We feel blessed to have finally found one that we feel comfortable with, it has nice landlord, Italian again, and below the average price for the number of rooms and space we have. It has a spacious bathroom and kitchen, a nice living room and master bedroom and two small rooms, one for Ira and one for guests/office/crafts. So if you want to come visit we would love the company. If you want the address email me.

There are many great reasons you can come and see us which can mostly be summed up in this phrase I heard the Honda dealership using on the radio, "We're minutes from anywhere". This says a lot about my first impressions of Danbury. Locally, nothing is more than 15 mins from anything else, and  more broadly we are only ten minutes from the New York border; thirty minutes from the coast, beaches, and some minor National Forests; an hour and a half driving to Downtown Manhattan (two by train); three hours from Boston; and four hours from Marietta and the Adirondacks.

The Exterior, we are on the second floor.

(This is an old picture, there was no snow when we were there, just a hot sun)

The living room, looking from the master bedroom. You can't see it, but there is a huge heater right next to me that is kind of ugly and we're not sure how we will work it into the interior design.

A nice spacious bathroom, those who have been in our Pittsburgh apartment will know how nice this is compared to what we had there.

Looking into our bedroom from the living room.

The kitchen, looking in from the bathroom.

Looking into one of the smaller rooms. Sharon calls it a midget house because the ceiling is a little lower

than typical and the windows aren't far from the floor.

The floor plan is a little strange and it has it's quirks, but like I said we feel blessed to have found a place that met almost all of our criteria(washer, dryer, room for Ira, etc) in the price range we set for ourselves.

What am I buying?

Being in a new place makes even the tiniest things stand out, even if they are common place. For some reason the marketing/product design/value of some items have stood out to me the last few weeks.

First, Concord Foods, 'Smoothie' mix. The "JUST ADD" directions are what got me. It says, "JUST ADD: fresh strawberries, milk, and ice", So why am I buying a mix? Here is the website description since the picture is small: "Create your own thick, creamy smoothie with our Strawberry Smoothie Mix. Refreshing strawberries loaded with vitamins! Blended with strawberries, milk and ice, each packet contains enough mix to make 1 quart of delicious tasting smoothie. Use skim milk for a low fat option."

I did not buy this because I really couldn't see what I was getting from it.

Second, Galliker's Milk. We bought it because it was the only option at the little store we stopped at to get milk our first night, but the yellow jug almost had me going to another store. If there is one color I don't really want to associate my milk with it's yellow.

Anyone else observe any good/ odd items on the market lately?

Now and Then

I know you’ve been hearing a lot about this lately, but I’m trying to soak up and enjoy Pennsylvania as much as I can. I’m guessing this is the most amount of time I’ll be able to spend here in a very long time. Also, it’s been interesting to see what’s the same and what isn’t compared to 10 years ago when I was a permanent resident. So this entry is probably going to be incredibly boring for anyone who doesn’t have Ellsworth somewhere in their name, or who hasn’t lived in Marietta or Lancaster for 10+ years. If you don’t fall into one of those categories, I’m guessing you’ll be bored if you force yourself to read this. Or you could skim it and be slightly amused by what a country bumpkin I am.

Changed: Donegal Place. For those of you who don’t know, this is the dead end street I grew up on. A brick row of houses, surrounded by jungle-like, let your childhood imagination run wild, forest. The houses don’t look that different, it’s what’s across the street that has changed. Our old ruins and forts are actually well groomed. Brick walls aren’t covered in graffiti, there are no old tires laying around ready to give your short legs a boost up a tree, and the trails are mulched. It’s actually pretty nice. But it’s definitely different. The target audience is more like old couples that would like to go on strolls, as opposed to jungle children who would like to run wild. The Loner is even getting totally restored! I’ll take pictures.

Unchanged: The Food. Lebonon bologna, hamloaf, scrapple, shoofly pie, whoopie pie, red beat eggs, chow chow, funnel cake… They’re all still here in all their glory. Anthony’s fully embracing PA’s obsession with pretzels. So far we’ve had caramel pretzels, a sandwich with a pretzel bun, peanut butter filled chocolate covered pretzels, a pretzel dog, a pretzel the size of both of our heads put together, and now I just need to serve pretzels as an ice cream topper. Mmm.

I actually had normal scrapple for the first time ever the other day. It wasn’t anything like the deliciousness Mom makes every Christmas. I wouldn’t say it was absolutely disgusting, but I definitely wouldn’t say it was pleasant. It was the flavor of sausage but the texture of corn meal. Weird. On a sweeter note, Wilbur buds are still better than Hershey kisses.

Changed: Racial diversity. It’s about time. It’s nice to see that Marietta doesn’t seem quite as monochromatic as it used to be.

Unchanged: The weather. Still hot hazy and humid.

Changed: 441. It’s lined with townhouses, that apparently aren’t selling very quickly. There’s also a Disney world sized church that Ant calls the “Mega corn field Church.” The farmland next to Sheetz is up for sale as commercial space. :(

Unchanged: Marietta Day. I got a pair of cute, red shoes for $1. And as we were sorting through 50 cent baby clothes, we gathered four items and tried to pay two bucks. The guy smiled and said, “Eh, make it a dollar.” We told him he was a hard bargain.

There was a pretty good band playing, made up of kids maybe in their late teens. It was surprisingly folksy and simultaneously great music. We later overheard them telling friends they’d be playing at the Chameleon this weekend. Happy.

Unchanged: Mrs. Madsen…coolest high school art teacher ever. I saw her on Marietta day, she says hi to all of you Ellsworth girls out there. I don’t know if you know this, but all I had to do was mention my heritage as an Ellsworth and she exempted me from Intro to art.

Changed: No Marietta still doesn’t have it’s own grocery store, or traffic lights on its main (market) street, but it does have it’s own theatre company. It’s called the Susquehanna Stage Co., and it’s run by Jim Johnson the director of my high school musicals. It makes me happy. Also Unchanged: Nichole (one of my best friends from elementary, middle and high school), is playing in many of their productions, as she should.

Unchanged: Kindness. I strapped on Ira, and headed on a 3 mile walk with Anthony to go pick up our car from the shop. 3 miles isn’t particularly long for us, but we started getting nervous after the 1st mile when the grey skies turned black, and drizzle turned into GOLF BALL sized hail! This all happened rather quickly, so we turned around and sprinted, while dodging huge marbles from the sky. Anthony cried out “I’ve been hit,” as I continued to cover Ira’s head, and made it to the cover of Herr’s Market just as I was hit on the head. It mostly hurt my pride though. We and everyone in the market watched with awe. The ground was covered in white, and the hail falling made explosive splashes in puddles. We stalled for some time and finally picked up the offer of a persistent Samaritan who insisted on driving us to the auto shop. The storm had pretty much passed by then, but we weren’t sure if there would be another surprise attack or not. So nice. I still need to make her some brownies or something.

Changed: Park City. The Mall in Lancaster, not the city of Anthony’s origin. This caused for only slight confusion in the beginning of our relationship. Anyway, Park City looks so modern. They’ve somehow afforded a mega face lift since I’ve been there last…6 years ago? We were checking out phone deals there. Let us know if you have any suggestion on phones or phone companies you absolutely love.

Unchanged: Roots. Ant gave a great update on what this farmer’s market is like. If you haven’t been there for 10 or 15 years, it’s exactly the same. When we went to the Intercourse Amish/Mennonite Visitor’s Center, Anthony asked our Amish friend Sam, something about Roots. Sam didn’t know what we were talking about until it registered. “Oh, you mean ruts.” I apparently forgot how to really pronounce it.

Unchanged: The landmark donkey is still there. That’s right. Here in Lancaster county we don’t remember the names of roads, we instead give direction that sound something like this. “Turn left at the golf ball house, you’ll know it when you see it. Go straight for a while and then turn left at the donkey. This particular donkey (the one on Colebrook road next to the tree that swallowed the sign), has been there FOREVER! I thought he actually died because his little grazing area has been vacant for a while, but then Anthony discovered that he’s looking extremely old and hangs out in the back by his little shed. How will we give direction when he dies?

Unchanged: Lancaster 2nd Ward. There are loads of new faces, but the staples are still there: The Shaffers, Williamsons, Gubbins, Resslers, Merrises, Calverts, Herberts…and for not much longer the Pickets.

That was extremely long, but let me know if there’s something you’d like an update on that I didn’t cover. Love you!
Sharon

New born to Infant

So, I don't know when it happened, but Ira is defiantly no longer in the New Born category. Looking at him you can't help but notice how big he is getting. I thought I'd through a quick update out on him here are the highlights:

• He is a wonderful sport on all of our adventures we've been going on around here.
• He has been struggling to overcome his first diaper rash/ possible yeast infection. We're hoping it goes away soon.
• He loves mirrors! 
• He really likes making noises with his tongue on his lips, you know the spiting kind of noises.
• He rolled over from his stomach to his back for the first time

We're learning to get sleep when we can

We are reading to him more, he seems to like it

Our little narcissist

Roots Country Market

Sharon has always been telling me stories about this country market auction called Roots. It happens every Tuesday and is huge. All the Amish, Mennonites, and other farmers in the area bring their goods together and have a huge farmers market. There is a livestock auction where hens, chickens, etc are auctioned off and there is a produce/other goods auction. Beside the auctions there is a typical farmer market. There are buildings with stands where you can find many different goods from food to crafts. Some of the booths have been occupied by the same families for generations. It is a pretty neat experience with good prices for excellent produce and the like.

Sharon took me to the Pretzel Shop where she remembers getting pretzels as a little girl. Did I mention I love pretzels? Check out this huge pretzel they sold. We shared it for Lunch and Dinner.