Maxine and Sister Winterbauer

This is Maxine and Sister Winterbauer! Maxine got transferred to a biking area. I keep praying that she doesn't fall off or get hit by a car! I'm sure it'll be fine. She's already said she needs Jack to come tune up her bike. She didn't have a bike when she came to the area and a sweet member bought her and Sister Winterbauer bikes! They were ordered off Amazon and the elders but them together. I'm constantly amazed at the people that are taking care of my girl. 💓

Maxine's been struggling a bit. It's so hard to listen to her and not be able to fix it. She's hit her halfway mark! WOW! She recommends a mission to everyone she can talk to but that doesn't make it easy. All I can do is keep praying and fasting for her!

 

Cedar City Mountain Bike Race

 The first mountain bike race of the season was Cedar City. This year Jack and Juliet are both on the mountain bike team and it's been fun for them to have a sport that they can do together.

Juliet has improved a bunch since she started. She wanted an extra curricular but most practice right after school. She teaches piano after school so things conflict. Mountain bike team practices early in the morning or in the evening so it's been great!

Cute pictures from Maxine

Maxine and Sister Storm were able to attend the baptism of a little girl in their ward. Also got invited to food afterwards and ate way too much.

Then just the random assortment of pictures she sends along. Her and Elder Wyness.

The Hermanas; Spanish-speaking sisters.

To The Rescue!

I was taking my parents to the airport when Merril called me. He asked what my afternoon was like. I said I was going to go grocery shopping and he asked if I might be able to stop by the auto parts store to grab a serpentine belt and bring it and some tools to Panguitch. The serpentine belt on his truck had come apart.

So I dropped off my parents and headed to Napa. Got the stuff and drove to Panguitch. Merril already had parts pulled off the engine so he only took 5 minutes to get the truck in running order again.

First Day of School 2022

Jack and Leighna are starting 11th grade.

Mark is going into 3rd grade.

Mikayla's last year at Coral Canyon as a 5th grader!

Juliet starting at the high school as a 10th grader.

Juliet hand embroidered a pair of converse and they are so cute! She did a nice job!

I keep thinking how dumb it sounds to have 2 kids in high school and 2 kids in elementary school but that's just the way it is. Planning was never my strong suit. We're starting strong! 

The Last Day of Summer

We wanted to squeeze in one last item on our summer bucket list. Rock climbing/rappelling is one of the last things we wanted to accomplish this summer.

Mark went right off the rock all by himself. Mikayla needed a little encouragement the first time down but could go down by herself after that.

Jack got Leighna to rappel once. I don't know why he has that face on.

On belay!

These are some summer pictures from Maxine on her mission.

Some former Elders took the missionaries to lunch. Maxine was one of them. She's getting so close to being halfway done with her mission. I can't believe it's been almost 9 months!

 

Motos in Idaho

Merril took the boys to Idaho to ride with the Phillipp family. Check out the beautiful St. Anthony sand dunes.

Mark and Archer.

Hunter and Jack.

This didn't happen in Idaho but our front yard. The monsoon season has been crazy this year. During a downpour, Mark and Jack decided to ride in the rain. Pretty sure Talon went too. Silly good times.

 

Temples and Swimming, No They Don't Go Together

Juliet really wanted to go to the temple before school started. She invited friends and told me I was driving. 😋 Jack was supposed to go and drive but he is on his way to Idaho with Merril and Mark. Dirt bike riding adventures with the Phillipp family to follow.

Nicole, Leighna and some other friends came.

Then later that day, Mikayla had scheduled to go to the pool with friends. She wanted to go back to the St. George City Pool with the hydrotube. I ran into Natalie Madsen and we chatted it up for a while.

Mikayla, Jesslynn, and Reese played until they kicked us out at 8 p.m. I was starving and we went to Little Caesars to get pizza.

Good summer days! I can feel school getting close. 

The Freddy Special

 This truck has a story attached to it. 

Merril bought a wrecked 2013 Ford F-150 March 2017 and ran into a guy name Freddy at Copart when he was picking it up. Freddy said he could fix it and Merril dropped it off the next day. Unfortunately, we don't have a picture of it wrecked but the whole front end was smashed in. 

Over the next few months, Merril bought some parts and took them to Freddy and gave Freddy cash to work on the truck. He was working on the truck for a while but not very fast. Then he moved shops like 3 times. Merril said he really needed this truck fixed so Freddy gave him another truck to drive for like 6 months. Then Freddy needed the borrowed truck back. So we gave back the borrowed truck and he rented Merril a truck for a week. 

Then over the course of like a year, Freddy gave us about 3 or 4 trucks to borrow. Around September 2019, we ended up with a crappy borrowed Durango. Then Merril couldn't get a hold of him for a long time, at least 6 months. Merril kept trying to call him and after a while, he started talking to Merril again. By now Freddy wasn't in Las Vegas anymore but was hauling cars around the U.S. We didn't know where the F-150 was at this point. 

Merril just kept calling him for the next 3 years. Sometimes Freddy would answer but mostly not. At this point, I'd completely written off the truck and Merril didn't like to talk about it because he was doing everything he could think of but still didn't have the truck. When Freddy would answer the phone, he seemed to indicate that the truck was mostly fixed but it was either stuck in a shop or he wasn't in Vegas and couldn't get to it. 

So then one day, Merril called Freddy and he called right back and said, "You can pick up the truck on Saturday in Vegas." We were cautiously optimistic. Merril hadn't been able to confirm we could pick up on Saturday until around 2 p.m. Merril called me and said to try to get the Durango, that's been sitting in our backyard for 3 years, ready to go! The kids and I got the Durango on the trailer and we all loaded up and headed to Vegas! Freddy told us it wasn't perfect. It still has some little things that needed some work but we just wanted it back. 

HERE IT IS! 🤯🤯🤯

I can't believe we got it back. I've written off this project so long ago. It took just over 5 years to get this deal sorted out! The only reason it happened was because Merril is so persistent! He would call Freddy's 2 phones almost everyday! I bet Freddy is so glad to get Merril off his back! It only has like 50,000 miles on it because it sat for so long. Although we dropped it off with 45,000 so that means someone was driving it. 🤔 Whatever. What's done is done. Let's just forget about the whole thing. 😋

Good job getting it back Merril!

Mom's Offroad Recovery

Jack wanted to go to the sand dunes in the Ranger because we've gotten so much rain! He thought the rain would make the sand so easy to drive on. But he called me and needed a rescue.

Juliet was with him. I'm glad I have the skills to drive out and help my kids. I'm glad my kids want to go on adventures. I'm glad Merril encouraged me to learn to drive in all different terrains. Today was fun!

Seattle and Home

When in Seattle, one must see the market.

Lots of gorgeous flowers and we saw the people throw a fish.

Mikayla found this fish statue down by the water and wanted her picture taken with it. Lol.

Then we went to the Boeing Museum of Flight right by our sketchy hotel. I saw a concord! My first ever. I've always wanted to fly on the concord but they discontinued service. At least I was able to walk through an actual plane!

The nose of these planes look so cool to me. The little kids were done with the museum so I took them back to the hotel to rest. Merril and Juliet stayed at the museum for a little while longer.

After we came back to get them, Merril and Mark decided to start the drive back to Hurricane. Juliet, Mikayla and I, stayed at the sketchy motel one more night and caught the airport shuttle home.

I also discovered a Bruster's Ice Cream store in Las Vegas. Maxine has been going on about how great the ice cream is. We stopped there on the way home. It was so hot and you couldn't eat inside.

Maxine included a couple cute pictures of her and Sister Storm and the zone mascot, Zion the dinosaur.

I especially like this one by the temple. Lol.

Maxine and Sister Storm and struggling a little bit but they are making the best of it. Sometimes companionships are hard.

 

Vancouver to Seattle

With some leftover camping supplies and a quick trip to a little market, we made french toast in the park.   

I was dragging my feet a little but it was fantastic and delicious. 

A zip line was part of this Canadian playground equipment. The kids had a blast on it.

Then we jumped on a ferry boat and took a ride to an island.

Then we turned around and rode right back and headed to Seattle.

We the hit the Space Needle first.

This glass wall was scary.

The the glass revolving floor was scarier. 

It was hard for me to walk on. It doesn't look strong enough to support people. I got better at walking on it after a while.