Sister Manwaring!!!

This last weekend Craig and I went up to tour Kirtland along with his parents and sister, Christi. I told Tiffany we would be coming sometime, but I did not tell her exactly when. She said that when we come we HAVE to visit the Jones family. (pictured below) They are a family that she and 2 of her companions found and introduced to the gospel. They are just the nicest people! We spent about an hour and a half with them Thursday evening. They baked us brownies and told us stories about Tiffany. They joked about how she is the most gullible person they have ever met. They liked to play jokes on her. :) It was really neat to talk with them and see how their lives have truly changed for the better since being introduced to the gospel. They are great people that we hope to be able to stay in touch with. :)

Friday morning we showed up to the visitor's center and were lucky enough to see Tiffany and have her take us on a tour of a few of the historic buildings. She seemed so happy and really knew so much about the area and history of the church. I know I am a bit biased being her sister, but she came off as a missionary who is incredibly genuine and can easily relate to each person coming through and make them feel comfortable.

I snapped a few photos of Tiff as she was giving the tour in a few of the rooms thinking she might enjoy having them later. Isn't she cute?!

In Emma's kitchen with Tiff. :)

Tiffany and her companion, Sister Lee, who will be going home this Wednesday. She certainly seemed like a fun, spunky person. :)

I am SO glad we got to see Tiffany! Hopefully we didn't get her in any trouble! :)

Fun with Grandma

Funny Face w/ Grma from Savannah on Vimeo.

Frontsite Trip

Last week Chris and I had the unique opportunity to go with his mom (Patsy) and step dad (David) to a little place in the middle of the Nevada desert called Pahrump. It's somewhere between Las Vegas and Death Valley. Why did we go to Pahrump? For Frontsite of course! And why did we want to go there? A couple of reasons... 1-to prepare for the almost inevitable zombie apocolypse (or whatever the future holds), 2-to learn how to safely holster and present a weapon from concealment, 3- to learn how to quickly and effectively clear a malfunctioning weapon, 4-to improve speed and accuracy with said weapon, 5- and (my personal favorite) to rescue hostages from bad guys. =) Because we were actively engaged in drills on the shooting range and class room lectures from sunrise til after sunset each day during this 4 day course, I don't have many pictures from frontsite to share -but here are the few I managed to capture!

Our trip started out with a stop off in St. George, where we spent the night at Beth and Keith's condo (thank you James'!!) then went for breakfast at the Bear Claw and a nature walk with Josh and Meisha in the morning (thanks Josh and Meisha!!). I don't know why I didn't bring my camera for that. Anyway, Patsy (Chris' Mom) started asking Josh and Meisha a lot of questions about their shoes... lol... it was only a few hours later that the above photo was taken and Patsy had a new pair of shoes! Man, I really need a pair of those I guess... he he. It was a short, but fun visit.

There's me...trying to look cool. He he. Oh dear. In the back you can see our range and the other half of the class working with targets. Those targets could face you like they are now, or they could flip away from you. Some drills involved shooting the target accurately in the chest or head when it was facing you for less than a couple seconds before it flipped away. Those were the head shots I always had trouble with, but other than that I turned out to be a pretty accurate shot. =)

Ready for action! Chris was one of the envied students in the class! This was taken on one of our first days there. Little did Chris know at that time that later that week he would go on to get a perfect score in the shooting section of our exam and graduate at the top of his class as a distinguished graduate! Definitely NOT an easy thing to do!! I'm so proud of him. =)

Here's a shot I took from the car window on our way to Front Site one morning. It was a very empty, but also very pretty (early morning!) daily drive.

This photo was taken the night of our very last day at frontsite. It was a long and hard week, but probably the most fun I've ever had doing something so hard! We got to know our instructors very well & they were very helpful & (lucky for me) very patient. From left to right: Scott (instructor/seemed fairly new), Glock Spyke (aka Chris), Pound Cake (aka Me -yes, we had nick names), Wayne (instructor and husband to--->), Patty (range master). Behind us you can see the hostage scenarios we were working on earlier (rescue the white silhouette from the grey ones).

The day after we finished up at front site was kind of a free range day. We planned to spend the night in Las Vegas, but weren't in a hurry to get there, so David and Patsy decided to take a little tour of the area around Pahrump. We heard Death Valley was nearby, so took a drive to see if we could find it.

While driving through the desert, looking for Death Valley, we came across a couple of creepy crawlies! The first was a decent sized snake -probably a rattler, but hard to tell because he was dead and the end of his tail was missing (don't worry, no pictures of that). After that, David somehow spotted this little (or not so little) guy scurrying across the road infront of us. We couldn't pass up the chance to see a real live tarantula in the wild! So we pulled over to get a closer look! Hard to tell his size in these photos, but I'd say about the size of a softball?

He got close to me faster than what was comfortable, so I had to pick up my cell phone off the road and back up just a little. Remember, I have no zoom lense on my cell phone, so it was kind of risky business trying to get a good shot! But totally worth it...since no one was hurt (tarantula included).

Isn't that the coolest and scariest looking creature you've ever seen?!

We may have never found Death Valley, but we had fun looking at the scenery during our search!

This is a view of the mountains just west of Las Vegas. I've never seen them before, because we've never gone further, but if you get a chance it really is a beautiful area! We even saw some mountain goats on the cliffs by the road! (thanks to Patsy's sharp eyes)

We finished our trip off with one night in Las Vegas. We stayed at the Fitz on Freemont Street -Chris and I have grown fond of old town Las Vegas, so we suggested it. It was the shortest trip to Vegas I've ever had, but it was a nice relaxed ending to an otherwise busy hard working week. Thank you Chris, David and Patsy for making it all possible! It was a trip I'll always remember and hope to take again some day! =)

Avery's Family

The Fam from Savannah on Vimeo.

Canyons Trip for Mom & Dad

And this is Avery playing with the girls barbie dolls after we got home. It was a perfect trip that we will always remember.
These are too people looking out at Canyonlands. I also don't recommend the $10 fee and two hour drive in and out to see the canyon. So, we didn't get in the picture... ...we just took one of them to prove we were there.
Yes, Dad was here! A building size slab in the center of this arch (lighter area) actually fell off a couple years ago. People were sitting under it and heard lots of loud thunderous popping sounds. They ran for their lives just as it came down. No one was hurt.
We left the sunrise to take a morning walk/hike. It was about a mile and a half and well worth taking.
We got up very early, 4:30 am (it was 102 degrees at night) so it was easy to get up and we were able to witness one of the most spectacular sunrises I have ever seen.
This huge boulder, the size of a large building is seriously balancing here... ...thus the fence. We took a drive through the 17 mile canyon and then headed into town to find a remote hotel to park the car and make our bed!
ARCHES! Lots of photo ops here. We seriously need to take a family vacation here.
Looks like someone decided the drive wasn't worth it; just pile up some rocks, take a picture and say you took the drive... ...yeah, that works for me!
This is Monument Valley. I don't recommend the $10 fee to get in. The dirt road is pretty rough and you have to drive quite a ways to see anything. It was very hot and bumpy!
Here we are driving past the Glen Canyon Dam, with Lake Powell behind it.
Just like the beaches, the sunsets were spectacular! This is taken from the lodge.
...and here is another! ;)
Here is one...
Dad stepping on the edge again for a great photo. I hope to get a slide show in here of all the great scenic photos.
This is me relaxing at the lodge which sits on the edge of the canyon. People gather here and sit for hours just like they do at the beach; watching the waves come in. Except here nothing happens. If you stay long enough you will notice the shadows on the canyon walls change. ;)
Here's Dad opening the door to our little cabin. It was great after a night's sleep in the back of the Mirano.
This is what it should have looked like. There were still a few areas not affected.
This is the road to the Grand Canyon. In 2006 they had a "controlled" fire that obviously went out of control. There are miles and miles of burnt forest. It was really sad to see.
This is Navajo Lake where Dad and I have photos of ourselves in this exact spot about 30 years ago when we took a trip from Zion where we were working to explore.

So after getting Rachel and Tiffany off to their new lives, Dad and I decided to get reacquainted and rest up on a car trip to the canyons down south. I will attempt to add some photos so can see! Dad is getting too close to the edge here in Bryce for an early morning photo. I hope I can get some of his great photos on.

Tiffany's Mission Blog

Hey Family!

Before Tiffany left she started a blog where I can post her letters. This blog is open to family, friends, and whoever would like to keep up with her.

http://sistermanwaring.blogspot.com/

I just posted her first letter if you'd like to read it. :)

And the winner is..... (drum roll)

Well, it's been a long, hard and I think very fun journey! Thank you Savannah for the great idea and for pushing us all to try a little harder to make good choices. I'm sure I'm not alone in admitting that I wasn't great at doing everything that was challenged all the time, but as the challenge went on I learned that wasn't the point (at least not for me)! I think the real reward that we can all take away from this challenge, is seeing and feeling the benefits of making good choices more often than we were before. Even if we only make them most or some of the time, anything is better than none of the time!! Can you dig it? I know that I drink more water than I used to, try harder to get to bed, and am more conscious about the ingredients in the food I'm buying -that alone I think is a triumph! So, I hope everyone can join me in giving themselves a big ol' pat on the back for everything and anything each of you did to make an effort to improve your health in the past 9 weeks. Go team Manwaring!!! In your comments to this post, please post your final total and then we'll be able to find out who our monetary winners are (we already know we're all winners though, right!?). =)