Getting a Foot in the Door...

Well, we have made it to France, and are enjoying this place IMMENSELY!  We love everything about it, (well, almost everything,) but we'll get to all that later.  

But first, just getting here was an adventure, and I have to record for posterity the grueling nightmare that we went through at LAX before we ever left U.S. soil.  This story will curl your hair, and hopefully add to your belief in miracles, as it did for me.

But even before we get to that, I have to tell you about our hot dogs.  Our flight was supposed to leave LAX in the early AM, so we drove to LA the night before, and got a hotel, but not before Dennis took us to local favorite and world famous Pink's Hot Dog stand.  He wasn't kidding about a favorite.  It was a weeknight, nearly midnight, and we stood in line for almost an hour!!!!  No kidding!!  We thought those dogs better me mighty tasty if we were gonna wait that long.  And they WERE tasty!  And HUGE too.  Mine is the long one on the left - a huge 12inch  fat jalapeno dog piled with guac, chili, grilled onions, and a bunch of veggies.  Yum!!!!  (yes, I ate a jalapeno chili dog at midnight, before getting on a long plane flight.  I like to live dangerously.)  Let me just say, I haven't eaten anything as good as that good old American dog here in France yet.  Hoping that will change.

Anyway, having plugged that commercial for Pink's (located conveniently on the corner of Wilshire and  La Brea in beautiful L.A.), I get on with our harrowing airport tale.  (We all have harrowing airport tales, don't we?  But this one really takes the cake as far as I'm concerned!)

We left the hotel very early, but by the time we dropped the car in the lot and got to the airport, we had just over a hour before it was time to board.  A sky cap met us there, and started helping us with our luggage, even though we really didn't ask her to (we can do this ourselves, you know).  But she was nice, so we just let her do her thing.  She was good! 

During self check-in, I noticed that somehow, my dad's name was showing up as Richard VanBuskirk, not Richard Signs, on the computer screen.  A problem.  Sure enough, somehow, somewhere, probably in the middle of the night when we were booking the flight, one of us accidentally typed in the wrong last name.  A small detail, right?

Wrong!!!

The names on Dad's ticket and passport didn't match, and that was a problem.  A HUGE problem.  

Just change the name.

can't

Issue a new ticket.

won't

Let him through anyway.

nope

What to do?

Buy a new ticket.  Today that seat that you bought two months ago for $800 will cost you $3,000 -

ouch

and you don't get a refund on you original ticket, by the way.

Huh?

We asked, we begged, we pleaded, and all we were left with was, "buy a new ticket at 4 times the price, or don't go." Well, paying another 3 grand was not an option for my parents, so that was it.  Poor dad!  He wasn't even there when we booked the tickets.  It wasn't his fault.  As I recall, he was sleeping on the couch when the tickets were purchased.  But he was that unfortunate one who had to stay behind.

The sky cap had already whisked all our bags away before we discovered the mistake, so she had to go and retrieve them.  Dad decided his only option was to stay home.  SO upsetting!  So when the bags came, he and mom started digging through their bags trying to decide who would take what where, and re-packing everything since my mom could only bring 2 bags, and not my dad's stuff. They were both a bewildered mess!  (We realized later that my parents nice camera got left behind in all the frey!)  Mom was so upset that dad wouldn't be coming, and Dad was understandably upset that his trip he had been planning for and looking forward to was not to be.  Dennis was busy trying to talk to anybody about hearing our story and helping us, then he was on the phone with the place we booked on line with.  I was trying hard to think about another solution, by my gears were not in full throttle due to the very limited sleep (and the aforementioned jalapeno chili dog).  I just tried to be reassuring, but didn't believe my own self.   I was no help at all. 

Meanwhile, the clock was ticking away.

We decided our best course of action was to try to find dad another (hopefully affordable) ticket to Paris in the next day or two, but nobody there at US Airways was able to help us with that.  We'd either have to walk the airport, visiting every ticket booth of every airline (no time for that!) or get online somehow.  We asked where we could get internet access.  The only place was upstairs at a gate near ours.  They had to issue dad a special pass to allow him to get through security without a boarding pass.  What a hassle!  We all went through security, including dad, and his newly repacked luggage, than ran to the pay-as-you-go internet terminals.  While mom and dad tried to get online, Dennis started calling a few wonderful friends who he knew were adept at finding good airline deals, and asked them to all start looking.   But the internet terminals were throwing fits, eating my parents' money without getting them online.

And the clock was still ticking.  

So there we were.  Dad was despondent, mom was semi-frantic, Dennis was on two cell phones at once, and I was no use at all and the clock was ticking away.  Then someone suggested we stop and have a prayer.  So we did as the clock ticked away.

Then we went back to whatever it is we were doing.  The soonest flight we could find under a thousand bucks didn't leave for 4 more days.  That wasn't going to work.  The internet station was still throwing fits, dad had pretty much given up, and mom had decided that if dad doesn't go, she didn't want to go either - France had lost ALL it appeal to her if Dad couldn't join her (who can blame her?).  

That's when I noticed that there were no passengers at our gate!  They had all already boarded.  Time to go!  We knew the time would come, but still, it came as a shock to us.  Dad just stood there shaking his head, and mom was crying knowing that dad was not too familiar with the internet, and would probably not be able to manage a search on his own.  She was terrified that he would just give up and go home.  Dennis hung up the phone, and I started trying to get all the luggage to to gate.  Then they made the last call for our flight.

That's when Dennis started flipping through the paperwork - again. On it he saw a phone number for the airline that he must have written down month's ago when he we had made the reservations.  He didn't remember ever writing it, or why he wrote it.  He had already talked to several people from the airline who all assured him they could no nothing, but he decided to call the mysterious number anyway, and explain our situation.

Not knowing what else to do, Mom and I showed our boarding passes, and went just though the gate, and just stood there on the gang plank, not wanting to get on the plane and leave our men, and not wanting to be left behind either.  We were sadly on, but our men were just a few feet away from us, and were warned that they must close the gate.  

Dennis was still on the phone, and made the hand gesture and look that maybe he was getting somewhere.  Yay!

Then he was put on hold!  AGH!

The gate attendant told us we must board now, and being no use to anybody standing inside the gate, Mom and I reluctantly boarded the plane, without our men.

And then we waited.

Anxiously we watched the front of the plane to catch the first glimpse of Dennis or Dad.  We prayed and watched and cried.  It was exactly like on the Amazing Race, when there is a close call that the couple will get on the plane, and the camera shows the front of the plane, and suspense builds and builds, and then... either the couple comes walking through that door triumphantly, or the door closes and the plane takes off without them.  I always hold my breath when that happens on the show, but it is much more stressful and suspenseful and upsetting when you are the ones sitting on the plane watching that door!

After a LONG wait (we wanted to take that for a good sign) a figure passed through the door.  It was Dennis!  Good.  What what about dad?

Then, moments later, Dad came through the door - a big grin on his face.  Dennis too, had a proud little smirk on his face.  Mom breathed for the first time in several minutes and started crying again.  He made it!

We weren't seated next to the guys, so it was a while before we heard what had happened.  but Dad was on the plane and that is all that mattered!

Later Dennis had said that whoever he had called with that mysterious phone number though she might be able to help him.  Things were very promising when they needed to shut the gate.  Then he got put on hold!  Not now!!!  The lady said she was sorry, it was too late, and went to shut the gate.  But Dennis, still on hold, stuck his foot in the door so she couldn't close it yet!  The lady couldn't get him to move his foot and probably ticked her off quite a bit.  Luckily, the lady on the phone got back on with Dennis before the gate attendant called security.  On the phone, the lady said that they could change the name on the ticket for only $250!  (Way better than $3000!)  So they quickly processed my Dad's luggage and got him onto the plane...just...in...time!

Dennis really knows how to get his foot in the door, dosen't he?  I swear, that man can do anything!!!  I love that about him.  He knows how to get things done, and will talk to anyone, anywhere to get things to work!!

What a happy flight to Charlotte that was.

Here are Mom and Dad in the Charlotte Airport.  I love that they have rocking chairs all over the terminals.  They look pretty happy to be on their way... together!

During our flight we just kept thinking about what had just happened.  I'm sure I did not explain the stress and urgency in the whole matter adequately, but it really was a whirlwind, and the fact that Dad got on that flight really was a miracle.  Tickets are non-refundable, non-transferable.  Period.  If it was just a misspelled name, etc, it might have been fixable, but it was a completely different name.  For security reasons, you just can't change something like that.  And yet, it did.  A miracle.  Really.

So many things could have gone wrong.  What if dad had left us at the ticket booth?  Or what if the internet access was down by the ticket counter, and Dad didn't have to go through security to get to the internet area?  He would have missed the flight because there would have been NO TIME to get him up through the security before the plane left.  What if that sky cap hadn't have helped us through so efficiently?  What if the internet terminals were at another gate far from our own?  What if Dennis hadn't written that number down month's ago, or didn't see it, or hadn't been inspired to call it this time?  There were many more 'what if's'.   It could have so easily gone the other way.

I believe that the prayer made all the difference.  It made it so that everything fell into place, and Dennis was inspired, and the hearts of the people in authority to make these decisions were softened so that dad could get on that plane.  It was a tender mercy of our Heavenly Father who knew several months ago that we made a stupid mistake and typed in a wrong name, and so in his goodness and mercy, he set everything up so that it could all get fixed.  I think that the power of the atonement extends beyond our sinful mistakes, to cover even the stupid ones too.

Don't you just love it when everything just works out (even if you have to go through heck and stick your foot in a door or two first? )  Me too.

Au Revoir!

Hello all!

We are off to to City of Light!  

We are off to our fabulous, long-awaited trip to France!  I am SO excited, and nervous, and exhausted!  It has been a lot of working getting everything ready for our trip, and I hope I have dotted all my 'i's and crossed all my 't's.  But the time has arrived,... ready or not!

I really wanted to blog all about our trip to Oceanside, and our week camping at the beach, but with just a few days between that trip and this trip, I just didn't have a chance.  It will wait.

I will have my computer, and my CAMERA with me, so I plan on blogging some of my trip while I am there.  So stay tuned!  

We sure wish you could come with us, but since you can't,  click on the link below to get just a virtual snippet of what we will see there.  

Enjoy and...

 Au Revoir!

Sous la tour Eiffel, Paris. Photojpl.com

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More SLC Temple Pics

I did manage to take a few photos of the Salt Lake Temple besides those in my last post.  Though none of these have rainbows, some of them still turned out rather neat.

This picture looks like I did some rather fancy imaging editing on photoshop, but really it is just...

the reflection of the temple in the reflecting pond.  Cool, huh? 

 What do you like better?  Upside down, or flipped right side up?  I'm torn.  

I found out that if I used my polarizing filter, the temple completely disappeared, so no polarizer for this shot.

The grid of tile and shimmering coins give it a fun, modern look, don't you think?



I made a few ripples with my foot for fun.

It was fun trying to come up with something a bit unique and different when trying to take pictures of something as oft-photographed as the Salt Lake Temple.  I love that temple!
   

I Like to Look for Rainbows...

While in Salt Lake City, I got up early on Saturday morning in hopes of getting some nice pictures of the Salt Lake Temple.  I was hoping that the early morning light would give me some really great highlights and shadows and that would translate into really interesting photographs and perhaps something I might want to watercolor.  My hotel was several blocks away, and I walked there early enough to be there when the sun came up.  I found a nice spot across from the church office building and waited for the sun.  But as the sky turned lighter my prospects did not look good.  The sky was blanketed with grey clouds, and I was worried that when the sun did come up over the Eastern mountains, the clouds would hamper any hopes of shadows.  I had time, so I decided to sit and wait, in hopes that the clouds might blow off.  While I waited, I pulled out my scriptures and started to read.  It started to rain, and I relocated myself under a large tree, reading my scriptures, periodically looking up to the east, to watch the sun making its ascent up over the mountains, hoping the clouds would part, and the sun would come out so that I could get my bright light and shadows that I had been hoping for.  As I read my scriptures, and tried to keep them out of the mist and sprinkles, the sun finally came up above the eastern hills.  But the clouds had thickened instead of blown off and I knew my hopes of great morning light on the temple were not to be.  Then I turned my head away from the rising sun that I had been watching and toward the temple.  What I saw there took my breath away!  There, curving perfectly over the house of the Lord, was a luminous rainbow!   I looked around to see if anyone was around to share the wonderful sight, but I was all alone.  This wonderful scene was a gift, just for me!  My heart skipped a beat as I grabbed my camera and took several pictures of it before it faded away into the mist, as suddenly as it had come.

I sat back down under the big tree as the rain began to fall more steadily.  The sun never peeked through the clouds again.  Soon there were a few people around, on their way to the temple and such.  As I sat there I was completely overwhelmed with what I had just experienced, and the gift the Lord had just given me.  I realized that I had come this morning really wanting something - really wanting to take some nice pictures of the Salt Lake Temple.  So I was looking for the sunlight, and the accompanying great light and shadows.  That was what I was hoping for, and I had been disappointed by the rain.  But the Lord had something different in mind for me - something so much better.  He sent me a rare and wonderful rainbow, curving perfectly over his house - a gift of beauty and light, but one that is only visible in the rain.  I had been keeping my eyes, and my hopes on the rising sun - hoping and praying that the light would come and the clouds would clear, and was feeling disappointed and despairing that it would not happen.  It wasn't until I turned to look at the temple, that I saw the rainbow.

What would have happened if I had kept my eyes on the sunrise and had never turned to see that temple when I did?  Surely I would have missed the rainbow all together.  I realized that there was a profound lesson for me here.  Sometimes we want something and hope and pray that we will get our desires.  But when the rainclouds hang overhead and threaten, and when the sprinkles start falling on our hopes and dreams, we think that the Lord had decided not to give us what we think we need and want.  This may be true, but he may not give us what we ask for because he has something better in mind for us, something greater than we would ever hope for or even imagine for ourselves.  I wanted bright morning sun, and he sent me a rainbow instead.  Most mornings there is usually bright morning sun on that temple.  I would certainly get my chance on another trip to Salt Lake.  But a perfect rainbow curving gracefully over the temple was a rare and beautiful gift - something I could never have planned .  Even a professional photographer could not have planned it like this.  It made for a beautiful (albeit amateur) picture, and an even lovelier memory.  I knew at that moment that the Lord loves me.  ME!  This rainbow was a tender mercy of a loving father for his imperfect, yet beloved daughter.  The spirit bore witness of his love for me at that moment.

In life, we have challenges and problems, and we think we know what we need to make things better - if the Lord would just send us what we think we need.  But the Lord who loves us and knows us often has something else in mind for us, something infinitely more wonderful, and often those blessing are to be given only in the rainy, stormy moments of our lives.  If I had gotten my bright morning sun, there would have been no rainbow. 

 Rain is necessary for any rainbow - and so is a ray of light.  When life is stormy and rainy, we don't need clear skies, but merely a ray of light, to have a miracle.  

I thought how wonderful it was that I didn't see the rainbow while looking for the immediate sunrise, but only when I turned away from the sun and looked at the temple.  What powerful symbolism!  When we keep our eyes on the horizon, looking for the answers to our prayers in the here and now, we may miss the really best blessings that the Lord is sending us.  We might even get bitter that the sun is not rising as fast as we think it should, and that there are still too many clouds in the way when it does come.  But when we stop watching and waiting for the immediate sunrise, and instead look toward the temple, and the eternal perspective that it gives us, that is when we see the blessings - the rainbows in the rain.  

Some blessing require the perspective of the temple to be seen for what they really are.  The primary song says "I like to look for rainbows, when ever there is rain..."  Well, I have been reminded that when life gives us rain, we can look for rainbows in the temple.

My Girlie Getaway!

Last week I really got to get away from it all and have a little girl time.

First, I got to spend a little time up at Girls' Camp with my cute young women.  I have such wonderful memories of going to Camp as a girl, and I was so excited to be back - if only for a day (and a night!)  I was so sad that I had to get up really early to head back down the mountain, but I had a plane to catch!  I drove from Big Bear straight to Dennis' office where he took me to the airport.  No time to loose!  I was leaving the fun of camp behind, yes, but I was off to where there was more fun to be had - the 2009 Stampin' Up! Convention!

Off I flew to Salt Lake City for the Stampin' Up Convention!  SU's conventions are always first-rate, and so very much fun!  Thousands of women (and a few guys too) gather to swap handmade cards, learn and share new stamping techniques and ideas, look at stamps, eat, and just have a blast!  (Plus we got a darling reversible convention bag and a bunch of free new stamps!)  Oh ya, and we also get to STAMP like crazy!

The theme this year was "inspire, create, share" and I got a lot of all three!

This was an exciting year for me, because I got to walk across the main stage and be recognized for my remarkable accomplishment. No, I didn't have high sales (HA!) or remarkable recruiting (ya, right!).  But I hung in there long enough and bought enough of my own stamps that I recieved my 10 year pin! (It will actually be 11 years come October!)  This was my 8th convention in 10 years. (I missed one when my twins were born, and another a few years ago, when all the slots filled up before I got my ticket.  So sad.)

I really enjoyed my moment in the limelight, since I'm sure I won't be recognized for anything actually important on stage ever again. I am just not the most motivated business women in the company.  I do the BARE MINIMUM it take to get my discount and go to convention.  Maybe I should try a bit harder.

Too bad I was having a bad hair day!

For me, the best part of convention was hanging out, in person, with my dear friend Diana.   Diana and I actually met last convention standing in line for the Make-and-Takes and hit it off immediately!  We got to know each other a bit that week, and then a lot more via blogging/email afterward.  She is an amazing, darling gal!  A speech therapist, a triathelete, an amazing singer and musician, the ward choirster, and a STAMPER too!  It was especially fun to see her in person becasue she has lost 40 lbs since last year!  Way to go Diana!  

Here are just several hundred pictures I took of the thousands and thousands of stamped cards and projects that were on display there.  It was pretty overwhelming!

Not wanting to get too stamp-crazy, Diana and I took an afternoon off from convention and pampered ourselves a bit.  First stop - pedicures!  Nothing says "I've had a girl weekend" like pretty polished piggies!  We kept looking at them for the rest of the trip.  (They are all messed up now since I went to taekwando class as soon as I got home, and had to kick the bag about a hundred times.  Oh well.  It was fun while it lasted!)

Of course, no girlie getaway would be complete without a shopping spree!  Our rounds included one of my favorite inspiring stops in Utah, Gardener Village.  I just love the cute little old buildings and pretty boutiques.  We also got to the Black Goose, the mall, the Rack, and Target (always Target!)

All that candy was for the kids, OK? For the kids.

And dinner was Diana's suggestion - Cafe Rio, where I was introduced to their pork salad.  Super yummy!  Wish I didn't have to go all the way to Utah to get another one!

And of course, there was one more element necessary to having the perfect girl weekend - talking to you girlfriend late, late, late into the night!  We had a few good chats, I must say!  Came home completely exhausted!!!  But Happy!

Dennis and the boys sure were happy to see me, and the house was clean too!  It was so great of them to let me have this time away!

I sure enjoyed myself on this getaway, and loved spending quality time with my friend Diana!  Again next year - definitely!

My Second baby Photo Shoot: Cutie-Pie Isaac

When my beautiful friend Shea had her sweet baby, Isaac, I begged her to let me come and take pictures of him.  I really need the practice (and a bit of baby time!)  She was sweet enough to oblige me, and though it all went kind of crazy, and it was obvious that I had NO IDEA what I was doing at the time, I think the pictures still turned out pretty good in the end.  That is mostly to do with the fact that I had such an adorable baby and beautiful family to work with!

When I got there, baby Isaac was still hungry, so I took a few pictures of his brother and sisters while he was getting happified.

There was a whole lot of kissing going on in these pictures.  I can't imagine why.  Really, there is nothing better than kissing a new baby!  And this one is very, very sweet!

Thanks Shea and Jeff for letting me invade your home like that!