California, here the Larsen's Come!

In the middle of June, we drove with Cashelle, her family, and Grumpy (Verne) to take this new little family to live in Southern California, where they bought this lovely home. I love it! This picture below is the two girls already making new friends in their housing developments' swimming pool.

Spencer just LOVES the water! (NOT!!)
Thomas showing us how he can go underwater and keep his eyes open.
Madalynn....
Audrey and A.J. This picture of A.J. cracks me up!

A.J.'s work.
The day we took Verne to LAX to fly home, we all went to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Verne, sadly, couldn't go with us because he had to catch his flight home.
Hollywood Walk of Fame.
This is Elvis Presley's star. You can't read it very well.


Chinese Grauman Theater. It was so much fun being there!

It was the world premiere of "Cars 2" when we were there. So exciting!


Had to get a picture of Tinkerbell for Jayleigh. She loves her.

Here is one of the LA Lakers (Mimm? is his name). Curt shook his hand. We also saw Rick Fox on the sidewalk filming something.





When Curt was in the National Guard, they stayed at this hotel, Hotel Roosevelt. It is across the street from the Chinese Grauman Theater. He said they could look out their window and see everything that was going on below.
There were all kinds of tour companies trying to get people to take their tours to see the stars' homes, the Hollywood sign, etc. Prices were $39 for each adult and $29 for each child. I told one of the salesmen if they could do us all for $100 we would take it, and then I laughed. There were 8 of us in our party (4 adults and 4 kids=$272 worth of tickets). As I was walking away, he said, "We'll do it for $120." It was the last tour of the day and I guess they decided they wanted to make SOME money, so we took them up on it. On the tour we saw Pamela Anderson (she waved and blew us a kiss), David Hasselhoff, one of the Jones Brothers and lots of homes. Some of the homes we saw--Tom Cruise, Leonardo de Caprio, David Hasselhoff, Richard Simmons, Keanu Reeves, Michael Jackson (the home he died in), Hugh Hefner and the Playboy Mansion, many others. They also drove us down Rodeo Drive (wow! for the fancy cars). This is a view of LA from the bus thing we were in.
Leonardo de Caprio's house is built on the edge of the mountain and goes down three stories overlooking Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and LA.
I think this is the gate of Michael Jackson's home where he died.




On another day, we went south to San Diego. Here we visited the San Diego temple--it is so beautiful! It was a Monday so no one was around except the groundskeepers.



After the temple, we went to La Jolla to play in the ocean. Here are some seals hanging out.





Ohhh, a baby seagull. . . .
and a FAT squirrel!
The moving truck finally came the day we left. We stayed until everything got unloaded off the truck.
While they were unloading the truck, I took the kids down the road a bit to a little park. I'm going to miss all of them so much--but I am so happy for them and how things have worked out. They sold their home, bought a new one, and moved in all within about three months. Fantastic!

Lake Tahoe in June

The first part of June, Curt and I went on a trip with Landon's parents (Jerry and Shelly) to Lake Tahoe. I was getting worried about going in early June since Lake Tahoe is up in the mountains. I was right, at least for the first day. We stayed three nights. On the first night it did snow, but the rest of the trip was okay. We drove on Highway 50, straight across Nevada, called the Loneliest Highway in the world. This was a small place we stopped at--it WAS in the middle of nowhere! There was a small bar there that had money stapled into the ceiling. It reminded me of the Salty Dawg Saloon in Homer, Alaska.

Okay, this picture is out of order. This is at the Fourth Ward School in Virginia City. Jerry and Curt are looking at the old mining equipment.

We stayed at Harrah's on the edge of Lake Tahoe. What beautiful rooms! There were the plantation shutters on the windows with the couch in front. There was a king-sized bed, two bathrooms with a TV in each bathroom, a fridge, microwave, the rooms were really nice.

This is the old Fourth Ward School in Virginia City that they have turned into a museum.

One of the long bars in an old saloon.

Curt thought it would be funny to go into the "Red Light" section in Virginia City. See that smile on his face!

The old cemetary in Virginia City.

Looking back at Virginia City. We had a lot of fun there. We spent the whole day.

Beautiful Lake Tahoe. Notice the snow in the mountains.

We stopped at Sand Harbor on the northeast side of the lake by Incline Village. It was a beautiful day.

We drove up to Donner Lake, which is on the north end of Lake Tahoe, not too far away--maybe 25 miles or so. The old snow sheds are there that used to cover the train tracks so the trains could travel in the deep snow.

Down on Donner Lake. The Donner Party was stranded at the very end of the lake.

Looking down from the west mountain overlooking Donner Lake.

See the snow! But it was a nice day.

Look at the snow surrounding this home.

As we were driving past this snowbank, Shelly let out a shreik. Look at the truck buried under the snow. It looked like the windshield had caved in.

At Donner State Park, we found this weather rock. Curt really wants to build one for the back yard. Look at the next slide--it actually tells the weather!

The monument at Donner State Park.

On the way back from Donner State Park (we made the whole trip around the lake--I think it was about 72 miles or so) we stopped at Squaw Valley where the Olympics were held in 1960. The flame is still burning.

After we left Lake Tahoe, we drove through Reno and over to Wendover where we spent our last night. In Reno was an old car museum. This is a car that was used in the movie, "The Titantic."

An early limousine.

We tried to get Curt and Jerry to put on the old coats, hats, and goggles that were nearby for photo ops, but they wouldn't. Party poopers.

There were some cars made by Big Daddy Roth. It was kind of exciting to see some local cars in the museum. These three were built in Manti and Ephraim.