2018!
We started off fresh in 2018. During the first few weeks, Elijah caught something and got sick. He bounced back from it pretty quickly, but not having insurance during this time made it a bit more concerning than it normally would be. Picture below of him feeling under the weather and then his silly self again. We had some downtime and played a classic game of Risk with everyone in the house.
We then took a trip to Flagstaff. We mainly went to visit and see some snow. Lucky for us, while we were there it began snowing (not a ton, but enough to enjoy a fresh covering of snow). We also found an old train in Kingman and took more photos before returning back to California.
Arabella got a baking kit around Christmas time. It included this little plastic bowl for her to cook real things with. She loved watching the cooking shows (MasterChef) and was so thrilled to get this out and cook with mommy. I also included a photo that I took that reminded me of my brother. What photo? The picture of the County of Los Angeles Sheriffs Department. It isn’t really a negative thing- it just is. I can be in any state, and if I see something similar I still think of him.
Oh, I mentioned earlier that we had attempted to put aside the love for our original teams for the good of the order. We took a step further by going to Dodger Stadium for some free fan event day. It was neat to see inside the stadium. Also got dodger dogs (because that is apparently a thing to do).
To round out the other things we did in the month: We visited St. Francis Dam. I included an image of it below. There were still parts of the dam in place. It was a huge event when it happened and I had never heard of it until this. You can read about it here. We generally like learning about the history of whatever we can. I also added some photos and newspapers that I found when looking this up. I read stories about how people were sleeping and then the house was destroyed, people were floating on top of mattresses trying to hang on as their lives depended on it. There really are some intense stories to be found.
Walking along it now, it’s mainly just concrete that was blown up after the fact. People would hike to the area, drink, and jump off (or fall off) and someone once died doing so. What it looked like after the collapse is below. Then a few photos of our hike. The roads look like something out of I am Legend as they haven’t been driven on in ages and they have full bushes growing up in the center lane of these roads. Some parts of the roads have deteriorated fully and have fallen off. The concrete and steel wiring you see is the bulk of what you find remaining in the area.
You will also see a photo of Joe (Snoopy’s brother) that we randomly found at a Subway while getting gas. I think that was from our trip back from Arizona, which is fitting as his brother lived in a desert. Also, it’s notable that we got California licenses and registered our car at the same time. We loved the plate we had. How we remembered it was: Leaving 4:45 for London (pictured above).
And finally a pet peeve. See the Weather image from ABC7 with Dallas Raines? Well, San Francisco is off, and Phoenix is in another State as well as Vegas. You had one job.
just Pray
note: this post was published on 08/09/22 but moved the publish date back to the end of January 2018 to keep chronological order.
