Beautiful Beaver mountain.

Our mountain home.

Mountain living...nap time. Both girls actually slept at the same time! They are sleeping in our staff jackets during staff COPE training.

We had a whirlwind trip back to the States with the help of Windy's sister, Emily, and her daughter, Kelsey. We flew from Taipei, Taiwan to Tucson, AZ, USA on the 5th of June. We landed in Tucson about 2 hours after we left Taiwan, well that's only because we crossed the international date line! We were in airports or in the air for about 15 hours. Between the 3 adults 2 children and 1 infant we had 11 suitcases, 2 car seats and a stroller to check in. 4 pieces of luggage were delayed a day from LA to Tucson because of the tiny commuter jet we were on.

We spent 3 days with Windy's mom, DD, in Green Valley, AZ (south of Tucson) and indeed went to Wal-mart on the way to DD's house and bought matching socks! We also ate at Jack in the Box. Oh the joys of being home!

We adopted Emily's old car, a 1995 Mitsubishi Montero and are very happy to have our own independent transportation again. Windy really struggled with transportation in Taiwan. Now she gets to pay over $3 a gallon for gas and replace the windshield as well a regular oil changes and maintenance! OK, so Taxis were cheaper, but now I can go where I want to when I want to! Yippee! OH yeah, and parking is a non issue where I've been.

We visited Windy's dad for just a day to celebrate Fathers day with the annual water balloon toss.On Saturday the 9th of June (a week early).Then hit the road again and made it to Beaver High Adventure Base Boy Scout Camp by midnight on the 10th of June after 2 mis-adventures. We went to our storage unit in Cedar City to pick up a few things and didn't realize the time zone had changed and couldn't get out of the gate after 9 pm. We thought we were doing well to be done at 8:45, ARIZONA time. Oops! Oh well, we were able to get the gate opened in about 20 minutes and were on our way again. The 2nd misadventure was loosing a duffel bag of baby clothes and toiletries off the roof rack as we didn't have any more room inside the car and though we were nearly to our destination and didn't tie it down properly.

Well anyway we are mostly enjoying our time at camp, though it's been a super rough transition on Cordelia at only 2 and a half months old. The climate when from 90 degrees F and 90 percent humidity to 40 degrees at night and 5 percent humidity!

We are working hard and getting full of nice clean dirt!

 

 

We took a quick trip across the border to Mexico in our short visit in Arizona before heading up to Utah. To bad they charge for a visa to get a stamp in your passport. We were in 3 countries in the space of 4 days.


And just for proof that a red octagon is universal for stop here's a picture in Spanish to match the Chinese sign shown earlier in the blog.

We arrived safely in Tucson on Tuesday night near midnight, 2 hours “after” we left Taiwan. We had a bit of an adventure and high stress (Ben lost his wallet 3 hours before taking the bus to the airport; it’s found now and in the express mail system thanks to the folks at the Grand Hotel.) We were just in time for each flight and didn’t have more that 10 minutes to rest between any transfers with immigration (surprisingly no problems due to the missing ARC) all the customs (no problems, but time in line) moving our own baggage in LAX and then arriving in Tucson in a 50 seater plane that couldn’t fit our luggage. We did have 11 check-ins, 2 car seats (one in the plane for Elnorra) and a stroller. Our 4 remaining bags and Cordelia’s car seat arrived at my mom’s house, free of charge, the following evening. We even had a loaner car seat for the day.

We went first to Jack-in-the-Box for a midnight snack (It was on the way, open 24 hours and sounded good) We then went to Wal-mart and we now own 20 pairs each of our preferred style and color of socks!

 

The flight home. We flew out of Taipei, Taiwan around 7 pm on Tuesday the 5th of June, we arrived in Tucson, AZ around 11 pm the same day! With the crosssing of the international date line we technically were only traveling 4 hours, but it was a much, much longer day.

Luggage! We had 3 adults, 2 youth and 1 babe-in-arms. This allowed 11 pieces of luggage up to 70 pounds, not counting 2 car seats and a stroller!

Moving out... the empty Taipei apartment. We found a new renter and sold our furnishings to her so we didn't have to find news homes for (and move) any more stuff than we had to.

Moving out... the empty Taipei apartment.