Sending Cami Off

I will try to keep this blog updated at least somewhat with Cami's mission experiences, however if you want the full story, you'll want to subscribe to her mission blog. 

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Cami's spent the last couple of weeks madly trying to finish up all of the preparations for her mission.   She's  been shopping, gathering items that she needs, visiting with friends, and making long late-night FaceTime calls to people, which is actually really only one special person that she's really going to miss.  

She also met with as many friends and relatives as possible to say her "see ya laters"!   

We ate up our Cami time as much as we could and planned and did little else (hence the lack of posting on this blog).

We did, however, throw in a family photo shoot...

as well as a trip to see Phantom of the Opera at the Kennedy Center.

Then on Sunday, July 31st, Cami was set apart as an official missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, after which the late phone calls stopped and we started calling her Sister Goold.

  It was an emotional day, but we could't be happier about the adventure she's embarking on for the next 18-months.

Then the next day on August 1st, Cami  and I hopped on a plane to Utah.  Glen and the kids said their goodbyes there at the curb...

and waved as Cami went off on her 18-month adventure!   

After we landed in Utah late on Monday night, it quickly became a whirlwind of activity getting ready to drop Sister Goold off at the Missionary Training Center on Wednesday afternoon.

We had some shopping to do, some things to gather, etc.    But for as much as she tried to stay focused on actually getting ready, really at this point, she just wanted to eat up her last few hours being a semi-normal 19-year-old.     We (and I do mean she AND I, since she was already a set apart missionary) went out to lunch and met a friend at the temple for a session.

Then we came back (later than we'd expected) to my parent's home to hang out with lots of relatives at the open house my mom and sisters planned.

Cami's friends stayed later at the open house than everyone else and she enjoyed one more night of being social.  

She practiced her missionary safe goodbyes, but ended up laughing more than anything else.  

Wednesday morning dawned too early and eventually it was time to get in the car and head to Provo.

Cami randomly ran into one of her favorite babysitting families in the parking lot at BYU.   The Welch's hold a special place in Cami's heart and I think she was as excited to see them as they were to see her.   

We spent the last hour before I dropped her off at the MTC, at the Wilkinson Center, so she could say her last goodbyes for the next 18-months.   Sister Welch (the mom of the kids above) even ran from the class she was teaching, so she could join in on the fun! 

There were no tears here, just some great friends (one of whom you've probably noticed has shown up in a lot of these pictures and may or may not have something to do with all the late-night FaceTime calls)  really happy to spend a few more minutes together.

Leaving time came all too soon though...

and Sister Goold and I reluctantly jumped in the car for the 2 minute drive to the Missionary Training Center.   She made a few phone calls (to Glen and her siblings) along the way...

and before I knew it I was leaving a piece of my heart behind there in the drop-off lane.  

Goodbyes are quick at the MTC, but that didn't stop the floodgates from opening.   I had to quickly pull over after leaving the MTC  and regain my composure before it was safe for me to drive again.  

I am thrilled beyond belief for Cami and know that great adventures lie ahead for her, but, man, we sure are going to miss her for the next year-and-a-half.  

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Fun facts: 

*August 3rd was a big day at the Provo MTC and 819 other missionaries also started their missions that day.  

*Cami's first companion, Sister Jones,  is the niece of a good friend of ours.  They were in the same ward at BYU and are also both in the nursing program. They had connected beforehand and Cami was very excited about having her as a companion. 

*Sister Goold's P-Day (short for preparation day) while she is in the MTC is on Fridays.  Basically that means, that's the only day she'll have access to email, so make sure you send your emails before then.   

Saying Farewell

This little blog has definitely taken the back seat the last few weeks as we get Cami ready to go on her mission next week! Between the shopping (not my favorite thing to do) and all the errands, I've barely been able to keep my own head above water with my normal daily chores, yet alone being productive enough to actually be able to blog or do anything else that falls into the extraneous category. 

July 23:  Yesterday we crossed one big thing off our list when we got our family pictures taken.      It was 100º.    

I spent far too much effort and money on procuring the "perfect" matching outfits, but since it has been four years since our last family pictures, I was committed to give it my best shot.   In the end I did like the way we all looked together in the blue and gray, so here's hoping that they actually turned out well.  I'll post the actual sweat soaked photos when we get them back from the photographer.  

July 24:   Today, Cami gave her farewell talk at church.  She did a fantastic job and managed to quote "Les Mis", the Book of Mormon, and the BFG, in addition to other sundry of general authorities.    

We had a big crowd turn out in support of her and it really was a special day.  

We finished the day with a little family dinner, a hilarious game of telestrations, and one of our last family home evenings before Cami heads off.   

We will miss this girl! 

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Reliving a Nightmare

June 23:    My sister, Kristina, really wanted to see Cami before her mission and offered to pay for a ticket out to visit her in California.   As cool as it sounded, Cami did not leave much open time in her schedule this summer and the only open week she had was while I was at YW camp, which meant that she was on babysitting Ellie duty for the week!  I thought it would be a deal breaker, but tickets were actually super cheap and Kristina just invited Ellie to join them as well.  

So this morning, I dropped them off at the airport, giddy and excited for their cross-country adventure together.  Some of you may remember that  THIS happened to Cami a couple of years ago.  Because of that nightmarish experience, I was definitely  a little nervous sending them off, but took heart in the fact that it wasn't wintertime, so any potential storms out there should be more quickly passing than the giant snowstorm that stranded her before.   Plus, I've never been stranded in an airport in my entire life, certainly my 18-year-old wouldn't be so unlucky as to have it happen to her again.

<sigh>  I was wrong.     <double sigh>

The trip out there turned out to be one grand misadventure after another.   First off, their original flight out of BWI got cancelled.    We called the airlines and quickly got her rescheduled on another one that left out of IAD, which is closer to home anyway,  so we didn't mind that change.   Then I dropped them off and took heart in that the flight left on time and everything seemed to be going smoothly.    Smoothly that is  until instead of calling from their scheduled layover city of Denver, they called me from Rapid City, SD.

Apparently there was a storm in Denver that prevented them from landing there, so after circling Denver for a while they flew to Rapid City before they ran out of fuel.   Rapid City.  We've been there.  It's a great little town not far from Mount Rushmore, but weirdly it is not a super happening place  and the quaint little regional airport was already closed for the day.    That meant no dinner options (the restaurant had run out of food, except for bowls of cereal and United certainly didn't even offer a snack or anything).   There were no back-up pilots nearby, so they had to be flown in from Chicago.    Basically it meant that Cami and Ellie got to wait, wait, wait, with nothing to do and nothing to eat for hours.

Eventually (after several hours there) the back-up pilots arrived and they got on their way to Denver.    They were getting into Denver about midnight (2am to my girls) and I knew there was no way they would be catching any flights to California that night.  We called United several times and were met with rude, unapologetic people who would do nothing for them.   The only thing we managed to accomplish was to get them scheduled on a flight to California at 8am the next morning.    All the nearby hotels were booked, so Cami got to spend her second night of her life on an airport floor and Ellie her first, which is still one more than me.

All the restaurants in Denver were already closed, which meant still no food, but worse than that...they were absolutely freezing.   They were dressed for summer weather, not for sleeping on cold tile.  They asked United for a blanket.  They said, "no way" and seemed more than happy to let an  18-and 11-year-old that they had stranded for many hours without food or accommodation of any kind just freeze.  #unitedcustomerservicesucks

At least they had each other though.   And I think that meant a lot to both of them.

The next morning, Cami, in her freezing, sleep deprived state-of-mind, didn't notice that they'd changed the gate of their flight out and they missed it by 5 minutes.   Eventually around noon, they finally got to take off.   All in all, it took 27-hours for them to reach their destination.  

And once again, Cami handled it with better humor and attitude than I did.   I wasn't quite as emotional as I'd been a couple of years ago, but I definitely didn't sleep much and our words for United after the ordeal was done were none too kind.   On the bright side though, they did end up getting a travel voucher out of the deal, which meant that Cami got to extend her trip a couple days and visit her "friend" in Utah.  

Catching Up!

We are trying to take the reins on our house this summer, which means that this blog is taking a backseat for a while.  I'll try to get a little catching up done through June 30, so I can at least say I made it half-way through the year on the picture-a-day.  After that though, you can just assume that every picture would be about the same---either  reorganizing a closet, scrubbing something, or just in general delving into some forgotten corner of 15 years of accumulated stuff.   Either that or a picture of bucketloads of kids, since Cami is currently watching my brother's four kids while he and his wife are adventuring in Australia.    Life is good.

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June 18:   Today Glen, Emma, Adam, and I  hiked from Carderock to Great Falls, via the towpath and  Billy Goat A.    We estimate that it totaled about 8-miles.

I really enjoy pushing myself on these kinds of hikes....

If you were to ask me what an ideal day would entail for me, there would definitely be a family hike included!  

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June 19:  Emma made a delicious Father's Day breakfast for Glen....

We went to church which included Cami's roommate and BFF, Katy's, mission farewell, as well as musical numbers by the primary kids and the youth ("Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy").  

After church we went for a pleasant stroll around the neighborhood...

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June 20:   The beginning of our house projects begins by getting a dumpster delivered in front of our house.     We are cleaning out the attic and garage.   Oh joy!  

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June 21: Attic cleaning has commenced.   It's HOT up there, so we are trying to get most of our time in the attic done early in the day, then spend the time in the AC organizing and determining what belongs in the cavernous dumpster in front of our house.    

I also decided it was high time to get some mission shopping done, so Cami and I headed to the mall and had a great day at Sears and New York & Co.   

The girls made chicken mango rice salad for dinner! 

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June 22:   Today we cleaned and sorted stuff from attic....again!   Then I started selling things that we didn't need anymore.    And Adam and I played Scrabble.   He beat me.