West Coast Visit

Kent and I had the wonderful opportunity to spend a week in California and Oregon March 5th through the 12th.  We had a direct flight from DC to LA, landed at around noon and rented a car.  

As we were driving away from the airport I said, "I wonder where the LA temple is from here?"  I put it into our GPS and discovered we were just a few miles away, so we stopped by to see it.  

The visitor's center had recently been remodeled and we spent about an hour there.  We took some photos and then headed back to the freeway.  It was an unscheduled stop but a nice one.

 

 Our next stop was just 30 miles down the road.  We went to the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.  We LOVED learning more about Pres. Reagan's life.  He was such an honorable and patriotic man.  The library was surprisingly busy on a Monday afternoon at the beginning of March.

 Below is a retired Air Force One airplane.  We were able to walk through it but there were no photos allowed.

 Below is the actual written speech that Pres. Reagan gave in front of the Berlin Wall in 1987.

 A replica of the Oval Office in the White House.

 President Reagan's grave site.

 At about 8 pm on March 5th we arrived in Lompoc to stay with Garrett and Krystal.  Daniel was ready for bed by the time we got there.

The picture below was taken the next day when three generations of Carson males worked together to assemble a bed frame for the air mattress that Kent and I slept on while we were in California.

 Daniel was fascinated with the tools.

 Daniel has learned to make a "frowny" face and always got a laugh from all of us when he made it.  He did it a lot because he liked the big reaction he got from us.

 Daniel was just becoming proficient at walking by himself, and he especially liked walking up and down the hall since there wasn't anything in his way.  he went back and forth several times just practicing his walking skills.

 The reason for our visit was to attend Garrett's promotion to 1st Lieutenant ceremony and to attend his missile training graduation.  We're so proud of him and glad we could be there for his big events.

The rest of the pictures are just Daniel's random cuteness.

Daniel was as helpful with the yard work as he was assembling the bed frame.

I brought Daniel this little toy keyboard.  He's wearing some pajamas his great grandma Christensen (pictured at the end of this post) made for Garrett when he was one.

 We flew from LA to Portland, Oregon.  It was a clear day and I took this picture of Mount Shasta as we were flying over it.  We surprised my parents with our weekend visit to be there for my mother's birthday.

On Sunday morning we left bright and early to visit the newly opened Portland Temple visitor's center since church didn't start until 1pm.

 It was small but very nice.  When we arrived we were the first and only visitor's there at that time, so we got a private tour from the missionary couple serving there.

The Portland Temple was our assigned temple back in the early 90's when we lived in Walla Walla, but we haven't been there in many years.

 We stayed in Oregon with my brother, Reed, and his wife, Myra.  Myra made an amazing family birthday dinner and cake for Mom, so I think she had a memorable birthday.

 We flew home on March 12.  We flew over the DC temple as were landing at Reagan National Airport, and I snapped a picture.  There was glare from the window, so it's not the best photo, but I still thought it looked really cool.