ToddlingAroundTheWorld

Today was surprisingly nice and now that it is getting lighter sooner (for a couple more weeks anyway), I took my walk out into the streets and walked outside in the morning! It was a nice change of venue from the mall.  I also worked the day at the Mobica Offices ( they are the Android developers for our Visual Voice Mail Application). They are a bit closer to the temple, so Iwent there for lunch and then walked the nearby trailsat Robinseood park.  On the way home, I stopped at Gene Coulon beach for one of my favorite walks along Lake Washington. Look at that view of Mt. Rainier!

Brought Lunch to work today. This ramen from Costco is pretty good. I then took my a lunchtime loop up behind The mall and over past the LDS church.  You can see TMobile campus up on the hill behind the mall there. Still carrying my Argentina bracelet with me as I go on my walks. It is a constantly reminder that Austin is out there everyday pounding the pavement himself, while striving to bring others into Christ. 

Google hangouts day! Austin has been called to be a District Leader and to train a new missionary fresh out of the MTC! He was a bit apprehensive, this coming just eight months into his mission, and feeling responsible for working with all of the missionaries in his district. He will do an excellent job. He has always been an exceptional leader, watching him grow up working in leadership at school, church, scouts and in Sports. These activities have prepared him well and I’m sure his district and green bean companion will love him!

Excited to hit this milestone of Austins Mission. He has been a missionary now for 8 months, so 1/3rd of the way done! LeAnn has a paper chain ring hanging on the wall that has 24 loops. She takes one off each month. It is fun to see it shrinking down. :) Jaylins friend, Kiriana came over to try on Prom dresses that Jaylin has used in past years. It is nice to see Kiri occasionally as she moved into our ward in Star Lake about 5-6 years ago and I remember having Jaylin invite her to go ice skating with us when they first moved in. So nice to see their friendship continue through the years, and although we are now 10 miles south of them now in our new house, they still get together. She stayed for dinner. It was a good night.

One of the highlights of my Zoo walks before #sharksSushiChef responsibilities is seeing these two walruses in their exhibit. I love these guys. Their names are Mitik and Pakak and they are so interactive. They see me as I walk by and swim over to greet me. They whistle at me and seem to be smiling. Such a fun experience to see them each Saturday.

I went to get X-Rays taken of my knee today. My left knee has been bothering me and painful when walking for the past month or so. There have been times when it is hard to flex or extend my knee without it hurting intensely. Some days are better than others, and a few times I feel like it is getting better, then other days where I take a few steps backward. After going to the doctor and him recommending physical therapy at least, he sent me to get the X-rays done. I got there after work today and after changing into scrubs, the technician asked me how long my knee has been hurting for. 'Since 2003' I responded. He thought that was pretty funny.

We didnt hear from Austin until about 1:30, which was odd, since that would be 6:30 pm in Argentina. I had left work early as I had a Dr. Appointment in Federal Way at 2:00. Right as I pulled into the parking lot of the Dr. Office, he called. Happy Day! Sadly, I had an awful cell phone connection, so couldnt speak to him as he couldnt hear me, but the great thing was, I could hear him! They had played soccer as a district and that had thrown off his schedule a bit. So, where we thought we might not hear from him on this day, it turned out just fine. After the Dr. Appointment, where I discussed some of the challenges I am still having with recovering from the rectopexy surgery and told him about the pain in my left knee. His name is Dr. Wallace, and he suggested I start doing some physical therapy for my 'pelvic' region (to strengthen that area back up where I had the surgery) and also ordered some x-rays for my knee to find out if there is anything going on there. After my a...

Today was Sunday and I was scheduled to meet with the bishop before our bishopric meeting. I would usually go in earlier to walk down the to the lake and back, but it was raining pretty good. I also was supposed to do the church parking log security during the second hour of church. This building, our Stake Center, has had lots of car burglaries in the past while people are attending church. Sad to think of the evil people out there that would prey on churchgoers who are striving to become better people, while they are in church. I had looked at the forecast and came prepared with an Umbrella. It rained pretty hard for the first half hour, then cleared up the second half hour. I was able to walk about three miles during that time. That evening, LeAnn and I went with Jaylin to attend a 'Face to Face' with President Oaks and his wife. They talked about the new Youth Program and how we can work on creating goals. This is a replacement for Boy Scouts and Personal Progress programs....

Austin now is training a greenie, fresh from the MTC. His name is Elder Clifford. That’s all we know now and is based on this Instagram post from his mission mother. They look like a good match! It will be fun to see how they grow together as Austin trains and continues to develop his leadership as a district leader. 

This is a shot coming down the hill from Newport. I love the mountains in the back of the Seattle skyline. Hard to believe I have lived in this beautiful area for over half my life. Enjoying the journey. 

Started working on this behemoth of a puzzle that Jaylin gave me for Christmas. It is 1000 pieces and is a bit overwhelming at this point. I was able to get all of the edges out and am looking forward to working on this with LeAnn and Jaylin. It is always fun to have a big project and work on it together. Seeing the progression and working through the challenges of finding the matches is very fulfilling and look forward to the sense of accomplishment when we will have it completed. A long distance begins with the first step. Hmmm, this ties in closely with my #walktobahiablanca mission - it seems like an impossible task when you look at 7,020 miles, but I chip away each day, and love to see the progress that has been made so far.

Sadly, we didnt have much time to enjoy the nice weather that exposed itself on Sunday morning. We needed to leave around 9 am. to get LeAnn back for a meeting that she had scheduled with the AFY council. I did take off in the morning and get out to the Bay and back. That much in itself was glorious. Here are a few shots: Then, before we left, I came back down to the viewpoint to show LeAnn and Jaylin the sea lions that were out basking that morning.  After getting home and having a relaxing afternoon, I hopped back on the treadmill to get four more miles in and finish with 8 miles for the day.

So much rain. This was the one full day that we had at Depoe Bay. This was one full day of nothing but rain. It was pouring in the morning, so I scurried down the walkways at the condos to get to the workout room. I got there around 8:00 am, and it was empty! Yay! I started up on the treadmill and watched a couple of episodes of Supergirl. Then the resort WiFi started flaking out, so I connected to my hotspot. Though the strength of that is not usually good, it came through well enough to get through the episodes and finish 5 miles on the treadmill. Had a couple of other people come through after me and finish before me. I started getting pretty hot. It always baffles me that I start to sweat so much on the treadmill verses hardly at all when I am outside walking. That is the beauty of being out in nature and having the built-in air conditioning running.  We did get a short walk in before going out to lunch. It was still pretty drizzly as you can see here by LeAnn and my attire. O...

Took the day off from work today. It was nice to have some extra time. I slept in past 4:30 am., which was nice. A bit later, went out on my Trout Lake loop walk. It has been a while since I have done that one. Got around 5 miles in before we packed up to head down to the Oregon coast. It took us about 6 hours instead of 4 1/2 since we hit traffic at Fort Lewis and then in Portland. We stopped at McDonalds for a bathroom break and to get some dinner. 10 piece McNuggets for Jaylin and myself. Arrived around 8:00 in Depoe Bay. So thankful to grandma and grandpa Thorne for inviting us down to the condos each year. It is great to spend time with them on the ocean and enjoy the spectacular views off of the cliffs to watch the magnificence of the waves on the Pacific. My knee has still been hurting quite a lot, so didnt walk much more after arrival. Did a short jaunt down the path next to the cliffs and back. Ended up with 7.2 miles for the day.

Had a good distance day today. Finished walking 13.1 miles! Was looking forward to having tomorrow off of work. I took a PTO day as we will be driving down to Depoe Bay for mid-winter break when LeAnn and Jaylin get back from school.

Today, February 12, 2020, Autumn turned 23! This girl has been such a special blessing for our family. She has brought us such joy since the time she was a baby. I was so thrilled when she came into our lives all those years ago. She is smart and fun. She works so hard at her studies. She is so thoughtful and generous. Autumn would always strive to give us meaningful gifts. She gave us a shower bar one year and a borch swing for our front porch one year! She has always strived to be the best she can be and lights up the room whenever she enters. Her smile has brightened up the whole world from Seattle to the Czech Republic. People love her, and she loves them. So thankful she is such a big part of my life.

Today is a special day in the history of our family. On this day, 26 years ago (February 11, 1994) LeAnn and I became engaged. We like to celebrate this day over Valentines day as it is special to us and gives us an opportunity to not have to deal with the crowds and chaos that happen every Valentines day when you try to go to dinner. LeAnn is the most special person in my life. From that first day when I saw her beautiful smile from across the ballroom at the LDS Business College Ballroom, until now, she has continued to brighten up my life each and every day. She has been the most wonderful wife and mother and impresses me all of the time with everything she is able to accomplish. She is kind and loving and I love her laugh. (Though she doesnt think I am quite as funny now after 26 years... ;)). She has raised up our children to be thoughtful and happy. It is an incredible thing to see the positive impact that she has made on so many. I am so blessed to have her in my life. She is pa...

Austin has been meeting with a friend called Gustavo in Bahia Blanca. It has been great to see their relationship develop over the past couple of months. We have received a few pictures of Gustavo and his family and Austin sure loves them! It is so nice to know that there are genuinely kind people in Argentina that Austin has befriended. Austin and his companion have been helping Gustavo build a brick wall for his house! What a great experience for them. To learn a new skill, give service and be able to help out a friend is a wonderful thing.  Austin then helped me get connected with Gustavo on WhatsApp. We have had a few fun conversations where Austin has been at his house and he has sent me some voice messages and a couple of videos. Today I received an exciting message on WhatsApp, and Gustavo sent me this fun video of Austin working on the wall. Here is a picture of my friend, Gustavo.  Thanks for taking care of my son Gustavo! He is in great hands!

This was the letter we got from Austin today. He has been crowned as the 'Neighborhood Messi'! :) Hey everyone, Ayirton is the other child of Fabian and Cinthya that wasn’t baptized with the family. We have been playing soccer with him every week for the past couple of months and we have become really close. He said that he now wants to be baptized in the church so that he can live with his family forever 🙂 Adrian is continuing to progress and is very interested in the plan that God has for him here in the earth. We also play soccer with him haha Mirco is 13 and wants to be baptized like his older brother. He is super cool and loves to show me all of the new rap songs that come out in the US each week haha His older brother Tiago is amazing at soccer and might go pro. We play with them each week too haha One experience I had… We were walking in the street and a group of 14 kids came up to us and were laughing and asked if we wanted to play a game of soccer with them in t...

Taking treats

On my evening treadmill walks I have started watching Supergirl on Netflix. As I was watching the end of season 1, they introduced the Flash as a crossover character. After Flash’s alter-ego, Barry, meets Miss Grant, who is Kara’s (Supergirls) boss, Miss Grant is surly impressed. She makes the following statement about Barry:  This totally cracked me up! It wS so nice to hear something flattering around the perception of our religion as opposed to the other way around. It was a good way to end the day. 

Another nice walk through Point Defiance. I have a good route that goes through the woods and down to Owen Beach on the Water of the Puget Sound into Commencement Bay. Today there was some music coming from the beach and as I came over the ridge saw there was a lot of activity down on the beach. There was some Torch Light run going on, with a lot of boothsand people milling around. There was this band playing

Finished almost 10 miles through the workday. After work, I went to Renton Landing and stopped there to watch a movie. (Both LeAnn and Jaylin were our with friends). I’ve been wanting to see the world war 2 movie 1917 for a while. Had the whole theater to myself with 3 others at the 420 showing. It was fantastic. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Then went to Marshall’s and World Market. By the time I was done traffic had eased upenough to where it wasn’t a rough ride the rest of the way home. 

After a few months now of walking the Factoria Mall on weekday mornings, there are many faces that I see each day of the repeat offenders. A number of these are friendly and smile and wave as we pass each other during our laps around the inner mall. A few Others are quite guilty of the ‘Seattle freeze’ and won’t look you in the eye or give others any notice at all. These few I call the mall zombies. Just waiting for them to start moaning ‘braaaaainsss’ and begin turning on the others... And occasionally, you will see a ‘sleeping zombie’. in some of the massage chairs. This one is particularly camouflaged as he is in all black with the face covered. I will be constantly vigilant and on the watch for any potential attacks if these zombies awake...

Austin Called today. I love this part of Mondays. I was out on my lunch walk during that time and didnt want to get too close to Factoria, where it would be noisier, so I stayed up in the Newport Hills neighborhoods. This was the day that Austin would get to 'meet' his future brother-in-law on the phone call. Autumn and Clay were in Seattle and were also having a challenge finding a quiet place with good cell phone coverage. It was good that they got to talk for a little bit. 

I do enjoy listening to audiobooks and podcasts while #toddlingaroundtheworld . Since Austin left for Argentina last June, I have listened to 32 books. So within that almost 8 month period, that is about 4 books per month. I really feel that this is a great way to educate myself. While I dont read books like I used to before starting this walking journey (because I am usually too exhausted at the end of the day to read after walking all those miles and I will drop off to sleep almost immediately), I do feel that the books I choose to listen to have a positive impact on my knowledge and help me enjoy the journey even more. I walk and get exercise while being edified at the same time - Two birds with one stone! Here are the last five audiobooks I have completed listening to:

I decided as the weather was clear that I would walk home from church today. I took clothes to change into, and changed in the car after church was over. I walked back past Lake Kilarney and the trails through there and then down 38th avenue. As I got closer to our house, I ended up heading east on 380th street and coming back around through the Jovita Interurban trail. This route ended up giving me 8.3 miles for the day. Which was sufficient, as I usually dont get quite that many on a Sunday. It was also Superbowl Sunday, and I was planning on hunkering down for a while in the afternoon. My knee is still hurting pretty bad, so decided to take the rest of the day off. Here is a check-in on the progress of my 'ToddlingAroundTheWorld' goal: since starting the Virtual walking program on July 6th, 2016, just about 3 1/2 years ago, I have now walked 10,964.3 MILES! This leaves me with 5,746.3 MI remaining to complete the 16,710.7 MI of my goal of walking around the world. This...

This morning, after finishing my mall walk and getting to work from the car, I came into the elevator entry on the first floor of the building I work in. There is a lady who works security who stays by the elevators to check card keys and such. Her name is Lauren. She is a black lady in her sixties. I have gotten to know her a bit just through friendly conversation while waiting for the elevator to arrive. She is wonderful. Kind. Thoughtful with a beautiful smile and demeanor. On this day, she told me to 'Have a nice day' as I was about to get on the elevator. I told her 'Okage sama de'! and then explained to her what that means in Japanese: 'I will because of you'. She then said: 'Nihongo wo wakarimas' (I understand Japanese). I was surprised, of course, and she went on to explain that she loves Japan and had been over there a number of times. What an amazing thing, to have that connection. She asked how I learned it and I told her I was a missionary th...

It was raining like crazy when I drove down to the aquarium this morning. I wasnt sure whether I would want to go out into it during my break between preparing the shark food and feeding time. However, when I finished and looked outside, it had cleared up nicely. I went up on my route through the Point Defiance natural trails. As I was walking along, I ran into this:  There were nice, little rivulets running down the trails. Good thing I have my waterproof Columbia shoes. They work well while working in an Aquarium and also while walking on wet trails.   LeAnn had gone out to the peninsula to check out some things with the Girls Camp leaders at Zions camp this morning, so I didnt head straight home. I actually went out again and walked the zoo after finishing the shark feed. Went over to the other aquarium, the Pacific Seas Aquarium, to check out the hammerheads and rays they have there. Went to Jared Walker, Austin Crawford and Caleb Carhart's Eagle Court of honor toni...