God is awesome. Mountains are cool.

Hollywood, CA

2009-10-19T03:01:00.003-06:00

Hello folks! The Whipps are in California again! Wow ... we were here in Hollywood in March, up in the northern areas in June, and back in Hollywood again in October. One can accurately guess we enjoy visiting California! :)

We chose to come to California not only because it's one of our favorite spots, but also because we have a friend from Australia visiting us. Hannah is one of Fletch's Aussie friends that I became friends with via facebook several months ago. She arrived on 9 October and is loving soaking in the American culture. We arrived in Hollywood on Friday the 16th just in time for our routine dinner at In-N-Out. If you haven't experienced an In-N-Out, then you need to head to CA, AZ, NV or UT!!! They only exist in these states!

We've had a fun, but relaxing weekend so far. Fletch has had some time to shop around the music stores while Hannah and I are hanging out about town. Our hotel is usually a bit exciting over the weekend with Hollywood-related activities throughout the late night/early evening hours! Let's just say our mothers shouldn't be here at this time! In fact, I'm starting to think I don't want to stay here anymore if it's a Friday or Saturday night!

I was really excited to try out a hip hop dance class at the 24 hour fitness in Hollywood off Sunset Blvd. I would love to be able to continue taking the classes, but our local 24 hour fitness clubs don't offer hip hop. Oh well. It was fun while it lasted! The instructor even video taped us dancing! I'm sure he won't include any pics of me ... unless it's posted under a clowning class! LOL

Today we walked up and down Hollywood Blvd looking at all the stars on the sidewalk. It is a much touristy area than Sunset Blvd. We also toured the Grauman Chinese Theatre. There is so much history in that building! After taking a little break back in our hotel room, we ventured out to find some homes of the stars. We saw (mainly hedges and fences) several homes including Michael Jackson's last home where he died. :( We also were saddened to drive down Rodeo drive ... after seeing a homeless man on Sunset Blvd making "camp" for the night. It was amazing to see such a difference in societies in a matter of 10 miles!

Tomorrow we plan on going to Universal Studios. Hannah hasn't been to an amusement park for over 20 years. I'm sure we are all going to have a blast! Fletch and I finally decided to buy an annual pass to Universal because of our frequent trips out here. The weather should be nice and we're looking forward to spending some time outside in the sun. :)

Hopefully we'll have some pictures up tomorrow. :)

VACATION DAY #7: Friday, June 12th

2009-06-13T10:14:00.008-06:00

YOSEMITE! Fletch and I decided to jog on down to Yosemite at the last minute. We were going to spend 3 days near the Redwood Forest and 3 days at Lake Tahoe, with a day in between those locations to decide whether or not we would want to extend a day at one of those places. When I found out Yosemite wasn't too far away from Lake Tahoe, we decided to spend 2 nights at each location. We both decided this was a great idea even before we got here. We have been to Yosemite just once before just driving through. 2 nights still wasn't enough for a Yosemite trip! We spent the 2 days driving through 80% of the roads in the park and hiking all throughout Yosemite Village. Yesterday we were able to watch a film on rock climbing and even got to meet the rock climber featured in the film! This was a great way to end our outdoorsy vacation ... and a great way to start our summer planning fun quick getaways. Yellowstone just may be in our future this summer for sure!

In a little bit, I'll be going downstairs of our bed & breakfast to have some lovely hot breakfast. I may eat in the rose garden as well. :) Speaking of outside, we heard that this is abnormal cool weather for this time of the year! Praise God for great weather! We have 3 hours to drive to San Jose to catch our evening flight home. This has been a fantastic vacation. Next update will be at home. Signing off in California.

VACATION DAYS #5 & 6: Wednesday & Thursday, June 10th & 11th

2009-06-11T23:02:00.005-06:00

WEDNESDAY (Lake Tahoe)

I didn't send a post on Wednesday because we didn't take any pictures. It was a cold start to our day, but was great after we were able to cancel our meeting with the resort for Thursday without any problems!

Going to South Lake Tahoe before summer officially starts is silly. There are a lot of things to do d

uring winter and summer. Everyone kept reminding us it's still spring and therefore the outdoor activities were still closed. :( We spent the day walking around the shops and

driving around town. I was able to squeeze in a LOVELY chair massage after a nap and we watched a movie in our room called "The Changling". We recommend this movie for anyone interested in American history!!!

THURSDAY (Yosemite)

Today we drove through more windy roads up several thousand feet (summit was past 9,000 feet) into Oakhurst. We drove through the entire Yosemite Park and had a huge highlight on our 3 hour drive ... BEARS!!! Unfortunately the camera battery died, but we do have a lot of pictures of a mama bear and her babies! You'll have to check back tomorrow to see the pictures while the battery recharges!!! We are staying in a lovely bed & breakfast half an hour from Yosemite's south entrance called Houndstooth Inn. The wine hour is all night and the house has 12 rooms that are all booked for the evening. Seems like a popular place to stay. :) We had an awesome dinner at Todd's BBQ and are wrapping the evening up watching "Michael Clayton" in our room compliments of the owners. :)

Tomorrow's plan is more Yosemite (with charged batteries) and hiking. :)

VACATION DAY #4: Tuesday, June 9th

2009-06-10T02:05:00.016-06:00

We had a lovely day driving through all sorts of California terrain today! We left the giant redwoods and entered the vineyards once again which soon turned into farmlands then tall buildings (Sacramento) before going back to farms and then Sierra Mountains into lake towns!

Our first stop was a winery called Ceago Vineyard on Clear Lake in Lake County. It was, of course, gorgeous! We even saw the owner there! Not only did they grow grapes, but take a look at the lovely lavender in their back yard!

After I tasted 6 wines and walked out empty (my fav was the most

expensive ... $35!!!) we continued our journey to South Lake Tahoe. We found a cute In-N-Out in Woodland just outside of Sacramento. After driving 2 lane roads for most of our trip outside San Francisco, it was weird to hit the capital city of Sacramento during rush hour! I do love the carpool lane, though. :) Once we were out of the city limit we started our ascent up the

Sierra Nevada Mountain range. It was a lovely drive, but very windy. We did a lot of climbing and just after hitting the summit of over 7800 feet (we went through a town at 150 earlier in the day) we didn't go down the range very much. I'm not looking forward to heading back to San Jose on Saturday! My mama always said "What goes up, must come down!" Our little Sebring is not a good choice for climbing mountains in!

Our lovely $49/night room in South Lake Tahoe has ended up being a timeshare room. It is beautiful inside but we aren't looking forward to canceling that informational meeting on Thursday. Well, we are looking forward to canceling it, but not being harassed to keep the appointment!

Tonight we drove 10 blocks to Nevada and watched "Angels & Demons" at a theater in a casino. If you haven't seen the movie, we highly recommend you watching it! We don't have plans for tomorrow just yet, but it should involve having a workout, maybe bike riding, going to the lake, hopefully swimming ... it's all up in the air!

VACATION DAY #3: Monday, June 8th

2009-06-08T23:00:00.015-06:00

AVENUE OF THE GIANTS!!! Wow! That short 3 lettered word pretty much sums up our day seeing God's beautiful creation! "I Stand in Awe" & "Come Let Us Adore Him" were two of the songs we sang while driving through one of the most scenic drives in America! I can't write any more other on this! Words just can't describe the amazing beauty we saw today! See the pictures below and continue reading about the rest of our day after the pictures. :)

After driving through the 31 mile scenic tour of giant redwoods, we decided to keep driving north to Eureka. There we stopped at a car dealership to check out any sales at a GM dealership, but were unlucky to find a huge bargain. We did see the dealership on the news later that night, though! We enjoyed a lovely dinner at Sizzlers which brought back memories of Australia! It was a sweet treat to find a restaurant we both ate at in Brisbane!

After we arrived back at the motel, we decided tonight would be game night. We enjoyed playing miniature golf (free at the resort), farkle and Slamming Scrabble (a card game). Tomorrow's agenda: winery, driving 6 1/2 hours and South Lake Tahoe!!!

VACATION DAY #2: Sunday, June 7th

2009-06-07T23:33:00.020-06:00

LAST NIGHT: We didn't quite make it to the American/Italian restaurant. Instead we decided to drive around town. I have crossed over the Bay Bridge several times in my life and always wondered what was on Treasure Island. We decided to exit off of this enormous bridge half the way across to the other side of the bay to find a spectacular night view of San Francisco skyline. Of course we forgot our camera, though. Oh well. It's an excuse to go back the next time we're in town! We both had a fantastic sleep in our small quaint Kimpton room.

On Sunday we started our day off with a drive through Lombard Street in between Hyde

and Leavenworth. Those in San Francisco know exactly where we were! We found the most crooked street in the world! It was very, very, very steep as well and, of course, had houses stacked on it!!! We did take pictures of this one. :)

After we drove around the area a few times we started our journey to the Redwoods! To get

out of San Francisco we had to take the world known Golden Gate Bridge. Luckily for us it is free to travel North across the bridge.

Those traveling South have to pay a toll charge (I guess San Francisco's mayor doesn't want anyone in his town but encourages others to leave?) We spent a while walking around the park at the entrance of the bridge and bought a few souvenirs before continuing on our journey north.

Our plan for the day was Lombard Street, Golden Gate Bridge, a winery and just stopping whenever we felt like it! Our 4 hour trip to Redway, CA ended up being 7 hours due to all the stops we made! The journey was beautiful!!! Unfortunately we didn't stop

at any wineries but will travel off route to Lake Tahoe to tour a castle with a moat, drawbridge, 100+ rooms (just to name a few) winery on Tuesday. It was really fun to go from downtown San Francisco with tall buildings to gigantic Redwoods and lush golden grass amongst the hills! We even got to drive through a tree at Chandelier Park in Leggett, CA!!! I forgot to look up the address to that one. Thank goodness we saw the signs for the Drive Through Tree road!!! Besides driving through the tree, I enjoyed the discussion I had with wild turkeys (ask to see the video if you're around!).

We are now staying at Dean Creek Resort in a motel room with a kitchenette. We are excited to be here and are looking forward to seeing the Avenue of the Giants first thing tomorrow!!! Hope you enjoyed the pictures!!!

VACATION DAY #1: Saturday, June 6th

2009-06-06T18:58:00.002-06:00

TRAVELING: After a late night chat with Ross, Kerryn, Lachlan and Carmody Maguire we decided to finish our laundry and get packing. Needless to say, we didn’t get much sleep. I had to wake up a little earlier to take Zack to his dog sitters before they left at 8:15 a.m. I also misplaced my iPod, so I had to take a trip to school to check around there. Problem #1: no iPod anywhere. We had to leave home without it. We got on the road at a good time, but problem #2: construction on I-25 and Northgate … just 10 minutes from home. We were practically at a stand still for 30 minutes. This caused problem #3: no cheap parking available. We arrived at the airport 1 hour prior to departure. That traffic jam didn’t help us at all! We decided to park in the garage for extra money. Once we arrived in the terminal, we saw (of course) a long check in line. Fletch spotted a worker, so I ran over to him to explain our flight was leaving in one hour. Let’s just say we were able to get to our gate 30 minutes early with a bit of advice from that nice man! (Comment below to find out what happened to get our bag checked in early!). What we thought was a bad start to our travels, started to look good! While we were walking to the gate I realized problem #4: I forgot my iPhone in my car! We were in such a hurry I walked off without it. Oh well. If you want to get ahold of me, call Fletch’s cell! I’m on vacation. J Our flight was supposed to leave at 11:45 a.m. but the lady at the ticket counter FINALLY updated us at 11:45 that air traffic control was keeping our plane grounded and that we would start boarding at 12:00. This fixed problem #5 just splendidly: we were HUNGRY!. We shared a sandwich from Quiznos and continued to wait … and wait … and wait. Luckily (our day has been full of luck and bad news) I asked the agent if we were in the right gate. Nope. They changed the gate and must have announced it after they said we had 15 minutes to go grab a snack. Seriously. They said to leave the gate area to get a snack if needed, but then made an IMPORTANT announcement ONCE … during those 15 minutes we were in line for a sandwich. It was now 12:15 and the lady said we had to go from that gate (25) to 45 to catch the 12:30 flight! ARGH! Another jaunt through the airport and we arrived to find out the plane was STILL delayed until 12:54. At that point I asked the new agent if I had time to get my iPhone and/or move my car from the garage to a cheaper lot. Of course she said no. It took us 30 minutes to board the plane, then another 30 minutes to take off. I am still without my iPhone with my car parked in an expensive spot, but I’m on vacation with my laptop (e-mail me, folks) and my car is protected against weather! J Plus our tickets from Denver – San Francisco total (for 2 tickets) was still $249. No joke. J

SAN FRANCISCO: We arrived to the airport after all those delays without any problems (thank goodness!). Fletch had a beautiful sleep almost the entire way! What a blessed gift he has to be able to sleep on a 2 hr 40 min flight! We found Alamo car rentals without a problem as well and are the drivers of a Light Blue Chrysler Sebring 4 door midsize car. We were able to get to our hotel without a problem as well. Looks like our day is getting better again. :) Once we checked in, the clerk blessed (Melissa) us with the knowledge that a free wine happy hour was starting in 30 minutes. :) Woo-hoo. I had a lovely glass of merlot and then we walked to the corner Starbucks (across the street) for coffee and snacks. :) The hotel is nice, but small. I think small is normal for a San Francisco hotel! I'm glad that they offer free Aveda products. :) Tonight we plan on walking to an Italian/American restaurant to continue celebrating my birthday. :)

Fun Family Updates!

2009-05-31T12:01:00.004-06:00

Wow ... there is so much going on in our family right now! Here are a few updates of the Orear/Whipp/Maguire families!

Greg & Kim: #1 on the list of course is the birth of their first child, Jackson! (How could you miss the post with all the colors, font sizes and bold fonts!) Kim should be going home to La Plata today. Greg will be returning back to work on Tuesday. My Mom and Dad will be there sometime today as well ... I'm assuming they will go to La Plata. :) Here are some more pictures of Jackson and his parents.

Greg changing Jackson's first diaper

In Greg's words, "Yep, he's an Orear!"

My brother trying to get some sleep

Mommy and baby day #2

Isn't that precious?

Sean & Tahli: They have been in Australia for a week now, but no pictures yet. :( Boo-hoo! Guess they are busy catching up with friends and family and introducing Declan to a lot of Aussies! Hope they are having a great time! Sean will be going home in a week; Tahli and Declan will be coming home a week later, I think! Declan's first birthday is later this month. They will definitely be home by then. :)

Tom & Heather: They are also in Australia! I hope they get to meet my nephew before he leaves! They are busy fixing their catamaran so they can sell it before coming back to the States. They are in the early stages of getting paperwork for moving here. :)

Tom & Connie: They are on their way to La Plata to meet their 2nd grandchild. Hmmm ... maybe someday they will get to meet a grand daughter ... I guess it'll be my turn next! :) They have found a home church and are enjoying the teachings and fellowship. This church is a church where one of my neighbors and ushers from our wedding is a pastor at! Small world!

Ross & Kerryn: We are enjoying lovely chats late Saturday night with them! We video conference on Skype to find out what is going on in Bundaberg, Australia and with their family. Last night was extra special because we got to see Adam & Amber on video for 30 seconds before they rushed out to do an errand! Now Adam & Amber are on Skype as well I'm sure we'll be catching up with them more often! Ross & Kerryn are in the thinking stage of moving to the States as well! It'll be great to have the entire family on one side of the hemisphere! :)

Fletch & Melissa: We're not having a baby; we're not traveling to a foreign country this month; we're not traveling to meet new family members; we're not doing paperwork to move to a foreign country. We're enjoying summer break and had a lovely couple over for dinner last night! Bruce and Penny are new friends from Eileen Fisher Ministries that we are getting involved with on Tuesday nights. We will have Fred & Eileen Fisher over later this week and are really looking forward to that as well. We LOVE having guests over and now that the house is clean (and we have a nice lawn), we are looking forward to more dinner parties throughout the summer. Melissa is planning her birthday gathering this Friday as well. She's invited co-workers and friends from around the city to stop by for some snacks and wine. :) We leave for northern California on Saturday and can't wait to get there!!! :)

Introducing the newest member of the Orear family ...

2009-05-30T10:44:00.006-06:00

Jackson Wayne Orear!!! Jackson was born into the world, specifically Kirksville, MO at 12:26 p.m. on Friday May 29th. God is soooo good! Greg was already at his new job, 3 hours away, but was able to get to the hospital before his first child was born! :) Big kiddos goes out to the Iowa State Patrol as well! :)

As you can tell, young Jackson is a lovely 10 pound baby boy. Declan was over 9 pounds; big baby boys must be a characteristic of Orear babies! Welcome to the studly Orear women club, Kim! You and Tahli are the studliest! :) (Does it mean that because I changed my last name I will give birth to lighter boys??? Please???)

I am super duper excited to be an Aunt to 3 nephews now! It's a tie ... 3 nieces (on Fletch's side) and now 3 nephews (one on Fletch's side). Kim is doing well. I wish I could see them, but am going to wait until Kim and Jackson get moved into their new home in Iowa. The three of them will be closer to us, so there may be a long weekend sometime before Christmas to visit? :) More pictures will come soon ... cousin Declan is on his first baby tour in Australia at the moment but will be back later in June. I can't wait to see cousin pictures!!! :)

Oh yeah ... did I menion I'm on holidays now until July 30th? :) :) :) WHAT A WAY TO START MY SUMMER VACATION! :)

New Lawn

2009-05-24T19:36:00.008-06:00

Welcome to Colorado lawn care! Fletch and I have learned that taking care of a lawn is a little harder to do here in the dry climate! We both came from high humidity areas where you had to cut your grass sometimes twice a week! When we moved into our home, the lawn was already starting to look bad. This first picture is our lawn last week!!! Really sickening!Here is a picture of the new lawn being rolled out ...... into our instant lawn! The neighbors came home from visiting family in Illinois and were impressed with how quickly our lawn came to life. :)

We are all pleased with our new lawn. Zack can't wait to go lay outside on it this summer with Melissa! :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

2009-02-14T12:32:00.002-07:00

The slideshow to the right will show what we have been up to lately. We love taking weekend trips in the off season to Estes Park, and enjoy a lovely (cheaper than if celebrated on the actual day) Valentine's getaway!

The pets still are amusing us, so we've attached a few of their moments this month as well.

Happy Valentines Day to all!

Happy New Year!

2009-01-25T22:29:00.003-07:00

Okay ... so a few months have passed by since our last post! Sorry, folks. Let's give a quick recap before I hit the bed and cross our fingers I'll keep it posted a little sooner! :)

October: We went back to St. Louis (with a side trip to Chicago) to visit family and friends for a little over a week. It was great to see my Grandmother and Russ from Wisconsin as well as meet Declan Isaac Orear (my younger brother and his wife's son). We also received some fun news while dining with the Orears: Greg and Kim are expecting their first child mid-May. :) YEAH!!! Through the tears of excitement, Fletch told me the first (to wed ... me) shall be last (to have a child). Praise the Lord it will happen one day! :)

We had an unexpected road trip back to St. Louis one week after we got home. My maternal grandmother passed away. It was a great time to be back as family again, reflecting on so many great memories I will always cherish. I will post a copy of Greg's eulogy at the end of this post for you to get to know the grandmother I grew up with and miss.

We also mourned the loss of a home church in October. We felt it was time to leave our home church of 3 1/2 years after the Pastors starting making decisions for the church that we didn't believe was good. The parting was hard, but we are believing God will bless us with a new home church in 2009.

November: I got through my 1st program of the year at school. The 4th graders did a superb job performing Teresa Jenning's program called "Freedom" which was about the freedom we possess as Americans. It was especially close to our hearts as Fletch is now a citizen and gets to enjoy the same rights as I have for the past 30+ years. :) I received many compliments from parents, administration and even the Board of Education President (who had a daughter in it) about the program. The board President was even commenting on it after his son's performance in December with the 5th graders!!!

November also marked the exciting time for Fletch to vote for the next US President!!! He was so excited to have that opportunity and I was proud of him for voicing his care in the future of America (even though we both voted for the loser!).

Thanksgiving was great with an awesome family we met at our former church. Unfortunately I had strep throat the weekend before. I didn't get to finish the 2 days of school that week, but we are grateful for my recovery before Thanksgiving! Thanks to Chuck and Charie and their children for allowing us to celebrate such a great holiday with you!

December: Poor Fletch started having tooth problems in December. It is now almost the end of January and he is still suffering pain from dental procedures! Praise the Lord we added him to my dental plan in August!!! December marked a time I almost broke my hand at school (ask me about it later) and the stomach flu. While I was at the doctor's office the afternoon of my 3rd and 5th grade programs, I got sick! Somehow I had enough strength to get through the 2 programs that night, but I missed the last day of school before Christmas break with the stomach flu. :( Fletch was still going through tooth issues; he also go the flu bug. :(

Luckily the bug left the house before my mom and dad got here for our 1st Christmas at our home! We had a great time with them and their greyhound, Lance. My older brother, Greg, and his wife, Kim, got here a few days after Christmas. The 6 1/2 of us (remember, Kim's pregnant) enjoyed a full day of each other before mom and dad started their journey back to St. Louis. Unfortunately the flu bug came back and Kim spent the last day sick in bed. :( Oye!

New Year's Eve: we had the awesome opportunity to spend the last hours of 2008 with our former worship pastor and his family and another family we served on the worship team with. :) It was such a great night to pray blessings into 2009!!!

January: After a great (but sickly) time off of work, Fletch and I started back at work. I got a cold; Fletch had a root canal. Boy, this is sure the year of illness!!! I had a great time at Colorado Music Educator Association conference at the Broadmoor Resort last week and am wondering how I'm going to fit all the exciting stuff I learned into the rest of the year's curriculum!!! :) I start back tomorrow and am looking forward to exciting all 720 of my student's lives in the wonderful world of music through Orff techniques! (You have to be a music teacher to understand that one!).

Fletch and are excited to see what God has in store for 2009. Maybe Fletch isn't as much as I am, but we are a great team and we know God has great things in store for us!!!!

It's been over 2 months!!!!! WOW!

2008-09-18T21:56:00.003-06:00

Here is our latest blog update. :) Happy viewing!

Lexi's visit

2008-07-16T17:27:00.003-06:00

We have always wondered what our house would be like if we got a buddy for Zack. So we are dogsitting for Zack's dogsitter and now have 2 big dogs in our home. :) Lexi is a Golden Retriever who is very gentle in nature. Unfortunately Zack is really excited she's here and is constantly trying to lick or bite her ears. We're trying to fix that. I will be putting some video up of Lexi so her family can enjoy them while they are away. Here is the first "introduction" video of the dogs.

Crazy animal stories

2008-07-15T12:07:00.006-06:00

Fletch and I are animal lovers and wanted to share these stories with you. I don't know how to post articles on here, but I am providing you links. They are from our local newspaper, The Gazette. Enjoy!

Bear breaks in to Circuit City

July 15, 2008 - 11:51AM

By LANCE BENZEL

THE GAZETTE

http://www.gazette.com/articles/bear_38237___article.html/animal_whitlock.html

Daylong search yields plenty of spectacle, but no African lion

July 14, 2008 - 11:35PM

By R. SCOTT RAPPOLD

THE GAZETTE

http://www.gazette.com/articles/lion_38232___article.html/african_animal.html

My last story about animals comes from home. Fletch loves to twirl my hair. That became apparent, in fact, at a meeting in church a few years ago. The leaders saw him twirling my hair during a prayer equipping class and shouted, "Now, isn't that cute?" in front of the 7-8 other couples! One night last week, while we were watching a video, he was twirling my hair. I started getting sleepy and started falling asleep. When I realized I wanted to go to sleep instead of finishing the video, I told Fletch to stop twirling my hair because it was keeping me awake. He turned around, showed both hands, and said he wasn't twirling my hair at that time. I looked behind my head to find Simba playing with my hair. :)

Now this wasn't the only time I blamed Fletch for doing something he didn't do last week. As some of you know, we've been working out a pretty normal 6 day a week schedule at the gym. I've been doing a lot of cardio through classes and wake up the next morning pretty sore. One night, while feeling really sore, I noticed I was starting to feel a little better. As the night went on, I heard cats playing in the room, but ignored it. In fact, I caught Simba right beside my bed trying to get into some rice cakes in a bag I left on the floor. After about 30 minutes, I started to get really hot and realized our electric mattress cover was on! I looked down onto the controls and noticed it was on all the way high! I immediately thought how sweet Fletch was to turn it on (I normally use a heating pad) to soothe my aching muscles, but told him to let me know next time before doing it. I wanted to be aware so I could shut it off before falling asleep! Again, Fletch told me he didn't do it. Now I have had incidents in

the past where I sleep walk (have been sleep walking ever since I was a kid) and figured I must have had a cold dream and turned it on. Then I realize I caught Simba playing with that bag of rice cakes ... which was right on top of my controller.

Photo taken by Sean Orear (who is also holding the toy) in June 2006 when Sean and Tahli came to visit.

My lesson learned: blame the cat before blaming the husband. :)

Melissa is testing out her web cam ...

2008-07-04T20:54:00.002-06:00

Let me know if you can see this mini-movie!!!

Happy Fourth of July, everyone! :)

Declan Update

2008-07-02T01:23:00.002-06:00

First of all, isn't that picture precious???!!!

Well, the update is Declan cries, poops, eats and sleeps. :) I'm not a Mom (or a Mum), but I think that all babies come with those characteristics. :) Sean and Tahli are settling into life as new parents well. I'm sure there is a lot of love at the house!

Fletch's parents arrived back to Vanuatu safe and sound after getting a longer stay here. They were to meet a friend in Fiji and were going to pay for accomodations in Fiji, but when they found out he couldn't meet them we invited them to stay here (for free accomodation). It was a nice relaxing 5 days for them. They enjoyed taking their time packing and looking around for 5th wheelers ... for when they come back in a year or two. :) I'll have to take pictures later, but Tom did an awesome job at finishing our garage and putting in a workbench for Fletch to work at. He also helped us update our theater room with 5.2 surround speakers and a 10 foot theater screen. He did all of that work once we got back from our Pacific Northwest trip!!! Our last dinner together was quite hilarious ... Fletch wanted some Korma (spelling?) Chicken ... an Indian dish. We bought the spices from an Indian grocery store, but weren't told to use only 1/4 of the package!!! I used the entire package and we all had a great laugh about how red everyone was turning!!! Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of the fun event!!! Tom was definitely the champion of the evening ... he finished Heather's portion and had 2nds as well!!! We all miss having each other around, but are also glad to be back in our normal surroundings. Please be in prayer for Tom and Heather as they wrap up their work in Vanuatu.

One more exciting news to share ... I sent off Fletch's citizenship papers last week. Stay tuned for updates on that as time goes on. We're thinking it'll take at least 6 months for us to get to the next step ... whatever that may be.

DECLAN ISSAC OREAR is a stud!

2008-06-23T16:31:00.002-06:00

YEAH!!! I'm an aunt!!!

My sister in law gave birth to my 1st nephew, Declan Isaac Orear, this morning at 1:52 a.m. He is 20 inches long and ... TAHLI, YOU ROCK!!! ... weighed 9 lbs 12 oz!!!

Sean, Tahli and Declan are doing fine. I'm wishing I was there, but I'll have 8 days to love on my new nephew in October ... and 3 months to start buying and making gifts to spoil him. :) Any donations to me will be accepted and appreciated to spoil my 1st nephew. :)

Moons, Banff, Glacier National Park

2008-06-13T14:57:00.003-06:00

Now is the time for the release of information on Salmon Arm moons. Sorry for the delay in blogging.

We had another beautiful day of driving on June 6th. The views off of Canada Highway 1 is

breathtaking and worth driving! We broke the 10 hour drive from Vancouver - Banff by stopping in

Salmon Arm. Fletch and I stayed with a friend of m

ine from my DTS in Australia. Besides GOD, Patti is a HUGE reason why Fletch and I are married. Patti and I were becoming

tech savy when msn messenger started becoming popular in 2000-2001. We used to chat online all of the time using msn.

One day we decided to try out one of those online dating sites, so I googled a good christian site and came across ChristianCafe.com ... to Patti's surprise it was a Canadian site! We decided to be true to our identities and signed up

for a 7 day free trial. I met a few guys, but was hooked on it so much that I paid for another month. Then you know what happened. :) If I was to say someone introduced me to my husband, I will always give credit to Patti. :) Patti and I haven't seen each other since one of our friends' wedding in California June 2001 (right after I met Fletch online). It was great to see each other and meet her husband and 3 month old baby!!!

Tom & Heather stayed at the Travelodge.

After we all went to dinner, we dropped Tom and Heather back at the hotel which is where I saw a moon I didn't want to see! Heather was walking up the steps when I thought I saw a guy in his boxers on the balcony she was going to walk on. I did a double check and noticed this mysterious guy's door was open. After Heather passed by

a young man came out and mooned us!!! I couldn't believe it! Well, we got them back. We told the front desk about them (we had the room number) and explained how concerned we were for Fletch's elderly parents. :-) We don't know what

happened to them after that, but I'm sure they were regretting it!!!

Banff was incredible! We haven't had much luck in weather this entire trip, but we didn't let it get the best of us. Our fireplace loft was very comfort

able and cozy. We definintely recommend Charlton's Cedar Courts to stay. It was on the main street and had beautiful trees all around. Tom & Heather received a nice blessing while at the resort ... they were upgraded to a fireplace loft as well! We enjoyed a few nights sitting back watching television, but I don't recommend these rooms for more than 3 people ... there weren't enough seats for everyone to sit on to watch t.v.

I have been waiting 6 years to take Fletch to Glacier National Park. I am so glad we decided to

go into the east side of the park (thanks, Mom!) because that was the only day of sun we had in Montana. :( Again I was able to catch up with some friends, Brenda & Eric Hanson. I met Brenda at Camp Miniwance in 1991 in Michigan!!! I took a trip to see her in Montana June 2002 with my friend Misty (wish you were here, Misty!) and now this is the 3rd time I've seen her!!! Brenda and I remained in contact throughout college via letters! Yes, the old fashioned way of long distance communication! :) In the 6 years since I last saw her, her family doubled in size; and so did mine. :) I doubled by marrying Fletch; she now has 2 beautiful girls!!! We had a great time hanging out with them and enjoyed getting to know Emily and Brynn! At this point of the vacation the rain is starting to get on all of our nerves, but we knew sun is forcasted for the rest of the trip.

Next update: drive to Spokane, an extra night in Spokane, and a visit from the Hansons!

Happy Birthday to me!!!

2008-06-08T22:18:00.005-06:00

Sorry for the lack of updates!!! We've been a bit busy!!! I'll write about my birthday before the pizza arrives. :)

My birthday was Thursday. We woke up in Vancouver, British Columbia and ended up in Nanaimo, Vancouver Island. I was the helmsman for the trip over to the island. Okay, Dad just told me that was untrue. I actually drove our vehicle onto the boat;

Fletch drove it off of the boat. :) We had a very relaxing afternoon sitting in our rooms until I checked Fletch's phone to see if friends called. We knew some friends from Church were going to be on the island and sure enough, they left a message for us! :) We had a lovely time at a restaurant on the resort they were staying at. Thanks for spending my birthday with us Pastor Mike, Dina, Julian, Jasmine, Dave & Diane!!! :)

Next blog: beautiful Canadian scenery and a visit to see a former YWAMer friend (including a story about the moons in Salmon Arm)!

Oh, Canada!

2008-06-06T01:14:00.005-06:00

June 4th: we started the first trek of our roadtrip today driving through the beautiful green tree lined Interstate 5 up into Vancouver. I was able to take a stab behind the wheel as well hoping it would speed up our time at customs. It didn't seem to make any differences because we had to sit around for about 20-30 minutes along with all of the other International visitors into Canada. Our hotel for the evening was a Days Inn hotel. When Tom and I were booking in, the front desk lady told me I had double booked a room for Fletch and I!!! Thankfully they dropped the charges even though it was after the cancellation time!!! I'll be writing up a good review for the hotel later on. The gardens in this hotel were spectacular, but I forgot to take a picture. :( Oh well!!! After checking in and getting ourselves acquainted with the area we took off in search of Capilano Bridge ... a bridge I thought I walked across for free with some friends in June 2002. Well, after driving through rush hour traffic in downtown Vancouver with blinking green lights (what in the world does that mean?), we found this gorgeous bridge ... but it wasn't the same bridge I crossed 6 years ago!!! There is a $27.95 fee!!! Well, Fletch and I decided to pay the fee and boy are we glad we did!!! I will put the slideshow pictures up in place of the Washington, DC photos soon so you can tell just how beautiful it was!!! This park reminded me of why I studied Outdoor Recreation in school. It was so great to get out of the crazy busyness of traveling and planning straight into such a beautiful God made park!!! It was a little cold, so I bought my first souvenir on the trip ... a cute pom pom topped knit hat. I also enjoyed a really nice bowl of minestrone soup while Fletch had frozen yogurt. Wow ... we are so different. Well, actually, I have to be honest: I ate some of his frozen yogurt as well. Along with my soup and hot chocolate. :) Mum and Dad took the car and spent most of the 2 1/2 hours at a nearby mall. Dad, Fletch and I dropped Mum back at the hotel and went back into the city to see some sights. We ended up eating dinner at Cloud 9 which is a revolving restaurant on top of a hotel. It took our entire dinner for us to revolve 360 degrees!!! Fletch put a small piece of paper on the window sill and waited to see it again after a full revolution. It was hilarious!!! We did check with the waitress to find out how long it takes to make a full revolution ... I can't remember how long it took, but it was definitely over 90 minutes!!!

We made a change in our itinerary which is really really exciting, personally, for me! Mum and Dad didn't want to spend another day in Vancouver, but rather broke our 10 hour trip to Banff into 2 days. I found out that Salmon Arm is in between Vancouver and Banff exactly 5 hours and e-mailed an old friend, Patti. I met Patti on my DTS in Australia January 2000. We kept in contact after the DTS and she is the reason Fletch and I met ... in a way. We were chatting one night and decided to put our profiles on a singles website to see what would happen. I found a Canadian singles site, ChristianCafe.com, and we signed up for our free trial!!! If it wasn't for chatting with Patti, who knows how the Lord would've had Fletch and I meet!!! Patti didn't find her husband then, but was led to him and now has a new born baby! I haven't seen Patti since our friends' wedding (Luke & Angela Haythorpe) June 2001. The Whipps will be staying in Salmon Arm and I'll get to hang out with a dear friend. :) YEAH!!!

Next up: My birthday on Vancouver Island

Wednesday in Seattle

2008-06-05T00:55:00.003-06:00

We all had a great night of sleep after the afternoon and evening of traveling we had! Our breakfast was quick and continental and we were ready to head off into separate locations of the city for some fun!!! Fletch and I walked (in the Seattle rain) about 15 blocks to get to the Experience Music Project (EMP). Wow ... I highly recommend this museum to EVERYONE who has ever enjoyed a rock-n-roll song in their entire lifetime! The first exhibit we saw was a huge scuplture towering about 50 feet high of 700 guitars!!! In the next room we were able to sit down and listen to musicians tell their stories of their influences, roots, touring stories plus many more! Across the hall was an entire exhibit of Jimi Hendrix memorabilia and sorts. For lunch we enjoyed a nice and relaxing meal at the Revolution Bar & Grill in the museum. Another exciting part of the museum was the sound studio, but since we have our own recording studio we didn't feel the need to stay in that part of the museum too long. I did get to play a bass guitar while Fletch was playing an electric guitar ... until he kicked me out of his band. :( I guess I need to take some lessons from him!!!

Admission to the EMP also included entrance into Science Fiction Museum (SFM). There were a ton of items from every Science Fiction movie ever made ... and an interesting exhibit on robots!!! The architecture of the museums were phenomenal!!! As we were walking around the buildings we were caught gazing at it by a teenage girl who was interviewing people for a school project. Yes, I said a school project! These poor kids (and teachers) still have 3 weeks of school left in their regular public school year!!! YIKES! Anyway, it was nice to be asked the questions from her and we enjoyed being a part of her study. :)

Tom & Heather spent some time at a shopping mall called Westlake. They also raved about having lunch on top of the Space Needle ... it was a revolving restaurant!!! The observatory on top was a little cool for them, but they felt they got their money's worth in the restaurant ... nice meal and heated. :) After their lunch they went back to the shopping mall before retiring for the evening in the hotel room.

When we all met back up in the hotel, we started watching television together. Mum & Dad have missed having television because we choose not to have cable at our house to encourage conversation and relationships. We all enjoyed watching insane Japanese extreme sports and Mum was getting caught up on the weather via the weather channel. After about 90 minutes of television watching, the boys and I went out on the town. We passed by Safeco field at least 10 times and were caught in traffic from the baseball game once as well!!! After eating dinner at Denny's we called it a night and got some rest.

Next up: drive to Vancouver; Capilano Bridge; dinner on Cloud 9 (hopefully I have free internet again tomorrow!!!)

Summer break has officially begun!

2008-06-03T20:01:00.002-06:00

I love being a teacher for many reasons ... yes, one is I have the next 7 weeks off of school. :) Tom & Fletch made it back to the U.S. okay with some minor glitches, but the Lord's grace was definitely upon them. :) The four of us are all on vacation now and are looking forward to seeing some of GOD's beauty in the Pacific Northwest area into Canada, down through Glacier and back over to Seattle. We arrived in Seattle last night after flying for the first time on Alaska Air. It was a lovely trip, but we were delayed 40 minutes due to an electrical storm above Denver. Once we arrive in Seattle, Fletch and I needed to race to the shuttles to be picked up by Enterprise before they closed (Tom & Heather stayed back to collect the baggage). We were greeted by the Manager 10 minutes after closing time and were so relieved they were able to stay open for us, even though customer service told me earlier that morning that I would be out of luck if the plane was late!!! Anyway, we were almost finished with our rental until they told us we couldn't drive into Alberta and Montana!!! They claimed they couldn't do anything about it, so we didn't rent there ... they took us back to the airport and lost out on a 12 day rental from us! Luckily, I had another car reserved (no deposit needed) at Alamo and we were able to get out of the airport by 1:00 a.m. We are still in awe with Mandy, our GPS, who got us to our hotel without hassle and we were all in our rooms asleep by 2:00 a.m.

I will try to send out regular posts as often as I can!!! Stay tuned for today's fun hopefully sometime tomorrow!

Mum and Dad here, Mum and Dad gone, Mum and Dad back, Mum and Dad gone, Mum and Dad back, Fletch and Dad gone

2008-05-21T11:39:00.002-06:00

Wow! What a fun title!!! Fletch and I have been sooo blessed to have his parents here for a couple months. The flight from Australia is never an exciting or cheap flight, so we appreciate them sacrificing time and money to visit us! They arrived here on April 29th and have been in and out a lot! Their first trip was a flight to St. Louis to visit friends and my family. They had a wonderful time with everyone and really commented on how nice it was to spend time with my parents outside of wedding plans! The last (and first) time they met my parents was 8 days before the wedding. I'm so glad everyone had a great time!

After they flew back from St. Louis, they had 4 days to spend with us before heading up to a Christian writer's conference in beautiful Estes Park!!! Tom is quite the well rounded driver ... he knows how to drive a manual and an automatic as well as driving on the right side and left sides of the road ... all without confusion! Even though my car is little, he loved driving around in it. Mum received a lot of knowledge at this conference and made some friends while attending lectures. They stayed at a YMCA camp and enjoyed the scenery and food as well as meeting new friends!

Tom and Fletch left within a few hours after Tom & Heather got back into the Springs. Many may or may not realize this, but Tom is an English borned citizen! They left England when Fletch was 7 years old and have never been back to visit family! Fletch and I blessed him with a ticket to get back to England to visit family after spending 27 years apart! They flew into London early Monday morning and drove down to Brighton where Tom's family reside. Heather and I have been able to communicate with them via telephone daily which has been really really nice. This is Fletch and my first trip apart with the exception of a weekend trip I took to go back to St. Louis. We are missing each other dearly, but are also keeping ourselves busy with school and catching up with family! As I write this now, we have 3 more sleeps to go until we are together again!!!

This is my last week of school with students. Their last day is Friday morning, but I'll have to be at school until May 30th. I am really looking forward to my 2 month break to rest, relax and rejuvenate!!!

I can't stand spelling errors!!!

2008-04-27T21:07:00.003-06:00

PLEASE tell me if I spell something wrong ... or worse ... use the wrong form of a word!!!

I just fixed the "I think I here the truck" under my "VISITORS!!!" post.

Yuck.

Please be praying for safe travels for Fletch's parents. They'll be leaving anytime now and will arrive in Denver around 8pm. Also, pray for my health. I got sick right before they came the last time and made everyone else sick. I have been feeling a little down today with runny nose and sore throat. :(

Now that April is almost over ...

2008-04-26T14:55:00.006-06:00

... it's time for me to do some updating!!!

My former roommate (Mariam) and her boyfriend (Shad) came to visit us during my last weekend before school started back again. We had a great time walking around Garden of the God's (Zack's 1st time there as well), chatting, eating Mexican food, and taking in a Rockies Game in Denver. While we were at the game, poor Fletch was standing in line for a free Joe Satriani clinic at Guitar Center in Denver. He did a great job, though! After the game was over, Mariam and Shad dropped me off at Guitar Center and I only had to stand in line for about 30 minutes before we sat in one of 30 chairs set up ... for a crowd of around 300!!! :) Fletch was living his dream out and was able to walk out with the amplifier head Joe used during the clinic! Of course we were able to get pictures and autographs as well. We need to learn how to keep cats off the amp head now! Thanks, Mariam and Shad for spending the weekend with us!!!

After a fantastic 2 week Spring break (mostly doing our taxes), I went back to work ready to finish off the school year. I started a choir the week before Spring break and had to focus on getting them ready for a district wide Elementary Music Festival that was held on Thursday the 24th. It went really well and my students really enjoyed it ... mainly because I picked a song that sounded like "We're All In This Together" from "High School Musical"! I even was able to put some dance moves from the movie-now-turned-musical into our song (called "Agents of Change"). Thanks to Jasmine, our worship pastor's daughter, for those moves!!! You rock, Jasmine!!! The Music Festival was also the band's first performance outside of caroling around the school. :) Even though my grade level programs are finished, I still have a lot to accomplish before the end of the school year. It will make my summer break even more enjoyable after a busy April/May!!!

While we were in Denver, we picked up a few buildings for a friend of my father's model railroad display. Dad called me a few days before we were in Denver asking if we could pick it up (eBay auction) and ship it out. I thought it was a small building ... it was an oil refinery and some track and a shed ... and who knows what the other pieces were! Unfortunately we weren't able to ship it off via UPS or USPS because of the fear of it breaking during transit. Fortunately we asked the buyer to pay for our gas for us to drive it to him one weekend and he accepted! We haven't driven to St. Louis since Thanksgiving 2005 when we had to bring our 2 cats and had to put one of them to sleep in St. Louis ... then we were stuck in a snowstorm and had to spend the night in Kansas ... we decided then that we would always fly home. Just a few weeks earlier we were talking about those days of long driving through Eastern Colorado, all of Kansas and Missouri to get to St. Louis and how we were up to doing it again. So, we rented a fantastic 2008 Dodge Durango, put Zack in his crate and headed off to St. Louis on Friday the 18th. It was such a great trip!!! Fletch was able to play his guitar and watch some videos on the laptop in the back seat and I was able to get a lot of grading done without getting car sick! It was Zack's first trip longer than up to Denver and back and he was FANTASTIC! We could live without the shedding, but it's that time of year to lose the winter coat! We were stayed at an average, yet cheap ... $40/night ... extended stay hotel in St. Louis where Zack yet again was fantastic. Greg and Kim came down to visit as well and the family had a lovely baby shower for Sean and Tahli. I was so glad to get to see Tahli pregnant before the baby is due in July!!! The trip back wasn't as fun, but we made it without a problem ... up to the minute the car was due!!! Right on the dot ... 12:30 a.m. Monday morning. Yes ... we drove all day on Friday to get there, spent time with family on Saturday, and headed back to Colorado Springs all day on Monday!!! Sorry to those in St. Louis reading this ... we weren't there long enough for our get together at Bandanas! We'll be back later, though!!! Thanks to my family for letting us come through like a whirlwind and spending such late hours with us on Saturday night!!!

Oh yeah ... Zack had a little too much energy at my parent's house ... with "Uncle" Lance the greyhound ... he was back in his crate for most of the time there. :)

Now we are getting the house ready for Fletch's parents to visit us from Vanuatu!!! They will be arriving on Tuesday the 29th and will be with us through the most part of June!!! We have lovely steamed carpets upstairs now and will be doing the last minute cleaning over the weekend in preparation for their arrival on Tuesday. We have a lot of fun travel plans planned during their visit ... some just for them ... one trip to England for dad and Fletch ... and a lovely Pacific Northwest/Canada/Montana trip for the 4 of us!!! Please be praying for their travels here and for the project they are working on to be transfered to another couple to take control during their absence.

One more fun story to end this long blog (thanks for lasting this long!). There was a dance at school last night that I wanted to go to ... to see the kids dancing (which we missed) and to see if I won one of the baskets I bidded on. Well, we were 20 minutes late into the basket giveaway, but as soon as we walked into the room the baskets were being called out from ... they called my name!!! I won the Southwestern themed basket with $84 worth of restaurant gift certificates!!! YEAH!!! Needless to say we ate out at Chili's last night. :)

Stayed tuned to the next update ... after Fletch's parents arrive!!!

These are precious!!!

2008-03-30T22:36:00.005-06:00

I decided to take a break from itemizing our receipts for the tax guy tomorrow and took some pictures of the bedroom with my gorgeous blonde 4 legged model. My other hot model is at a meeting right now, so I had to settle for a 4 legged model. The bed is the set we just purchased for one of our downstairs guest bedrooms. The fountain has been sitting in our garage during the winter, so we decided to make it an indoor fountain.

I absolutely adore this picture of Zack!!! It's his face when you ask, "Do you walk to go on a walk?"

VISITORS!!!

2008-03-28T11:57:00.003-06:00

Today is Friday and we are getting ready for some fun visitors! Tonight we have a family of 10 ... yes, I said a family (one mom, one dad, 8 children) of 10 ... over for dinner tonight. They are one of the pastors at our church who we have prayed with, prayed for, took classes with, and sometimes worked beside with; we have never fellowshipped with them. This will be a fun and exciting time!

Next weekend my former roommate and wedding coordinator will be in town with a friend. Mariam and I lived with each other for 3 years ... she has the longest record of a girl I've lived with the longest. Sorry, Mariam, but Fletch beat the "roommate" status on August 1, 2007. :) We had such great times living with each other, going through heart breaks (we took a heart break trip once!), fellowshipping and hosting fellowships from church and BSF together, cooking together, stamping and scrapbooking together, just enjoyed life together! It'll be great to show her around Colorado Springs through my eyes. :)

I am waiting for American Furniture Warehouse to show up with our new bedroom set for the guest bedroom downstairs. Mariam or her friend will be the 1st to try it out!!!

I think I hear the truck ... pictures of the new room later!!!

Snow Nose

2008-03-27T10:24:00.006-06:00

Who doesn't love Google? I mean ... we can get so much information there for the mere cost of our internet connection!!! Just the other day we downloaded some legal documents for our
business that we found after googling. It cost us $22.99 ... compare to $900+ a lawyer would have charged us? We feel grateful to be alive in an era that Google is available.

We also love to google health information. We have noticed a change in Zack's nose over the past several months. He came to us with a black nose, but it has changed to pink!!! So Fletch googled it. Zack has a new nickname now, "Snow Nose". Apparently some light colored dogs' noses will turn pink in the colder months due to a condition nicknamed snow nose.

Who would have thought?

Thanks, Google, for saving us a trip to the vet. :)

The picture on the left is of Zack when we first brought him home in September.

The picture on the right is in December before we left for NYC.

Floods, Black Eyes, Easter, pictures

2008-03-23T22:08:00.006-06:00

Mother nature is creating more chaos in St. Louis this past week. These pictures were taken by my father of Valley Park/Fenton area near St. Louis close to where I grew up at. The Steak N Shake pictured is a popular restaurant I would frequently visit. Also notice the lovely modeling picture my mother provided ... the "I can't believe we're in another flood" look. Thankfully no one in my family has been affected by the waters besides road closures and giving my dad an opportunity to play with his new camera.

I have done it again ... I've caused injury to myself, but luckily it's not a broken bone! I gracefully tripped about 3 times in the living room, causing myself to fall on my knees close enough to the wall to bang my head on. At least I was smart enough to move my head so I didn't break a nose! That would have been even worse!!!

Fletch and I had the opportunity to serve at church on stage together for the first time. Fletch is a regular on the worship team, but this was my first time to sing with the choir. I had such a great time! It was an honor to be singing with such a talented group of teenagers and adults under the leadership of Rachel and Lori!!! We have an outstanding worship pastor, and close friend, who was the mastermind behind the celebration services as well. Thanks to all for making it such a great weekend!!!

I've changed the slideshow images to our recent California trip. :)

SLACKERS NEVER GET COMMENTS!

2008-03-12T18:25:00.002-06:00

So I haven't been whining about the lack of comments because of my obvious lack of posts!!! So we've completed trip #3 for the year. The trip in March was a flying one ... to L.A., particularly Hollywood. Hollywood and Sunset Strip is becoming a familiar place to both of us. This was my 3rd time there, Fletch's 4th. We went there on a business trip and was blessed with some great deals. Pictures will follow ... Fletch added another member to the Whipp guitar family. :) Who needs kids when we have pets and guitars? :) This Carvin guitar is a beaut! (Yes, this is Melissa talking about a guitar). I liked this guitar so much that I made Fletch name it ... we'll post pictures of Hogo soon (HOllywood GOblin) ... he's green. :)

We were able to get the business part of the trip finished on our first day there, so we were able to relax and enjoy Saturday and Sunday before flying back Sunday evening. We went to the beach for the 1st time since we've been married. I'm trying to encourage Fletch to become homesick so he'll take me to Australia soon. :) I think it's working!!! Any Aussies out there ... help encourage me! :) We rented a Segway and rode it for 2 hours at Santa Monica beach. We had a great time, but my calves were hurting the next day! We also enjoyed a nice meal at Dukes of Malibu at Malibu beach on Sunday. One wall was a huge picture window; every table had a lovely view of the ocean!

We were very glad to make that trip when we did because we're now back into busy mode with work and rehearsals. Fletch played on the worship team for 4 weekends in a row before we left. Now he's in the middle of Easter rehearsals. Next week will be a rehearsal every night but Friday! I have joined the choir for Easter as well and have a program to do at school this week for Kindergarten and 1st grades. I'll be dedicating a little time for Easter this year as well!

Zack is growing a lot lately. The cats are doing well, also. We'll have more posts coming up soon when Fletch's parents arrive 29th of April. Under 7 weeks to go!!!

I'll try to remember to post pictures soon. :)

2 down, 10 to go

2008-02-06T22:07:00.000-07:00

Fletch thought of the title. What a genius husband I have! What are we talking about? No, not cats ... we're talking about trips in 2008. After our trip to NYC and DC this past Christmas, we decided we would like to take a trip every month. We cheated a little and said we were in NYC for January (when we really were flying home on the 1st, but hey ... we were gone one day in January!). Our trip for February was ESTES PARK (near the Rocky Mountain National Park). For you Aussies, picture a Colorado mountain village/ski resort area like Aspen. We enjoyed a nice 2 hour 50 minute drive up I-25 in our rented Chevy Trailblazer. It was quite the difference for us considering I drive a Saturn and Fletch drives a Dodge! We are definately getting an SUV for our next vehicle in the next 2-3 years. When we arrived in the area we drove through one of those beautiful snow storms ... you know, the kind that sparkles on the ground? We stayed at the historical Stanley Hotel where Steven King was inspired to write "The Shining". We saw several deer grazing near our hotel as well. We really enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere of Estes Park on a Saturday night. It was so quiet, some of the shops closed at 6pm! We wanted to eat at The Grubsteak for dinner (where we ate during our honeymoon), but it closed at 8pm! The lady at Starbucks told us we were the only tourists in town. We will be going back in May when Fletch's parents are up there for a convention. It will be a different town then I'm sure!!!

Other news: Fletch had a record breaking month in his ebay business thanks to the blessings God has provided! Melissa is getting back into scrapbooking thanks to Fletch's encouragement (and challenge). Lars is ... well ... just Lars ... still waking Melissa up in the morning with his "I love you mommy" meows. Simba is still voted the cutest cat in the world award (just received one this morning from our friend Todd). Zack is starting to calm down a little more, growing, and has been fixed. He's starting to grow on Fletch as well. :)

MELISSA SURGERY UPDATE

2008-01-18T15:46:00.000-07:00

This is Melissa typing. I did not have my surgery this morning! YEAH! We went to LASIK plus and I received all of my pain killers and directions and even got to the point of getting my numbing drops when the doctor checked my prescription to tell me I am 20/20!!! PRAISE THE LORD! I am absolutely loving the fact that I am not in pain right now!!! Now driving to Denver on Monday will not be a hassle at all. I will go back to see my eye doctor in June to make sure I'm still doing okay.

I'm working on changing some details of the blog right now. I hope you enjoy the Green Bay Packers pictures on display! There's a big game on Sunday to determine who is going to the Superbowl! Stay tuned!!! :)

Washington DC, New Years Eve in Times Square and our New Year

2008-01-18T09:06:00.000-07:00

I don't want to sound like a broken record, but sorry for the very late update to our blog. ;)

Washington DC was by far our favorite part of the trip. The drive out of Manhattan and back to NYC was not a mere 4 hours that mapquest quotes. It's more like 6-7 hours with all the traffic! I rented a "grab bag" car from dollar rent a car which means we didn't know what we would get, but it would be an intermediate level at least (and it was discounted tremendously). Well, what do you think they had plenty of vehicles in? CONVERTIBLE! We finally rented a convertible ... off course it was a little chilly, so the top was up most of the time, but we were having fun! We did put the top down once in Times Square while we were driving our normal 1.2 MPH with some cops and people running and shooting along the sidewalk ... just kidding, mom. ;) We did put the top down in DC, though. Picture this ... December winter night in DC, cute couple driving about town, the gorgeous husband with his great smile, the awesome wife with a PINK GREEN BAY PACKERS BEANIE on her head. ;) I'm sure it made someone laugh. It definitely made us laugh!

We stayed at a historical Victorian Inn in DC for under $70/night! The Henley Park Hotel was the hotel where 1st ladies would bring guests to for tea! We definitely recommend that hotel and will be going back ourselves! We took in a lot of sights in DC including the White House (for about 10 minutes until the CIA pushed the crowd away from the house because of security ... we were not even on the lawn!), National Christmas tree and the state trees around it (yes, daddy ... there were choo-choos too), Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, the new Vietnam Memorial, the Nation's Capital, we took a bus tour around the city for 3 hours. We went to the National Archives building!!! We saw the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States of America, the Bill of Rights, letters written from Lincoln, plus many other original documents! We also wanted to visit the Smithsonian Institute of American History, but it was closed for renovations. Now it's a good excuse to go back to DC! We did get to go to the Smithsonian Museum of Air and Space, though. Definitely worth our time!!! Our last morning there we took a tour through the International Spy museum.

Please check out the pictures of our trip to Washington, DC on the slideshow. :)

I'm not sure if you realize this or not, but if you ever repeat this vacation, please note that you can return your car to any dollar rent a car in NYC! We didn't get back into NYC until about an hour after the car was due. We drove to our hotel (near LaGuardia) to unload our luggage and thought we had to drive it back to our location in Times Square ... 9 miles/1 hour away!!! I noticed a Dollar Rent A Car near our hotel and called them to see how much it would cost to drop it off there ... they said nothing! :) We were soooo relieved we didn't have to battle with Times Square traffic and the subway/bus to get back to our hotel after such a long day!!!

Were we in Times Square for New Year's Eve? Well ... of course we were! But there's more to tell. Contact us and we'll give you the details. Let's just say it was an experience.

We came back to town on the 1st to some very loving cats (thanks to Eli and Cami for watching them) and a super hyper puppy (thanks to the Kelkenberg family for helping us out in a time of need). Zack was supposed to get neutered on Friday the 5th, but because he ate a little milkbone that morning, my 5am wakeup call to get him to Denver by 7:15 was for nothing. I was so bummed! I also arranged to meet up with some friends from Campus Crusade for Christ for lunch in Denver (they were in town for the annual CCC Christmas Conference I used to go to while in college), but I canceled it because I was sooo tired!!! Zack is now scheduled for this coming Monday the 21st!

Our jobs are going well. Fletch had a nasty fall on Thursday the 10th, though. I received a phone call at work from him saying he slipped and landed on the back of his head. We still had some ice on our driveway and Fletch lost his footing enough to where I had to leave school (thanks Tom for taking my classes!) to take him to the ER. The only time I was scared was when I tried calling Fletch when I was on my way home (about 30 minutes had passed while I was getting permission to leave and setting up sub plans in case they found a sub). He didn't answer. We are so thankful to have such great friends that live in our neighborhood! I called Eli who was on his way home from a meeting ... he was able to get inside and wake Fletch up (he was only sleeping). Once I arrived, Eli had Fletch ready to go with insurance card and wallet. Again, we love Eli and Cami!!! The doctor did all her tests and a CT scan and found ... a brain ;) ... with a concussion. Fletch is still trying to get over it. Just last night he was saying he could feel pressure in his head like he's never felt before. He also is having trouble with short term memory loss, so please pray for a full recovery soon! His muscles are still a bit achy from the shock, but he has been able to get to work for most of his lessons which is such a blessing. :)

It's Friday morning here now and I need to go prep myself for surgery. I want to wash my hair because I know my recovery won't be exciting. I'm getting enhancement done on my left eye this morning because it was never 20/20 after my surgery in June. The procedure is not bad at all, but the healing is awful. I have to do PRK which literary means they have to scrape a layer of cells off of my eye before doing the laser surgery. The cells then heal themselves, but feel like grits of sand during the process. I'll be in bed for the rest of the day. Pray for a quick recovery, though ... I need to take Zack to Denver for his surgery!!! I do have a friend coming with me, though ... who can drive my car if I'm not able to.

Hope you all are having a very blessed 2008!!! This is going to be a great year ... I'M GOING TO BE AN AUNT. :) :) :) :)

Christmas in NYC

2007-12-28T23:11:00.000-07:00

Wow ... I can't believe it's been such a long time since our last blogs! First off, we hope you and your family had a fantastic Christmas! Christmas has come and gone and it was quite different for us this year. Reflecting on our last Christmas holiday, this was the exact opposite! We were in London last year where the subway and buses close for 2 days. This year was Times Square, Manhattan, New York where restaurants stay open as well as transportation! We arrived in Times Square on Saturday the 22nd after traveling for over 12 hours. Our hotel for the first two nights was ... well ... a place to rest our heads. We kept ourselves pretty busy in the city that never sleeps, so that hotel suited our needs perfectly. Some of the many sights we saw during our stay in NYC was: Broadway district, Chrysler building, Empire State building, Ground Zero, Wall Street, Hudson River, Ripley's Believe It Or Not, Fifth Avenue shopping including Tiffanys, rode in a horse drawn carriage through Central Park. Most of these sights were via a double decker bus tour that we were able to hop on and off at. Our 2nd hotel was a big step up from the 1st one ... more like 4 stars more of a step up. Our one star room soon became a 5 star room with a little 2 block walk through Times Square. :)
It's 1:20 a.m. right now, so if this blog seems a little random and unorganized, you'll know why. :) We are currently in Washington, D.C. and are loving it ... we love it so much that we are staying an extra day here before heading back up to NYC. More on DC later ... enjoy the pictures!!!

Exciting News, Fall Out Boy Concert, Exciting News, "December 'Round the World", exciting news, new toys, and EXCITING news

2007-12-02T15:49:00.000-07:00

What is the exciting news you say? Well ... I'm going to make you read the other news first. :)

Fall Out Boy was yet again another good concert, but not as fun as the last one. I'm not a huge rock-n-roll fan ... or even pop music ... but I was blown away with their last tour in June that I was excited to go again last week. Bad news was that the bass guitar player broke his foot on stage before getting to Denver, so it made the concert not as exciting. The electric and bass guitar players were the best parts of the show; they would do 360 degree turns while playing their guitars! No one was spinning at this concert. The other reason I didn't like it as well as the last one was because it was inside ... I love being outside; but I'm also glad we didn't have to sit outside in the 20 degree weather! The set was fun. Here is a picture of the opening set.

I am finished with one of three elementary music programs. The fourth grade classes performed a program called "December 'Round the World". I ran the program differently than the previous years' music teachers, but all my 4th grade teachers and helpers really pulled it off! I was told by my assistant Principal that it was the best program he's ever seen. :) YEAH! Thanks to all that helped and the hard work those 4th graders put into it. Next up: December 11th "Santa, You've Got Mail" by the 5th grade classes and December 19th "December in Our Town" by the 3rd grade classes.

We have added many new toys to our entertainment room downstairs. This is a picture of our new billiards table my husband likes to beat me at. Also pictured is Zack and I getting ready to watch a movie in our theatre room that was finished by our former houseguests while we were in California. (Sorry it took me so long to post a pic!) Fletch has also put up the dart board and updated our theatre room. We now have a 1080 projector and a PS3 which was bought mainly for the blu-ray disc format primarily. If you haven't stopped by yet, feel free to show up anytime! We love having visitors!

Okay, okay ... if you've skipped down to this part, you are a bad-head! You must read the other parts after I reveal the exciting news you've all been waiting for. Are you sitting down? Are you ready for this???

I'M GOING TO BE AN AUNT!!!! WOO-HOO!!!

My darling younger brother called me to see what our travel plans are for the summer and told me we may want to stop by St. Louis to meet my future nephew/niece in July. Tahli is about 11 weeks now? I can't remember. Hopefully they'll comment soon. Boy, oh boy, the pressure is finally off Greg and I to give mom her first grandchild. Whew. Thanks, Tahli! You're the best. :) (Kim, you're next).

Sad, sad, sad news

2007-11-23T15:29:00.000-07:00

I just found out some really sad news. If you're from St. Louis you probably have met us at Bandana's BBQ. This summer we didn't have our reunion there because there was one in Denver. Unfortunately the residents of Lakewood and Denver never found out about this great secret and now it's gone. :( Fletch and I are going up to Denver this evening to see Fall Out Boy at University of Denver and I was really hoping for a nice dinner at Bandana's. Not only the fact the restaurant is gone, but I am running out of my sauce!!! If you're from St. Louis and you want some Christmas gift ideas from us, SEND US SOME SMOKEY BANDANA'S BBQ SAUCE!!!

Yes, we participated in the yearly Black Friday shopping this year. I'm wearing my new tennis shoes I bought. Our shopping was a little different this year. Instead of waking up at the crack of dawn, we went shopping at midnight!!! Yes, you heard me right ... some stores at the Castle Rock Outlet Mall were open at midnight to start off Black Friday!!! It was a cold 15 degrees, but the lines weren't too long. The longest line was (shockingly) to the food court!!! I guess not everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving meal!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

2007-11-22T20:43:00.000-07:00

We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving day! We had some friends over and had a lovely meal. It was a meal for a lot of firsts: London's (9 months) first Thanksgiving, Alyssa's (22 months) first Thanksgiving meal, and our first Thanskgiving dinner in our new home. It was really lovely to have friends and be able to talk to loved ones on this very special day. Thank you all for our years of friendship and love! We are very thankful for each and every one of you and pray God's blessings to continue in your lives.

Finally an update!

2007-11-10T00:24:00.000-07:00

Wow ... sorry it has been such a long time since our last update. We have had numerous requests from all over the world, so here it is. :)

A few days after we returned back from our California trip Fletch fell very ill with ... well ... I won't go in to details, but it was terrible. His worst complaint was dehydration. Thanks to Phil, our houseguest, for suggesting an electrolyte drink. It definitely helped!!!

Unfortunately Fletch was recovering while my parents were in town. We had quite the house full of guests for the 1st night. We were extremely blessed to have every bed filled: Phil & Leslie, Levi, my parents, and us. My parents also brought their very large greyhound, Lance. He did great on the trip in the vehicle. Zack enjoyed Lance's visit as well and I think Lance did a great job at tolerating the puppy. Now Lars had to hide for a few days, but he came out from hiding after Lance left. Simba didn't let anyone push him around and he stood his ground ... most of the time. :)

We had a great visit with my parents just hanging out at the house and taking our dogs for walks. It seemed like a short visit because we tried to encourage them to stay a few days more but the inevitable had to happen sometime ... they had to drive home at some point. Fletch felt like he barely got to see them because he was in the recovery stage and trying to catch up on work while they were here. In the long run, it was best they left. I came down with the illness the next day after they left ... I don't ever want to be dehydrated again! Oye! I had to stay home from work for 2 days which was bad because I'm trying to get my 3rd, 4th and 5th graders ready for their music programs starting on November 29th!!! The students are doing quite well, though. My stress level is very low at this point. :)

We had one of my ex-coworkers from Ellicott Middle School and her husband over tonight. We love entertaining and were glad to catch up with them. I haven't seen Joni since my last day at Ellicott in May!!!

On the other side of the family the big news is Fletch's parents are coming over the pond for a visit in late April!!! The four of us are already making plans for travels during their visit. There may be a father/son visit to the motherland ... England ... to see Tom's family while Heather and I stay home working on crafts and sewing. :) The four of us will head off to Washington/Canada/Montana in early June. We are all getting very excited, but I'm sure Tom and Heather are extremely excited. Heather missed America the day she arrived back in Vanuatu after their last trip here (March/April 2005).

Here are some more pictures from our trip to California. The one on the left is of Fletch inside a jail cell on Alcatraz Island. The one in the middle is one of the many staircases in the Winchester Mystery house. The steps are said to be really tiny because Mrs. Winchester had arthritis and was having difficulty taking the stairs. The picture on the far right is a crazy picture of us driving north on the side of the Southbound lanes of Interstate 5 in Los Angeles during that big wreck. Those poor trucks had to stay there until all the cars were able to move out of the way!!!

We've updated our basement in the form of a game room. Fletch put a pool table together over the past 2 nights. We also bought our first blueray player ... in the form of a Play Station 3. Fletch is also very excited to get a hand made guitar amp from Germany called a Diezel Herbert.

All is well here in the Whipp household. The weather is unusually warm at the moment, but I'm not complaining ... Fletch on the otherhand is waiting for snow. :)

Well it's getting pretty late, so I'm signing off for now. Thanks for the messages to update the blog!!! :)

Our last day & Cats, Dogs and Whipps are reunited

2007-10-14T11:01:00.000-06:00

We have arrived home SAFE AND SOUND! We came home to a couple loving cats and an excited puppy who has grown!!! We also came home to a BEAUTIFUL COMPLETED THEATRE ROOM!!! Thanks to the McCallum family for doing that in our absence!!! The 7 of us (Lars didn't participate) watched Jurassic Park II together while sipping our free champagne (from the resort at Knotts Berry Farm) and eating popcorn.

Let's back track to our last day in California. The day can be summed up in one word: TRAFFIC!!! We had terrible traffic getting back into San Francisco Friday morning to catch our ferry to Alcatraz, but we made it! The tour was really good. We have gone on a few walking/audio tours in the past and both agree this was one of the best tours! The narrators were 4 former guards and 4 former prisoners. The sound effects made it sound real and the directions were clear: even to the point of seeing the pock marks from when hand grenades were used during the Battle of Alcatraz. We also watched a movie about the history of Alcatraz and learned that it was first used for military purposes, as a prison, and the American-Indians tried to take control of the island to use it as a university for Indians until the National Park Service took it over in the '60s. We really enjoyed ourselves, even in the rain. Mouse got a lovely parka as a result of the rain (pictures later).

Once again we found ourselves in San Francisco traffic, but were enjoying each other's company and getting further in our book on CD. Once we got moving we were enjoying some beautiful rolling hills and great weather. Until ... Los Angeles traffic. LA rarely gets rain and when it does, the drivers don't have a clue how to drive in it. Our houseguests heard about the I-5 accident on the news here in Colorado Springs, so you may have heard about it as well. There were 15 trucks that collided in a tunnel going southbound on I-5 on the north side of LA. 5 trucks caught on fire. (The picture on the left is from latimes.com taken by Mike Meadows / Associated Press on October 13, 2007.) One person is still missing. 10 were taken to the hospital, and now 3 are dead. (The picture on the right is from latimes.com with a caption: The driver of the mangled truck on the right was able to walk away from his vehicle with minor injuries before it was engulfed in flames, according to CHP officers on the scene. Picture taken by Stephen Osman / Los Angeles Times on October 13, 2007) The interstate is still closed in both directions and won't be opened until Tuesday at the earliest for the southbound lane. The northbound lane may not open for a while longer until inspectors can determine if the tunnel/bridge is usable. The trucks were burning in a truck only lane which happened to be in a tunnel that truckers say is hard to see in good weather.

The chain reaction began when two trucks collided on the I-5 late Friday.
(Mike Meadows / Associated Press)
October 13, 2007 (from latimes.com)

So back to our version of the story. We saw a sign stating there was a truck accident up ahead of us, so when we were at a dead stop on the interstate, we had an idea of why. We were able to pick up a station on our Sirius radio that gave us updates on LA traffic and quickly found out there were burning trucks in our way. We realized we'd be sitting there for a while, so we shut the lights off and continued listening to the repeated message on the radio. Fletch wanted to take a nap, so we switched seats. While he was trying to sleep (a little hard with the excitement around us), we noticed a Saturn going in reverse on the shoulder. I instantly said, "What an idiot! The cops will be getting him!" Then we saw a car driving forwards, north, in the southbound shoulder! Then we saw another car, and another, and people out starting to walk around questioning what was going on. It was raining at this time and we were enjoying our warm dry car, we decided to stay inside. Then we saw cars going north on the shoulder on the other side of us. Once a car beside us starting going, making a way for us, we decided to become what Melissa said "an idiot" and break a few laws as well. We were probably one of the first 50 cars to do this, so we thought the cops in front must be giving the cars the go ahead to do this. We had to do some curb jumping at one point because a trucker was on the shoulder and not able to move. Thanks to Fletch for getting out to see if we could jump the shoulder! I didn't think we could do it!!! There were a few sport cars that were stuck on that shoulder. Poor people! They thought they were free!!! We spent the next 3 hours following a truck (that didn't get past the stop point, so he wasn't stuck on the freeway with the other big rigs) hoping he would lead us to a passable point southbound on I-5. Again, that was my husband's street smart idea! We finally made it through. Our first time of arrival was set by Mandy (without breaks) for 10:33 pm. After the San Francisco traffic it was moved to 2:10 am. Now after this accident, it was going to be 5:30 am. We still saw a few more accidents on the way, but nothing as major as that 15 truck collision accident!!!

The lady at the hotel in San Diego was quite suprised to see us show up at 5:30 in the morning. As we were checking in, others were eating breakfast. Now that was a sad sight to see! After sleeping for 3 hours, we started our journey home. It was amazing that we stayed up as late as we did watching the movie last night! We made up for it in the morning, though ... we slept 10-11 hours (Fletch got up earlier than I did).

It was an awesome vacation, but we are so thankful to be home!!! I need to unpack, so some laundry, and upload more pictures. Keep checking the blogs for updated pictures!!!

Wednesday: Driving up north

2007-10-13T13:58:00.000-06:00

We started our trip to San Francisco with no plans other than visiting a few places. Our drive was uneventful. We started up the Pacific Coast Highway from South/Central LA up through Malibu and the beach cities for about 2 hours before we went inland for a faster route. Once we got to San Jose, we decided to call it a night and asked Mandy to show us the closest hotel to our first destination: Winchester House. She took us to a fantastic shopping area with Gucci and other pricey shops. We ended up asking her for another hotel because we thought that area would be a little too pricey for some travelers looking for a bed!

The next morning we took a tour through the Winchester Mystery House. It is believed to have been cursed because the owners' baby died within 6 weeks due to ill health and Mr. Winchester died a few years later of tuberculosis. Mrs. Winchester believed the house was haunted by the ghosts of the men that died from the rifles the family made during the Civil War. To distract the evil spirits, Mrs. Winchester installed doors that led to walls and stairs that went up to the ceiling. The tour went through the entire house of 1 mile. It was ... interesting ... to say the least. I'll have pictures posted later once we get home (we are waiting for our return flight to Colorado Springs right now as I type).

The last part of the day was our business portion for the San Francisco area. Fletch is a huge fan of Mesa Boogie amps, so we took a tour of the factory in Petaluma (south of San Fran). Fletch was in amp heaven!!! He was able to find a good deal on a Mesa Boogie thingamajingy on Craig's List the night before, so we picked up the item on our way back to San Fran after the tour. Our last two business stops were Guitar Center stores in San Francisco (where we scored great street parking right in front of the store!) and San Jose. Of course we ended our business trip with a business dinner ... at Chevy's.

We enjoyed the previous night's stay at the hotel so much, we decided to stay another night to make it easier on ourselves (packing our stuff and the car to finding another hotel in San Fran ... more expensive ... and unpacking/packing all over again was getting annoying).

Our plane is about ready to load. I will blog our tour of Alcatraz and our VERY eventful drive back to San Diego once we get home. All I have to say about our trip home is check out the latimes.com today to see front page of a 15 truck pile-up that caused 5 to catch on fire causing us a 3 hour delay in arriving in San Diego!!! Pictures tomorrow after I rest up (I slept 3 hours last night!!!)

Wineries (Sunday)

2007-10-10T11:12:00.001-06:00

Oops! I forgot to blog about Sunday!!! We spent a few hours in Temecula (just north of San Diego). We have a favorite restaurant there and had lunch ... Sweet Lumpy's. Melissa tasted wine at 2 wineries, but we only did 2 because she could taste the wine as well with her cold. :( We then checked into our hotel in Hollywood and visited a Guitar Center. This is the business part of our trip ... guitar shopping!

Leaving LA

2007-10-10T10:24:00.000-06:00

Carson Daly: we watched last night's episode. Melissa saw Fletch's head banging to the music and Fletch saw Melissa shake her hair around. Yeah! We were on t.v.! Isn't that what Hollywood is all about???

It's official. We are both sick with the flu. Day 6 for Melissa: I am starting to see the end of the tunnel!!! Day 2 for Fletch: PLEASE PRAY HE DOESN'T HAVE IT AS LONG AS MELISSA DID!!! I have learned my lesson and have promised Fletch that when I get sick I WILL take a day off of school to get better! I feel bad that I didn't during my 1st cold this season (back in September) and now we are both paying for it. This is the 3rd time I have gotten sick in 6 weeks ... and have given it to Fletch twice!

Enough of that ... yesterday we went to Knott's Berry Farm. Fletch found his smell (and was able to still smell) that he remembered 27 years ago. Unfortunately Melissa wasn't smelling anything. :( The park employees were expecting about 2000 visitors! We think it was below that count. We had to wait in line for 2 rides ... and that was only about 3 minutes to wait in! We were able to ride all of the rides ... some of them 4 times!!! We heard that Disneyland was crowded over the weekend, so we can probably say that if you want to visit themeparks ... GO AFTER COLUMBUS DAY!!! It was sweet. :)

After the park closed we came back to the hotel for a little rest and drugs then headed out to Beverly Hills to see the stars homes. It was getting a little late, so we only saw Sylvester Stallone's home, Bill Cosby's former home and Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes mansion.

Our room at Knott's Berry Farm resort is FANTASTIC! They gave us a room with 2 queen size beds (just perfect for 2 sicklies), a bottle of Champagne (which we'll enjoy after we're finished taking our meds), a parking voucher, 2 tickets to the park, $30 dinner voucher and 2 breakfast buffet vouchers for under $200! We figured it's costing us $14 to stay in this lovely room!

Today we're off for the Pacific Coast Highway. There are no more hotel reservations and we're going to take it easy. We'll be visiting Hearst Castle, Winchester Mystery House, Mesa Boogie factory, Alcatraz, and possibly the Avenue of the Giants (depending on how we feel). We're not sure about internet connection because we don't know where we're staying for the rest of the trip. If we can find free hookup at Starbucks, we'll update the blog!

Thanks for reading. We need to go enjoy our FREE breakfast BUFFET and start heading out.

Love,

Fletch and Mouse

P.S. Note from home: Zack was bothering Simba at the beginning of the week (enough to make us wonder if we had to take him back) but they are now best friends! Lars is being Lars ... hanging out by himself. Simba was crying a lot the first part of our absence, he's calming down a little. Zack has learned how to lay down! Thanks Phil, Leslie and Levi!!!

LA

2007-10-09T00:05:00.000-06:00

Okay ... I sent the last post with only 60 seconds to type it because we were flying out of the door to get to the NBC studios on time. We thought we didn't make it, but they welcomed us in ... into the 1st row!!! We were at the taping of NBC's Carson Daly show for Tuesday and Wednesday night. We were able to see Brian Welsh's interview which was someone we had prayed for in the past! Brian used to be a guitar player for the secular band Korn until he became a Christian a few years ago. We prayed for him a few times after his transformation into Christianity. What an awesome opportunity to be in the audience while he was being interviewed!!! We also got to see Leslie Bibb (an actress from Talagada Nights) being interviewed. The musical guests we saw were Hurricane Chris and Ryan Shaw. We never heard who any of these people (besides Brian Welsh) before tonight, but you may be able to see us in the front row of the musicians!!! Fletch and I were right up front screaming and yelling ... like we were HUGE fans of these guys! ;) It was really fun!!!

We are having a great time in our Mustang driving around LA with Mandy. Fletch is quite the LA driver now!!! It's so much easier when you have someone navigating who knows the area!

We didn't get a chance to catch up with our friend Dave yet ... we hope to tomorrow after Knott's Berry Farm closes.

Please be praying for Melissa's health. She has been battling a cold ever since we left Colorado and it is still lingering on ... especially at night time. We are still able to go about our day as tourists, but night time is not the best time for Melissa. Thanks!!! Tomorrow we're off to Knott's Berry Farm, hopefully to catch up with Dave, and possibly touring around Beverly Hills and Bel Air (again) ... but this time with a map of the stars' homes!

Carson Daly

2007-10-08T18:30:00.000-06:00

Watch it tonight! We're in the live audience!

More later.

Saturday: San Diego

2007-10-07T10:42:00.000-06:00

Wow. What a first day! It's hard to imagine we still have 7 more days to go! The first thing we did today was go to the San Diego Zoo. Melissa had fond memories of going there with her older brother in 1997; the last time she went there was with her friends in 2002, but it was raining and most of the animals weren't out because of the rain. This was the first time for Fletch to go. We had a great time. The pandas were sleeping the first time we saw them, but one was awake and eating the 2nd time through. The weather was perfect and we had a great time!

In the evening we drove downtown to the waterfront marina area to board the ship we would be having our dinner cruise on. After a 3 course meal Fletch and Mouse retreated downstairs to the dancefloor! It was hilarious seeing much older couples raisning their blood pressure to old Michael Jackson and Salt N' Pepper tunes....

San Diego is a beautiful, clean city, several charactoristics reninded Fletch of Brisbane. Navigating is very easy. Largest highway to date was 12 lanes!

Sunday's activities: wineries, drive to LA, hanging out with Mouse's college friend (who just got of tour with Hilary Duff).

Friday: Travels and San Diego

2007-10-06T09:13:00.000-06:00

We started the day off with Melissa going to work and Fletch getting ready. Usually it's the other way around;Fletch enjoyed a nice relaxing morning before traveling!!! Our house guests were able to take us to the airport. They received a nice surprise ... they thought we were flying out of Denver! :) There was only one exciting (or annoying) thing at the airport: a lady with a child was cutting in front of the security line (no one said anything to her) and was quite upset when the officers had to examine her bags. She had a lot of liquids for the baby in there, but didn't tell the officers before putting her bags on the belt. She was causing a little scene telling them if she was late they better pay for her to get the next flight out. Obviously she doesn't fly often. Hopefully she has learned that if traveling with a child, don't be late! We saw her at the gate, but no one was sitting there. Either she missed her flight, was able to get on the next one, or was carrying a fuss lying to the officers so she could get through security faster. I hope she had a better afternoon than her morning!

We flew JetExpress. Lovely plane ride. They surprised us by not only offering drinks, but a lunch (sandwich or pasta with peanuts and cookies), snack (peanuts or cookies) and a mint at the end of our flight! The ladies at lunch were just talking about how planes don't offer just snacks anymore ... well it's changing! :) Our flight was only 2 hours and 20 minutes, but the plane hit a bird before landing in Colorado Springs. We had about 30-45 minutes to wait on the plane while maintenance checked out everything.

Karen was our assistant at Hertz rental car. She was so sweet. She asked us if we wanted to upgrade to a Ford Mustang, but we said no and asked about 5 different cars to upgrade to. What a patient woman! After about 30 minutes we decided on a Mustang. I apologized to her, but she was quite professional and was a lovely lady! We are riding around California in a silver Ford Mustang (not a convertible ... there weren't any available).

Our first stop was the Carvin guitar factory. We have been there before (June 2006) but didn't have time to look around. Fletch brought one of his many Carvin guitars to get some items put in it (don't ask me what he's doing to it ... let's call it an upgrade) and had a blast looking around at all the Carvin guitars. Fletch is definitely a Carvin guy! Visitors to our home can tell he enjoys Carvin guitars. :)

After the factory we went to a popular fast food joint ... In and Out. Under $5 for a meal ... like the old days. If you are ever in California or Las Vegas, you must stop and eat at an In and Out place. It's tradition! Up to this point our newest member of the family, Mandy, got us to each location without hassles. She had a little problem communicating to us how to get to our hotel. We had to turn around about 3 times. Hopefully she'll do better today. She'll be navigating us to San Diego Zoo and the location where we will catch our dinner cruise at. Can you guess what Mandy is? Comment below if you think you know!!!

Fletch, Mouse & Mandy

California, Here We Come!

2007-10-05T08:41:00.000-06:00

We will be leaving today for a much needed vacation! Stay tuned for pictures and blogs daily while we are in California! Here is a brief list of our itinerary:

10/5-7 SAN DIEGO (Carvin guitar factory, San Diego Zoo, dinner cruise)

10/7-10/10 LOS ANGELES AREA (guitar shops, trolley tour, Hollywood Walk of Fame, Knott's Berry Farm)

10/10-10/12 SAN FRANCISCO area (Mesa Boogie factory, Alcatraz, possibly Avenue of the Giants)

10/12-10/13 make our way back to San Diego

10/13 fly home

Thank you in advance, McCallum family, for taking care of our pets and our home! You are a HUGE blessing!!!

My brother is gone ...

2007-09-20T20:54:00.000-06:00

... from the country, that is. I am so sad. It's funny how I feel so apart from family when they go on vacation ... even though they live in St. Louis and I'm in Colorado Springs!!! Sean and Natalia: I hope you have a FANTASTIC time in Australia. I'm jealous. I want to go back. I still can't believe my little brother has gone to Australia more times than I have. Bring me back a Christmas goody, please!

Comment, Please!!!

2007-09-16T13:48:00.000-06:00

Okay I have figured out why we haven't received many comments. It's because the settings said that only blogger members can comment. I have changed it now. ANYONE can comment. :)

Feel free to do so. :)

Fletch and Mouse's New Addition

2007-09-15T20:36:00.000-06:00

Hi Friends! We wanted to show you our families newest addition, a 4 month old Labrador retriever puppy, we have named Zack. We got him from the Retriever Rescue of Colorado this afternoon in Denver. He was very well behaved on the way home. Lars and Simba are cooly accepting of him, but prepared to dab him if he gets too close at this stage.

-Fletch

Buying a house

2007-09-11T19:06:00.000-06:00

No one told me that if you buy a house you are constantly fixing it up! Our theatre room is almost complete. It looks finished (painted, wall is up, electric boxes are in) but we still have more work to do. It's starting to get cold here, so our next time cruncher is to use Eli's power painting thingy to paint the crown molding outside before snow hits. Fletch is counting down the days until that happens ... next month we'll see snow. I miss fall.

Our roommates are here safe and sound and their stuff arrives tomorrow. It's been great having them around keeping us company. Please be praying for their job interviews in the next week. Leslie has one on Thursday and Phil has his 3rd interview at Focus next Wednesday. Levi is back at school (online) and is keeping himself busy working out of the house on computer programming stuff. The only programming I'm able to do is this blog, myspace, facebook and now I've "pimped" this site and my myspace page. What do you think of it? Pretty? :)

Our handyman is here installing our new fan in our bedroom and installing our old bedroom ceiling fan into the guest bedroom upstairs. The one in our bedroom matches the one in the living room ... it was one of the great qualities that Fletch loved when we were looking at the house. After our roommates moved in, we quickly found out that the hot water faucet in the shower wasn't used enough ... it broke within the first couple of days. Handyman Bill fixed that, too. Fortunately he is an electrician and plumber that doesn't cost an arm and a leg! If you're in the area and need a handyman like Bill, let us know! He is also doing work at Eli and Cami's as well!

That's all I have for now. Feel free to leave a comment anytime soon! (My own MOTHER hasn't even left a comment!)

NEW ROOMMATES!!!

2007-09-04T23:10:00.001-06:00

In case you want to stop by, or give us a call on the home phone ... I wanted to let you know that Phil and his family (Fletcher's mentors from Australia) will be staying with us starting tomorrow. We are very excited to have them back and are excited to be able to bless them with shelter under the roof GOD has blessed us to take care of. Feel free to stop by to say "aloha" to our guests from Hawaii!!!

Labor Day Weekend & Cousin's wedding

2007-09-03T16:00:00.000-06:00

We have had a nice quiet weekend with friends and painting. The wall is officially up and done in the theater room. Fletch and I spent a few hours late last night painting it. We will need to add a second layer of paint later on and we still need to paint the ceiling a dark color. We are getting closer to having it hooked up! Our goal is to have it up and running by October when we have visitors coming over.

I want to take this time to say congrats to my cousin, Andy, on his previous wedding day. It looks like you made it through, cuz! I am saddened I missed yet another wedding in my family due to the distance we are from family. We still welcome all family members to enjoy a nice relaxing holiday here at the Whipp household. :) Congrats, Andy and welcome to the family, Jessica!

Great! Now that I know non-American residents are reading this ...

2007-08-23T20:39:00.000-06:00

... I guess I will continue to blog. (Little add for my cousin Aaron with a great blog ... aaronorear.com ... who resides in Canada//also for David who is a friend of Fletch's from Australia//and Lalayena who also is a friend of Fletch's from Australia). Thanks for the comments friends. AMERICAN RESIDENTS ... GET ON THE BALL. ;)

Hmmm ... what can I write about today? It is FINALLY cooling off in our neck of woods. It's been in the upper 80's/lower 90's for about a month now. Not very common for Colorado Springs. I think it's going to get down to 58 degrees tonight. Woo-hoo!!! We have the air off!!!

Our friend, and Fletch's guitar student, Chris has been back yet again working on our theatre room. He is such a trooper ... even though he HATES working with materials involved in building a wall!!! We plan on blessing him and his wife (who is an ex-coworker of Melissa's from Ellicott School District) with a fun evening out.

We are planning our fall getaway. We plan on flying out to Las Vegas then driving to California for some guitar shopping, whale show watching and beach picnicking vacation time. :) When we return, we plan on having TONS O' VISITORS come see our new home. If you are planning on visiting, let us know SOON because we will have Fletch's mentor and his wife and son staying with us at that time as well. We have plenty of room ... or our neighbor/friend (the Olympic athlete) could put guests up as well.

Enough rambling for tonight. I need to make some macaroni and cheese for dinner. Fletch is at rehearsal for our church's Concert of Praise tomorrow night. Included is a picture of the worship team on Mother's Day. I will try to remember to take the camera and get a better picture tomorrow night!

Hello? Is anybody reading this???

2007-08-21T22:51:00.000-06:00

My blog for the evening is my thoughts on whether or not anyone is reading these blogs. If you are, please send a comment so I know you're out there! ;)

In the meantime, enjoy a photo of the next stage of the theatre room, one of our guest bedrooms and a very cute picture of the boys!

We love our boys

2007-08-18T13:00:00.000-06:00

Here are some cute pictures of our babies. We love our cats soooo much!!! They are very friendly and love people, so if you are allergic to cats and come visit us, please let us know! Otherwise they will come sit next to you and will have a chat as long as you give them attention. Lars is the black cat that we've had since November 14, 2004. Simba is actually our 3rd cat (replaced our sick kitten, Rafiki, that we put to sleep November 27, 2005 ... see 1st post in July) who has been with us since November 29, 2005. Lars is very soft and is a purebred (you can tell by the tips on top of his ears); Simba is the talkative one. He even talks to Melissa when Fletch puts the phone to Simba while she is at work!!! Very cute!!! These pictures were taken within the last 3 days. Enjoy!!!

Update

2007-08-16T20:38:00.000-06:00

Sorry for the lack of communication!!! Melissa is almost finished with week #2 at school and is loving it!!! Once we find the charger/adapter to download pictures, we'll post some pictures!!!

Fletch had a WONDERFUL birthday here at the house ... we had 29 guests show up for some burgers, hot dogs, fellowship and great birthday wishes! Again ... more pictures to come once the charger/adapter is found. :)

Fletch and a guitar student (an adult one of course) have been working on the theatre room downstairs. This picture was taken with Melissa's old camera ... the french doors are not quite in just yet, so if you come over please don't open them. ;)

Melissa had her open house at school tonight. Fletch forgot about it ... which is great ... because Melissa came home to this wonderful array of gifts!!! It's great he forgot because it's definitely considered a "just because" array of gifts ... not a "good job at your new job" gift. :) Fletch definitely gets the husband of the year award!!! (guys ... he does consult husbands/fiance's/boyfriends for free).

Fletch's mentor, Phil McCallum, and his family stayed with us for one night. Leslie and Levi went back home, but Phil came back shortly after they all left for 10 days. It was so great to have him here. They will all be back in a few weeks to stay for as long as they need to in order to find a house. Please be praying for Phil as he is seeking a position at Focus on the Family. He had the honor of having a 3 1/2 hour luncheon with H.B. London before he left!!! Things are looking good there!!!

Looks like the Whipps are booking up their household quickly. If you are wanting to visit, please contact us soon so we can arrange rooms. :-) Phil, Leslie and Levi will be here in September (for as long as they wish); Ma & Pa Orear are coming on October in addition to Greg and Kim. Christian Jorgensen may be visiting with his friend after he visits his sister (Melissa's sister-in-law) in St. Louis. PLUS we are taking a roadtrip to California one week in October. Fun times ahead for the Whipps!!! STAY TUNED ...

Back in school ...

2007-08-02T21:50:00.001-06:00

Yep. You heard it right. Melissa started back at school after 9 weeks of splendid bliss enjoying the home and summer sun. New teachers had to report to new teacher orientation at Skyview Middle School on Monday and Tuesday. All teachers reported back on Wednesday. Students start on Monday!!! YIKES!!! To top it all off, the school just opened back up after mold was found almost 2 weeks ago. New pictures will come once school starts!!! GO STETSON RAIDERS!!! :)

Our friend, the Olympic Athlete

2007-07-25T09:39:00.000-06:00

This is a picture of our friends Eli and Cami! Eli just won an automatic spot on the 2008 Modern Pentathlon Olympic team!!! Congratulations, Eli!!! You can read all about his latest gold medal at the Pan American Games in Rio on his website: www.elibremer.com

Wall Art

2007-07-21T16:25:00.000-06:00

We went to Sam's Club to get some food and walked out yesterday with a couple prints and our metal wall art. It is a lovely bronze colored 3D contemporary piece (actually 5 pieces we put together) that really adds to our contemporary room.

I'm adding some pictures of our trip back to Missouri and Cedar Point (in Ohio) as well. We went back to visit with Melissa's family and friends in St. Louis and took a side trip to Sandusky with the Granthams (friends from Melissa's high school). Melissa was quite excited to meet the new family member as well, Lance the retired greyhound her parents rescued. We had a lovely time, but it was hot and humid! We came back even more appreciative of our new home and awesome climate!!!

All About God, former mentors, and birthday parties

2007-07-20T01:20:00.001-06:00

Today we sat in on a presentation of AllAboutGod.com ... all I can say is WOW!!! Our friends Greg and Candy are taking the gospel to the next level ... the kind of level that is right on our level ... through the internet!!! Straight from the website, they say, "We write compelling websites that reach out to skeptics, seekers, believers, and a hurting world with powerful evidence for God and the Good News of Jesus ... Simply, our mission is to share the Good News with the Globe via the World Wide Web!"

Please check it out!!! AllAboutGod.com

On another note, Melissa had the honor to attend a former student's 16th birthday party out east. She was able to catch up with 3 former students and the birthday boy's family and friends. It was fun to hang out with them!

Fletch and I are getting an exciting opportunity to catch up with both of our mentors!!! Melissa's mentor at Ellicott left after her 1st year of teaching to teach in China. She came home to take see her family; Melissa is looking forward to catching up with her before she goes back mid-August. Fletch's mentor from Australia has contacted us as well! Pastor Phil is integral in getting Fletch hooked up with a Bible believing church and helped to build a firm foundation for Fletch's faith. Last we heard, Pastor Phil was preaching at a church in Hawaii. Now the family is praying about a job opportunity at Focus on the Family! We are looking forward to hosting them for a night while he interviews at Focus later this month. In the meantime, he is speaking at a church in Greeley next week and is flying into DIA tomorrow. After 5 years of separation, Fletch will get an opportunity to reunite with a very special man in our lives! We plan on going up to Denver tomorrow to have lunch with the family.

Welcome

2007-07-19T00:08:00.000-06:00

Here we finally starting a blog for friends and family all over the WORLD! I've decided to start our journey with our lovely timeline! Don't go too far!!! Buckle up for a fun ride!!!

June 16, 2001: This is the date Melissa opened the e-mail from Fletch. We both had a profile on ChristianCafe.com for different reasons (Melissa wanted to be silly; Fletch was looking for American musicians to network with prior to a tour in 2002).

July 4, 2003: We met in person for the 1st time at Brisbane airport! Melissa stayed in Brissie for about a week prior to their trip to Townsville and Darwin to visit her friends (Fletch shouted the tickets!). We made a decision during this trip to take our relationship to the next level, but not officially with the engagement ring.

October 3, 2003: Fletch flew to St. Louis and proposed to Melissa (with help from her family, Becky and Amy). He spent about 10 days with Melissa during her time off from work (in between jobs). He traveled to Missouri (obviously) and Illinois (to meet both Grandparents and Uncle Bill and Aunt Barb).

December 2003: Fletch flew back to St. Louis for a visit. We traveled to Wisconsin for a good old fashioned Orear Christmas!

March 2004: Fletch flew back to America, stopping in California for a few days prior to visiting Melissa in St. Louis.

July 23, 2004: Fletch immigrated to America! Melissa met his parents for the 1st time as well!

July 31, 2004: We tied the knot!

Honeymoon: We flew into Denver, drove to Colorado Springs (where Melissa received a job) up to Estes Park, Boulder, Denver and flew back home to let our family (and Melissa's work) know we were moving to Colorado Springs in 2 weeks time!

August 24, 2004: We moved to Colorado Springs. We stayed with a lovely couple (Jan and Chick) until mid-October! What a blessing they were to us!!!

October 2004: Fletch was able to start working, thanks to Homeland Security taking a few months to get his social security number! We were blessed to have picked up a guitar studio at Fall River Music just when another guitar teacher was moving (of all places) to MISSOURI! Fletch was able to get 25/30 of his students! Thank you Jesus!

October 29, 2004: We moved in to one of Melissa's co-worker's basement during our transition to our new condo! Thanks Shane and Crystal for your help!

November 12, 2004: We moved to our 1st home: 4549 Lamplighter Circle. That night we adopted "Lobo" (we changed his name to "Lars"), a fun caring beagle that christened our carpet downstairs!

November 13, 2004: We gave Lobo back to his former owners. We realized we didn't have a yard big enough for him (plus he scratched at our neighbor's door and howled all night).

November 15, 2004: We adopted Lars (yes, we were obsessed with having a pet named Lars) from the humane society ... a beautiful domestic short-haired black cat.

Christmas 2004: We surprised Melissa's family with a visit during the Christmas season.
February 2005: Fletch received his green card!

April 2005: We took a proper vacation to Orlando, FL! Fletch came back with e-coli and had a lovely 6 week recovery (after 2 visits to the hospital!).

July 2005: Melissa received her 1st teaching job teaching 5th-12th grade instrumental music at Ellicott Middle and High Schools! She continued working at Safelite on her Friday and Saturdays off.

September 11, 2005: We adopted Rafiki, a domestic short-hairred brown tiger cat. He was such a little thing!

October 2005: We attended Mr. Olympia contest in Las Vegas. Correction: Fletch attended. Melissa scrapbooked in the hotel room. We stayed at the Orleans hotel.

Thanksgiving 2005: We took the boys to St. Louis for Sean and Tahli's wedding reception. Rafiki got sick within the first 90 minutes of the trip, stayed overnight in the hospital on Thanksgiving night, had surgery to remove 6 inches of dead tissue on Friday, came home on Saturday, quickly whisked back to the hospital Saturday night.

November 27, 2005: Rafiki Whipp was put to sleep due to another surgery needed to reattach his intestines. WE WILL NEVER FORGET YOU!

November 28, 2005: We started our trip back to Colorado as a family of 3. Got stuck in Kansas due to a snow storm!

November 29, 2005: After we arrived home from our terrible trip, we threw our bags into the living room, set off for the humane society, was unlucky finding a replacement for Rafiki, went to Pet Smart, and found our little guy, Simba Rafiki Whipp! He had a brother just like Lars, and Lars thought Rafiki was back. The poor boys were scared of each other and didn't know what was going on! Lars went into a depression the remainder of the winter season due to his loss of his best friend, Rafiki.

December 2005: Another trip to Las Vegas to catch up with Ross, Kerryn and the kids! It was such a surprise to hear they were in the country! We stayed at the Excalibur. We had such a wonderful time with them and are looking forward to our next get-together!
Christmas 2005: Our 1st Christmas at home!

March 2006: Mum and Dad visit for 5 weeks!

Spring Break 2006: Melissa went to St. Louis for Greg and Kim's wedding the 1st weekend. That Monday, the 2 sets of Whipps flew off to Las Vegas (stayed at Circus Circus), drove to the Grand Canyon, Anaheim, San Francisco, Yosemite, Death Valley and back to Las Vegas to catch a flight back to Denver.

July 2006: We took a camping roadtrip up to Mount Rushmore. We stopped at Devil's Tower on the way up and Crazy Horse Memorial on the way back.

December 25, 2006: We flew to London to find out that the town is DEAD on Christmas and Boxing Day! The tube wasn't even working!!!

December 28, 2006: We took a train down to Brighton to hang out where Fletch grew up.

December 31, 2006: Back to London for New Year's Eve.

January 1, 2007: Started the New Year in Paris! We stood under the Eiffel Tower for 2 hours in the cold rain to get up inside ... we only stayed about 10 minutes because we were frozen! The next night we did a tour that included dinner in the Eiffel Tower and a river cruise on the Seine river. It was a splendid way to end our Parisian vacation!

January 3, 2007: Melissa's dream came true! We arrived in ITALY!!! We spent the next 3 days touring Rome: Colesseum, Vatican City, Trevi Fountain, Roman Forum.

January 6, 2007: Back to London for one more night in Europe.

January 7, 2007: Home!

January 8, 2007: Fletch gives up his ebay business as a full time job to spend more time with the Lord and in ministry involvement with the church.

January 9, 2007: Owner of Fall River Music tells Fletch the store will be closing it's doors the end of the month. Instead of freaking out, Fletch goes on a fast that lasted for a week. It was confirmed that he should continue teaching, and was able to partner with Jim (another guitar teacher from Fall River Music ... that didn't bail out on the owner when things looked shakey). They have a studio 3 times larger than their last one with their own hours for the same price! Thank you Jesus!

February 2007: Fletch sells his rental property in Australia! Time to seriously start looking for a house! We knew Eli would help us find our home!

March 3, 2007: We moved to our dream home in St. Andrews subdivision: 2320 Pinhigh Court. Such a blessing from the Lord! We need to still name our home, but are looking for a Hebrew translation for restoration possibly. This house is a home of restoration because the man who owned it before us, through counseling at his church, reconciled his marriage and moved to her home up north.

June 2007: We took a humid trip back to St. Louis so Melissa can see a baseball game at the new stadium, go to a winery (rained out), go to a Whitaker Jazz Festival Concert (rained out) , see Greg and Kim's new home in La Plata, and take Fletch to Cedar Point (with the Granthams). It was a nice trip to catch up with family and friends, but very hot and humid!

July 12-15, 2007: Wayne and Danielle of Gladstone, Australia became our 1st over night guests! Wayne is a friend of Melissa's from YWAM; Danielle hung out with Tahli and Fletch when they all lived in Brisbane. What a small world! 1st Fletch's friend and Melissa's brother get married; then our friends marry each other!

Whew! I told you it was a whirlwind! Stay tuned for more adventures with the Whipps including involvement in ministry, future children, future dog (?) and Melissa's new job!