JOE & DIANE CHENEY

I'm starting a new chapter in my life and want you all to come along and share it with me. I met Joe Cheney from Iowa last December while I was visiting my daughter in Madison, Wisconsin. We had met earlier online through LDS Singles. We went out to dinner, he spent all day Sunday with me and Tessa's family, and then he met me in Dubuque, Iowa to drive to Iowa City to see the new release movie, Les Miserables. At that time, I just randomly invited Joe to join Mark, Kaylinn and me in Disneyland the end of January. At first he just laughed . . . then he saw I was serious and accepted. He stayed in NorCal for several days and then we drove to SoCal for a total of two weeks together. We had so much fun, enjoyed traveling together and just being together.

  

Joe Cheney proposed to me at Adam Ondi Ahman February 15

 

 

I haven't entered a blog for the last year or so and now look forward to many more in the future as a new chapter in my life with Joe.  I will start a new blog page with the wedding and honeymoon so look me up on diandjoecheney.blogspot.com.

Canyonlands Road Trip

After living in California almost all my life, I have finally made the trip to visit So. Utah Canyonlands: Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde, Arches, Canyonlands, Capital Reef, Bryce, Cedar Breaks, Kodachrome and Zions National Parks. It was just great and every park was so different from the others.

Mom and I each took over 1,000 pictures and I've included just a few of the best here. I have always heard about the Grand Canyon and certainly saw lots of pictures, BUT when I saw it for myself, there are no words to describe how grand it all is. Makes a person feel pretty small!

My first view of the Grand Canyon brought tears to my eyes. It is truely grand!

Mesa Verde has the cliff dweller houses. It is unbelievable how the indians literally lived in the cliffs and hiked up and out to farm or hunt.

The next few pictures are at Natural Bridges National Park. I did all the hiking at Natural Bridges because they were down, down in the canyon. I practically ran all the way down and marched back up, all at 8,000 feet. That's why Mom opted out and just waited for me at the car!

In Arches National Park, we mostly drove. But when I saw this arch in the distance, I parked along side of the road and hiked up to it while Mom stayed in the car. It was so beautiful, but I saw a man climbing around inside the arch and I heard a lot of talking. I just couldn't figure out how they got up there. When we drove down the road about a mile, there was a view point and trail leading to the arch on the front side! Oh well, I sure got some beautiful pictures from the back side.

We were told the best spot to be for a sun rise picture of this arch, so we arose at 5:30. It was almost an hour drive to the arch and a little hike to get to it. Well, the person who told us was still on California time so we were there still pitch black and had to wait an hour for the sun to come up. By then there were several expert photographers with all their high powered equipment set up right in front of the arch. Really?!? Well, I still managed to get a few good shots with my little camera, but I'll never do that again.

While in Bryce, we visited a rock shop that had huge amounts of petrified wood for sale. Some of it was very large like I am standing next to here but you could get any size to very small. This one I am standing next to costs over $14,000! Just something you could put in your back yard as a conversation piece. I thought this stuff was so amazing!

This is Bryce and it was spectacular to see it in person. The view inspires so much reverence and awe!

Lastly, we were in the Dixie National Forest at just the right time of year to see the Aspen trees changing colors. What a sight and just as beautiful as the actual canyons we were there to see.

This was certainly an experience I will never forget, and to think it was right in my backyard. We saw so many visitors from Europe, Asia and the Middle East. I live right here and it took me until now to see these wonders of the world.

WRIGHT'S REUNION

We looked forward to the reunion for the last year and paid off big! All the kids made the huge effort to gather in Solvang, California (just north of Santa Barbara). There were 15 of us, including the two brand new granddaughters and my mom, Beverly. David and Lesley were in charge and it was a great success! We enjoyed the WorldMark facilities there with lots of food all week, including a Chopped cookoff one evening. There was swimming, playing games, shopping, playing at the beach, picnic at the park and lots of visiting.

DAY IN MONTEREY

We celebrated Mark's birthday enjoying the day in Monterey. We couldn't ask for better weather as the sun was shining and it was a warm spring day. The flowers were beautiful as we walked around Cannery Row. It's been a few years since I've been there and I didn't remember all the cool boutiques, ice-cream, candy and chocolate shops, jewelry and tourist nick-nacks, some very high end and the usual kiddy stuff.








We stopped by the grocery store and picked up all the usual picnic fixin's and drove along the coast to a nice place where we ate and walked around the tide pools. Then we rented kayaks and paddled around the Monterey Bay for about an hour until it got to windy. I have wnated to kayak in Monterey Bay for several years now when Jon and I would go down for the annual P.I.E. show. It was fun with Mark and Kaylinn.

In some places the kelp was so thick we almost couldn't row through it. The paddles would get all tangled up. Now I wish I had taken a picture of me holding that incredible stuff, so long and rubbery. We saw about a dozen sea otters gathered in the thickest bunch of kelp. Actually they were just laying on the kelp.

FUN DAY!