The Jolley's in Upstate New York

 We had the best P-Day this past week.  Once in a transfer we get to have a P-Day with our entire District. We decided to go bowling and then get ice cream. We have two sets of Sisters and two sets of Elders and another Senior couple so there were 12 of us.  The bowling alley was pretty high tech and it was galactic bowling.  The pins are attached to cables so when you would knock them down they looked like little ghosts flying through the air up into the frame where they would be reset.  It was pretty cool to watch.  I've never seen that before.  The most fun of all is watching these amazing Elders and Sisters just be teenagers.  There was music playing that they don't get to normally listen to so they were enjoying it.  The were dancing to "All the Single Ladies" and others.  They were moon walking and being goofy as they threw the ball down the lane.  Afterwards we headed to Sweet Frog for a frozen yogurt/ice cream, build your ow...

Our week started in one of the best ways ever.  The Sisters, here in Rome, asked if they could hang out with us for P Day.  We jumped at the chance to be with them. Up the road a bit is the old Griffis Air Force Base which is now an industrial park.  It's actually where the nice hotels in Rome are and there are businesses, a high school, and a sculpture park that you can walk through.  We didn't actually walk the entire park but we had some nice things to see.  They were mostly artistic takes on Greek Mythology.  See if you can pick out which sculpture goes with which story. But the coolest thing about this little park is the Viet Nam Memorial that they have put together.  My brother-in-law served in Viet Nam when I was a young teenager and it must have really imprinted on me.  I hate war! And I especially hated that war After we wandered around and took pictures we decided we should grab some ice cream and then go to Fort Stanwix.  Check out...

 What is it about a sunflower?  It's bright yellow color?  It's sturdy stalk?  Because it turns it's face toward the sun? I love sunflowers and there are a lot of them around here.  As we were driving through the New York countryside this past week, we saw sunflowers!  Of course, I had to pull out my camera!  You would be disappointed without my photos, am I right?  So to start off, here are some sunflowers. We had started out the day to go find another waterfall.  This one looked so beautiful in the pictures we saw.  It is called Three Falls Woods so you can imagine how excited I was to have three new waterfalls to photograph. We hiked down a little trail but couldn't hear any water sounds at all.  There were Cicadas in the trees making lots of noise but no rushing water. Well, you guessed it.  It was all dried up.  I guess that little river/stream only flows in the spring and maybe the fall?  So I will have to go ba...

What?  10,000 miles?  Yup!  On Monday, Mike took the car in for tire rotation and oil change.  We have put 10,000 plus miles on our car since March 22nd.  Some of that was our trip across country but most of it has been in New York.  We are in our car a lot.  We travel almost every day.  It's a good thing that the countryside is so beautiful. Speaking of beautiful, I can't help taking pictures of flowers, and roadways, and houses-really just about everything.  There are a lot of black-eyed Susans all around.  I had to grab a picture because every time I see them I think of my sister Susan.  When she was born, the nurses in the hospital called her Black Eyed Susan because her eyes were black as coal.  Our mom and dad liked the name so much that they named her Susan.  My grandma Call called her black eyed Susan all the time. And, of course, who doesn't love hydrangeas.  We just love how beautiful New York is. Our week h...

 How long is 44 years?  And how fast does it pass?  We celebrated our anniversary on Monday-it was a fun day-but we really don't feel old enough to have been together 44 years!   We didn't do a lot-we figured that our trip to Alexandria Bay a few weeks ago was our early anniversary blow out so this day was more quiet.  We did head back to Pixley Falls to try my hand at capturing that blurry, milky water from waterfalls.  The secret is a long exposure but you can't hold your camera and get that.  So with a tripod and more importantly with a remote control for my camera (which I've had for two years and never used) we were ready for the day.  It had rained in the night so we knew the water would be great and I was praying for a bit of a cloud cover.  That is another secret to getting the waterfall pics-no hot spots from the bright sun. We hiked all over the place, finding all the little waterfalls in the shade because the big waterfall was pret...

You know that we like ice cream.  We have told you that the ice cream here in Central New York is pretty much some of the best we have ever tasted.  Everyone here likes ice cream. Monday was our last P Day that we would be able to see the missionaries in our District.  Wednesday morning would bring transfers.  We knew that we would be changing districts and that we might not see these young missionaries again. We had texted them and asked if we could treat them to ice cream to say goodbye.  Of course, they agreed!  Who could ever pass up ice cream? We headed to Norwich to have lunch and ice cream with our Sisters there.  One of the things we love so much about the Norwich Sisters is that they love us so much.  They call us just to check on us or to tell us about a miracle they experienced.  Sometimes just to talk.  We met them at a little place called Gilligan's Island. We had burgers and fries and ice cream.  We bought the ice crea...

Changes are always fun, right?  It's how we grow?   By Tuesday we were not contagious any longer.  We still felt run down and tired but we were ready to get back to work.   We headed to our District Council on Wednesday, this time in Whitesboro, at our Stake Center,  because President Gentry was doing interviews so, half the Zone met there as a central location.  Sister Gentry was with him because their kids are visiting family in California so she travels with him when they are gone.  It was fun having her sit in our District Council and hearing her input to our learning.  We love our Mission Leaders.  After the Sisters and Elders were done with interviews, President asked for us to come into the office and he dropped a little bomb.  This is the back story for all of it. When we were in the MTC, President Gentry called us and told us that we were being assigned to the Oneida Branch but there were things in the works to dissolve that lit...