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Layne & Maureen
We got our "trip of a lifetime" in September 2006, spending nearly 3 weeks in Germany and England. We visited Heidelberg, Schwenzingen, and Karlsruhe, Germany; Strassbourg, France; Bern, Switzerland; and 10 days in England; visiting lots of "old" friends from our time living there over 20 years ago. We took well over 800 pictures during this trip. You can see a few of our favotires here.
We spent our 30th Wedding Anniversary at Death Valley in March 2003. This was our first trip there and we found it very fascinating. There are a few pictures on our Death Valley Page. We spent our 35th Anniversary in 2008 in Paris - the one in Idaho ! (See photo below.) We started Geocaching (www.geocaching.com) in 2007. This became a near obsession in 2008, going from 27 caches in 2007, to 870 by the end of 2008. We have taken several Saturday outings and some short and long weekend trips. We have taken Russell and Sherrie and Mark, and all of the grandkids. We have fun with them all. Check out our progress and photos of a few of the places we've visited on our Geocaching page. We got our 1000th cache on 14 March 2009 west of Ephraim, Utah; and #1700 on our long Labor Day trip.
We took another "once-in-a lifetime" trip in August/September 2009. We had wanted to drive to Texas ever since Jenner had moved there. When they announced the BYU/OU football game at the new Dallas Stadium, we decided to take the time and make the drive down for it, and to visit Jenner and his family. We extended our trip, and ended up driving just over 5500 miles, 17 days, and 15 states. We included Mt. Rushmore, up to North Dakota, Winter Quarters, Liberty Jail, Tulsa, and Oklahoma City. We went through Wichita Falls (where Russell) was born on our way to Dallas. The game was great! BYU beat OU 14-13, quite unexpected, but there was a quiet OU crowd that left the stadium that night! We took a long way home through San Antonio, Del Rio, Alamogordo, Arizona, and Las Vegas. We visited every stateside Air Force Base we'd been stationed at (Wichita Falls, Del Rio, Alamogordo, and Las Vegas). We saw all the houses we'd lived in. So much had changed in many places!! We visited family in Missouri, Dallas, Del Rio, El Paso, Tonopah AZ, and Prescott Valley AZ. We got 223 caches, saw great historical sites and little back roads. (See pictures from this trip here.)
After spending 20 years in the Air Force, working on airplanes, living in Texas, England, New Mexico, England, and then Las Vegas, Layne retired and worked eight years in the office of an ear, nose and throat and allergy doctor, doing most everything in the office. This picture was taken in December 2002 on the Las Vegas temple grounds. He is now working at the LDS Church Printing Press running the book trimmer, and has also cross trained on some of the other machines. In 2004 he got the thrill of his lifetime, a 30-minute ride in a B-17. This has always been his favorite airplane. He said it was the most exciting thing he'd ever done. He even poked his head out the top of the plane - while it was flying ! ! He has gone on some "Civil War" campouts. He has made some canvas bags (hand sewn) and has collected quite a complete "kit." He dresses as a civilian, does his Dutch oven cooking, and helps shoot off cannons. This has been fun for him. He has a black powder musket (Civil War era replica). He volunteered at the Pioneer Village at the This is the Place Park the last 2 summers working in the Deseret News office. In October 2008 he got to spend a week in Switzerland being trained on new equipment for the Church's press. It was a great trip for him.Maureen worked in the office at the Las Vegas Nevada Temple 14 years and 1 day. She still misses the interaction with the employees and ordinance workers even after being gone 5 years now. She is working for HCA Hospitals (consolidating her job at St. Mark's Hospital) in Salt Lake City doing medical transcription. She is able to work at home doing this. She is also still an Accredited Genealogist(R) in English research, though has been doing less research recently. Much of her genealogy work is on her genealogy pages. She cracked a proverbial "brick wall" on her Hatch genealogy a couple of years ago which was an exciting project. On their trip to England she stayed 6 days on her own and spent 4 of them in the record offices in Chelmsford and Northampton, finding bits and pieces, but enjoying her time researching. She got to go to Newfoundland in February 2008, where she has done lots of research for a friend. See photos. Most recently she and Layne have enjoyed geocaching together - great outings and lots of time spent together and with their sons and grandkids.
1 March 2008, Paris, Idaho, our 35th Anniversary
28 February 2003, Death Valley (1 March our 30th Anniversary)
