MOVIN' ON UP, TO THE EAST SIDE

June gloom is how the locals describe the weather in June. Like gray May, it is a bit overcast in the mornings. But it is usually sunny by afternoon, yet never too hot. We are still waiting for Spring. And now its Summer. We like it.

Earlier this month we attended the taping of the Prairie Home Companion radio program held at the Greek Theatre in Griffith Park. It was very entertaining. Garrison Keillor and his cast are very talented and can be very funny.

Garrison Keillor at the Greek Theatre

The next week we took a road trip for our P-day. We drove through Ventura County (and bought a case of fresh strawberries), through Santa Barbara, and then to Solvang, a small town with a Danish flavor that caters to tourists. We walked around the town, had lunch in the a cafe, and did a bit of shopping. It felt good to be in a small town, where the pace is slower and parking is plentiful and free. We also visited an ostrich ranch in the nearby town of Goleta. We took the back roads, through the mountains, on the return trip to Santa Barbara. It was a beautiful and uncrowded drive. Then we stopped at the ocean-front town of Carpenteria for a walk on the beach.

Mary at the Summit Vista on our mountain drive

The ostrich ranch

Our big event for the month was our move, finally, from our cozy studio apartment on the second floor to our one bedroom apartment on the third floor. The kitchen seems larger because we don't have the table there. We have a large desk for our computer and a credenza for our files and a larger and nicer dining room table. We also have about three times the usable closet space. And a room just for the bed. What a novelty! We started moving on Thursday morning before our afternoon shift at the library and finished Friday, our P-day.

Our one bedroom apartment

We still like to take walks around the Temple grounds and around the neighborhood. There are many beautiful, well-landscaped homes, and some unusual trees. We've include a photo of one of them. The Jacaranda tree has violet blossoms that fall to the ground and cover the streets and sidewalks. They are all around the neighborhood and grow in the median on Santa Monica Boulevard.

A Jacaranda tree in our neighborhood

Last Friday we went with three other senior missionary couples to the LA Dodgers game against the St. Louis Cardinals. The Dodgers lost, 3-1, but it was a good game and fun to be in this historic stadium.

Our greeter. He is about seven feet tall

Now it is summer, at the library, we are receiving groups of young people for Youth Conferences.  Wards are bringing over high-priest groups now that President Monson and others have spoken out about family history in the Ensign.  And last Saturday, we had two large Primary groups touring the library with their parents and leaders.  Mary capitalized on their theme about families, temples and family history work. She had some power point slides to show family pictures and temples, inside and out.  Then she had the children fill out a family tree with the names of themselves, their parents, and grandparents along with the names of their siblings and the places they were born.  Then they looked up those places on  maps of the United States and the World from our extensive map collection.

Keep doing your family history.  As seen on a bumper sticker :  "Genealogy; it's how we raise our spirits"

 Love, Elder and Sister Evans