Cross Country Trip

I've always wanted to do a cross country trip and the moment has finally arrived! Of course, it would be fun to do this on my motorcycle, but we'll have to save that for a future time.

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As you can see, we'll be stopping at a few places along the way to visit family and friends. We'll head through Tifton to visit the Grandparents and the rest of the extended family for a day, then head up to Athens to visit Dave and Eileen. After spending the night with them, it's on to Nashville (so Lindsea can indulge her Country insanity) and Louisville to see my friend Christa and her husband. We'll hang out with them for an hour or so then head to the Volle Clan homestead for a couple days. We'll enjoy some fun times hanging out there and then head West! We may stop in Independence and Liberty to see some Church history sites but will be hitting the road hard until we hit Casper Wyoming to spend some time with my Aunt Carol and Uncle Joe. After Casper its on to Rexburg to see my brother Michael at BYU-Idaho. Finally, the last push up to Manson.
Long trip!
The reason for this super long trip is that our time here in Orlando and Disney has come to an end. After 2 years in leadership at Disney, I've decided to quit playing the waiting game to get statused as a full time leader. While I don't feel I've wasted my time here at Disney by any means, I also feel that to continue to stay and wait would be a waste of my time. I've learned a lot, gained a lot of experience, and leave with a set of skills gained and honed at one of the best companies in the world to work for. I've worked at 4 hotels, at 2,3 and 4 Diamond levels with housekeeping and duty manager experience. And, honestly, it was getting really annoying to see people with less experience and skill than me get statused. I don't say that in a bitter way, because each of them brought something to the table and the teams they joined, it's just annoying to be told there was a job out there for me and never having that realized. Additionally, I got tired of living my life posted schedule to posted schedule. It's not very easy to plan for the future of having kids in such a life.
Lindsea has only been here for me and has always desired to return to her roots in Washington. Recognizing that desire, but also recognizing that our Heavenly Father's plan for us doesn't always go where we'd like, we decided to take our plans for the future to the Lord in the temple. We discussed what we'd like to happen, what our plans were for if the answer was to stay in Orlando, or to move. In the end, we left it up to the Lord to let us know what He wanted, in His way. So when I got the call from my leader that he had tried but was unable to extend my temporary role, that was our answer. And from that point on, we've seen Heavenly Father working to make the move happen. We were able to get out of our lease almost 2 months early and without paying to break the contract, just for the time we actually stay in the apartment. We've been able to plan for the trip, and thanks to the help of Lindsea's parents, get our things shipped out to WA. Finally, we've been given hope that one of our plans, a dream of ours, may actually happen. IF and when that happens, I imagine there will be another blog about it :). But for now, I'll just say
that IF it happens, we'll be able to take care of our family as it grows and satisfy a lot of hopes, fears, and dreams.
So the next couple weeks will be a fun time for the Volle's as we move forward into the future and colder weather...


Yeah for cold weather!!!!!!!!!

Date Day

So today Lindsea rolled out of bed at the unholy hour of 9:30 and headed straight to her morning ablutions. She brushed and combed, primped and pampered, curled and sprayed for nearly an hour. Then, about half way through her preparations, she came in and woke me up and the slightly less unholy hour of 11:30 to get ready for the day. 5 minutes later I was sitting on the loveseat, dressed and ready to go, with my morning can of Dew in my hand. I waited. and I waited. Then, after waiting, I waited some more. Finally, after waiting, I decided to kill some aliens on the TV for awhile (aka play Halo: Reach). At the precise moment I started the game, Lindsea announced her readiness for leaving. Ain't that always the way?....

The reason for all this effort was so that Lindsea and I could spend a date day together. Actually, the real reason was so Linds could get all dandied up and show off in public. Being the obliging husband that I am, I acquiesced to her "request" .

We decided to make use of our Annual Passes for Universal Theme Parks and go check out some rides. After we stopped by the 7-11 for some Dew of course. We parked in Timbuktu, walked about 4 miles and then another 2 miles walking on the moving sidewalks. We decided to go to the main Universal park, aka "the one without Harry Potter World in it", to start the day. We rode Jaws. Our fella driving the boat was very enthusiastic. The best part was when he kept having to tell the Latin folks to put their cameras up or the boat wasn't going to go anywhere ha ha.

After Jaws, I attempted to win Lindsea some items from the Claw booth. You know, the one where you use a claw to grab a prize and drop it in the box. Fans of Toy Story know what I'm talking about. The first one I tried was one with large plush Angry Birds in it. I got one in the claw and made it half way up to the box before the claw's strength gave out. I tried again with one containing Xbox 360's with the same result. I get that they are a waste of money, but hey, at least give me a fighting chance to win something!

This is a picture of me to illustrate the story just told:

After that we grabbed a passing turkey, grabbed a leg off of it, smoked the leg, and ate it.
Here is a picture of Lindsea asking for napkins to help us clean the delicious juices off of our fingers:
Lindsea was so happy that she hugged a pole:
Then we hung out in Hogsmeade for a bit:
Engaged in some PDA in front of some ride:


Then we trekked back about 15 miles to the car to head home. On the way out, we saw Marty Mcfly. He wouldn't let us take his picture, but we got one of his car anyways:
On the way home Lindsea amused herself by taking pictures of herself. She's beautiful :D