Mitchell Upper Midwest Trip

Cindy and I have set out from Minneapolis to points west in order to fulfill our "bucket lists" of traveling to all the 50 states. We started out the journey visiting with Marv and Linda Vikla in Minneapolis. They are our friends from our Air Force days. Marv and I were pilot training classmates. Also, Marv and Linda are Ryan's godparents. Our first tourist stop was in Sauk Center, MN. This is the boyhood home of Sinclair Lewis. He was the first American author to win the Nobel prize for literature. His "big five" books written during the 1920s were my favorite novels from literature classes in school. So, I had to get a picture posing with his bust at the museum in Sauk Center. Heading west, we entered North Dakota. Man is it flat and windy here! We stopped in the town of Valley City to check out a quilt shop. This shop is probably the nicest one I've accompanied Cindy to in our travels. Really friendly people here in NoDak! Everyone we have talked to have been down home and couldn't be nicer. We kept heading west on I-94 to the town of Jamestown. They have a bison herd here with a couple of albinos. After taking this picture of Cindy, we headed north to spend the night in Carrington. Tomorrow we'll check out Minot AFB (a place I avoided getting assigned to during my Air Force career). Thought I would check out what I avoided. Hope to make it well into Montana before we bed down tomorrow night. Lots of rain in the forecast so I hope we can keep on our schedule.

From Raleigh to Townville

I am procrastinating. I should be packing the house up but I love to check this blog and thought that a wonderful way to continue not getting things done would be to try and add to the blog. Kitson and I loaded up the dog and the kids and drove to Raleigh to introduce Zoe Cate to her Aunt Kelly Kay last week. Kel was letting us stay at her house and play with Lila Belle while she took a well deserved break. We did some job searching and house/area searching while we were there and have decided that North Carolina is where we belong. There is a picture of Darcy and Lila Belle at Kelly's house and a picture of Cole at the Farmers Market less than two miles from Kelly's house that is already selling pumpkins.

When we left North Carolina we were able to spend a few days with Mom, Dad, and Ky. Mom and Kyle showed us around The Biltmore house. It was more awe inspiring than I remember. We were able to relax in the mountains with a late lunch at the Cliffs and then back to the lake. Cole introduced both his great-grandfathers to Zoe Cate. Pappy didn't disappoint; he was his baby whisperer self. The newest Lewis was lovingly welcomed. It was a wonderful trip. I didn't think taking a one month old on a 12 hour road trip would be this easy. Can't wait for our next trip to the wonderland.

Have a great week.
Love to all,
Kristin

May I present...Amber Mitchell, C.P.A

Hello Everyone -

Our big news of the past few weeks has been Amber's official licensure as a Certified Public Accountant in the State of California. This process has involved 4 seperate exams that had to be passed (an almost year-long endeaver), an ethics exam, official state forms, applications, thumbprints, 2 yrs. of public accounting experience, a background check, letters of recommendation and of course, since we live in California, there were numerous fees that had to be paid to the state.

With all that behind us, we were ready to celebrate. The first picture shows us at our favorite Sushi Restaurant near the University of the Pacific. It was Friday night and the mood was right.

On Saturday morning (after a brisk run before 6 a.m. - the only time you can run when the weather's forecasted to be 101 degrees in the Central Valley!) we departed for Mendocino, California. It's a quaint town about 150 miles north of San Francisco on the coast. "Murder She Wrote" was filmed in Mendocino - probably it's biggest claim to fame.

To get there, we drove through a Redwood forest which you can see on our second picture. These trees are truly unbelievable...and definitely confuse one's sense of proportion. For a second, I wondered if Rick Moranis was involved, but I reconsidered, and we continued on our weekend of fun.

After having lunch and an afternoon of window shopping in Mendocino (the town's view of the water is picture 3), we continued to our cabin near Manchester State Park. Our campsight was walking distance from the coast, about 30 miles south of Mendocino (pic 4). Because the ocean currents run north-to-south along the west coast, we were able to enjoy temps. that were 40 degrees cooler than back home. We took the shoes off and enjoyed a nice walk along the water.

Sunday we packed up and headed back home in time to see the Bengal victory against the Steelers - capping off one of the better weekends in quite some time. Except for the fact that Amber happens to be a Steelers fan.

With Love,

Ryan and Amber

Winnipeg Trip

Hey everyone. This week finds me flying between Chicago (actually Rockford IL) through Minneapolis to Winnipeg, Canada. From the news it looks like most of the family has been inundated with rain. I've been blessed with mostly fair skies. I've included some photos from this trip. One has me sitting in the 757 cockpit as we await being loaded in Minneapolis. It was taken at about 5:00 AM. The other photos are of the hotel I'm staying in in Winnipeg, the Manitoba provincial capital building and a statue honoring the fact that many of the British Commonwealth pilots in WWII trained up/out here. As you can see, a very sunny, nice day. Hard to believe that in a few short weeks it will be bitterly cold up here. I should be home tomorrow. Hopefully the USC Gamecocks will be victorious tonight. Love to all.

Den

Cindy and I made a quickie trip down to see the Pappy and the Boerners (Tom, Deb and Kyle). Kindof a spur of the moment decision. We keep wanting to see Pappy as much as we can since his being 94 you never know when the Lord may call him away from us. We also got to go over the plans for the Mitchell retirement digs with our builder, Boerner Construction. Cindy is getting excited and we're now hoping to move in by Thanksgiving 2010. Retirement hopefully to follow by October 31st 2011. I took some pictures of Pappy. Hopefully, I have figured out how to attach one to this post. I was happy to get a picture where he's smiling. Hope everyone's having a good fall so far, although I think everyone of our teams lost last weekend.

Love to all,

Den

We have eggs!

For those of you that have visited in the last couple of months know that I am back in the poultry business. We have a small flock of 13 pullets. Tom and I have been anticipating eggs for the last couple of weeks and to my surprise last Saturday we found one small brown egg. Hopefully the other 12 pullets will catch on and start producing! When that day comes I'll have plenty of eggs to share with all of you. Next time you visit just bring your old egg cartons and we'll fill them up!

Hugs to each of you!
A.D.

Update

Hello Everyone-Last week I told you of my trip to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville. We were very enthusiastic after our talk with the Dr in the ER(the use of steroids) for my failing kidneys. The nephrologist that I met with on Monday told us that would quickly turn me into a diabetic and wasn't an option. My best alternative was to go straight to a transplant. They hope to keep me off dialysis (unless necessary) because it is very hard on your body. I have many Dr appointments and lab work to be done in the coming weeks. I go back to Mayo on the 18 Sept and see a transplant surgeon in Tampa on the 30th. Needless to say this is a journey I wish I wasn't taking, but they all seem very hopeful and I'm trying to be that way as well. Love to all T