Summer Vacation 2011

This year Scott and got away from the Memphis heat and spent about 10 days with family in Coeur d'Alene, ID. We met my family at my grandparents house and enjoyed a week of boating, goofing around, shopping and great company. Besides the concussion that Jared got one day at the lake, there were no injuries :)

The boys did lost of golfing, and we spend lots of time laying out and playing on the boat. One day we spent just a day with the Biggs' family and went into Spokane. We ate lunch at this old diner "Wolfy's" and then did some shopping. Shelbie came downtown later in the afternoon and took some family pictures for us. It has been years (summer before my grade 12 year) since we had family photos taken, so it was nice to get some updated ones. As soon as I get them from Shelbie I'll post them. I know there were some great ones! We ended our family day at PF Changs. It was DELICIOUS! We polished off 2 apps, 7 entrees and rice....and they had to roll us out of there. It was so worth it though!

One day was also designated as our Silverwood day. I LOVE amusement parks, and this is a good one. We got there before it opened so we could be the first in line. It was important because there is a water park as well as a roller coaster park and we wanted to get good lounge chairs in the water park portion. Dad cut in line and we ran like fools and got great lounge chairs for all 15 of us right in front of the wave pool! We looked (and felt) ridiculous, but having lounge chairs to come back to when the place is packed makes the running worth it! (Not to mention lots of other people ran too...)

The boys and I spent all morning riding the roller coasters. We even got Sam on all of the same rides that we did! We were so proud of him! We ate lunch and then spent the afternoon at the water park on all the water slides, tube slides and in the wave pool. We vowed to stay there until it closed, so after Kathy, Kris, Kylie, Kira, Shelbie and Gma/Gpa left the rest of us (mum, dad, Scott, Jordan, Jared, Spencer, Sam, me) went back to our favorite rides of the day and did them again. We got mum on all the coasters....even the worst of them all (aka, the best!). She was a trooper and we even bought the photo they take of you because all of our faces were hilarious!

It was such a fun trip, but as always, way too short. We can't wait to get home for Christmas!

Jared fell asleep in Grandpa's chair with sparky.  We all laughed because he looked like an old man!

Sam and Kira on the tube.

The family all relaxing on the beach.

Dad getting ready for a boat ride.

Rewind: Thanksgiving 2010 Part II

Since mum and dad were here over Thanksgiving we had to take the chance to eat Turkey. We joined the Wingert's, Moore's and Brooksby's for a Thanksgiving gathering at Jerome and Jewly's. We ate fried turkey (a first) and lots of other yummy thanksgiving desserts. 

Sorry, no picture. I felt I should at least document the holiday for prosperity. 

Rewind: Thanksgiving 2010

For (USA) Thanksgiving this year mum and dad flew down for about 10 days. We spend majority of the time shopping (I think I went to every safe mall in the Memphis area), ate out at awesome restaurants (we all know I love a good meal out) and mum even convinced me to put up my Christmas trees.

I wasn't going to do put them up because I didn't have/afford the decorations I wanted, and didn't have the time to make the ones I thought would be good for just this year. Mum had to keep reminding me that whatever decorations we used this year did not have to be my "forever decorations", so finally off to Walmart we went and about $100 later we had my trees decorated.

Before they left they did all of our Christmas shopping so that we would have full trees leading up to Christmas and a full morning on Christmas. I never thought I'd see so many presents under our trees!!

Don't mind the blurry photo. All the photos I had with the lights on were not exactly clear....

Here we have all the presents!

Can I just say that putting up Christmas trees is such a pain! Fluffing all the branches, stringing all the lights. I'm too much of a perfectionist do handle that. If it wasn't for mum we wouldn't have had them this year :)

.

I even got really ambitious and did my mantle.

Thanks for coming out guys! We always love it when you're here.

Big Mountain

While in Whitefish, grandma, grandpa and I decided to take an afternoon and hike down Big Mountain...which I think is now called Whitefish Mountain (maybe...I don't really know). Here are some shots from the hike. There will be more pictures coming that Grandpa took...many a moment grandma and I would stop and look behind us and wonder where the heck grandpa was. It wouldn't take long to realize he was waaay behind taking pictures!! They turned out great though. For now you will have to settle with my photographs.

The trail we took and the story on how Danny died/why it was named after him. Don't ask me- I don't remember! Also a little info about the bears. We didn't see any though.

The trail close up, in case you wanted to see it in detail...It's the thick dotted line that starts at the top and wraps to the right and down the mountain. It took about 2 or so hours. Next time we are there I would love to hike up as well!

We rode the chair up the mountain. It got colder and colder the farther we went, and it was FREEZING at the top!! (at about 2pm). This is looking from our chair behind us, down onto the other mountains, ski resort and Whitefish Lake.

A view looking out over the mountain/trail...

One of the several waterfalls we saw coming down the mountain.

Grandpa taking pictures...

Looking down the mountain as we got closer to finishing the trail. You can see the ski resort/roads leading up to and around it.

There are some great pictures of Gma/Gpa and I , but you will have to wait until I put Gpa's pictures up!

June 26, 1965...

...Was the year my sweet mum was born! She had her birthday yesterday, complete with an ever-popular trip to the Farmer's Market and what I'm sure was a super yummy dinner at Ric's Grill.

She hates having her picture taken, so I only have wedding pictures. Isn't she beautiful?

Happy Birthday Mum!