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.

Brent & Bethany Come to Memphis

Over Mother's Day weekend Brent and Bethany stopped by our place on their way to live in Virginia. We got to have them from Saturday-Tuesday! I worked Saturday, so the boys went biking and Bethany hung out at the house. (They didn't arrive until about 3:30am Saturday, so I'm pretty sure she enjoyed sleeping in a quiet house :)

Saturday night we enjoyed a meal at the Germantown Commissary and on Sunday we had a Mother's Day dinner with Jay, Courtney and Riley. Also on Sunday, we had Hale Family photos done by Jay. Cyndie wanted to get them done since we were all 4 together, and who knows when that might be again. It was a very good idea!

Check out Jay's website! He's done our family photos twice now and we've LOVED them both times!! Can't wait for our late summer shoot in the cotton fields...it's the only other picture I'll need to capture my most favorite things about "Southern Living".

On Monday Scott and I worked so Brent and Bethany hung out at the zoo and explored the flooding downtown Memphis. We finished of the night with our favorite pizza- Mellow Mushroom.

(For those that don't know, the Mississippi River crested at its highest level in 75 years. Thousands of people that lived downtown, along the river and in suburbs along the river were forced to evacuate while their homes were buried in water. We didn't suffer any damage in Collierville, but lots of other Memphians did.The river has crested in Memphis, but farther south (down to where the river empties into the Gulf, they are still waiting for it to drain/crest.)

Now that that has been noted for posterity, here are some of the pictures that Jay took. Cyndie, your disc is on it's way!!

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 :)

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I even got really ambitious and did my mantle.

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

My Daddy

Howard H. Biggs

On the Lake

At my wedding

Happy Father's Day, Dad! 

Hopefully the boys are spoiling you at home, I am dropping a package in the mail tomorrow (sorry it's late!) I have something super cool for you when we come to the condo...can't wait to see you in August!

I love you.