November 2008

Rick & I flew to Flagstaff on the afternoon of Nov. 25th and Ali flew in later that evening. We spent the night at the Grand Canyon Railway Hotel in Williams that night.

Early Wednesday morning we got up and took the train up to the Grand Canyon, which was about a 2 hour ride. There was a variety of entertainment on our rides! It was cold, overcast and a little drizzly; our tour guide said that we were lucky because a lot of people don't get to see the Grand Canyon like that. Wednesday evening we spent the night at the Maswik Lodge and on Thanksgiving morning we awoke to snow!!! We were on our own to explore the town and the views until the train left on Thursday afternoon.

Again We stayed in Williams and then headed home on Friday.....which was a bit of an adventure in itself, but adventures are always exciting :-) We looked around Flagstaff until our flight was scheduled to leave. In fact we got to the small Flagstaff airport a little early - so the three of us past the time playing a game. As it got close to the time of our departure, we realized that there might be a problem......our plane hadn't arrived and our flight had been canceled :-( So now,what to do was the question?????? Well, fortunately, our rental car was still available, so we rerented it and debated on whether to drive to Phoenix and possibly make a flight from there or drive home.....our decision was to go with a sure thing, which meant driving home. Since our flight had been scheduled to leave about 6:00 p.m., that meant that we arrived home around 2:00 a.m PST!!!! Then, of course we still had to get up and drive to LAX on Saturday to return the car and pick up our car at the airport!!!!

Molly & John's wedding

We  traveled to North Carolina for Molly & John's wedding.  On Friday when we arrived, it was raining.  The "pig pull" was outside at Kathy & Dave's home, so Kathy & Dave added a tent type covering, so that no one got wet!  Everyone had a great time.  

The day of the wedding was beautiful and clear and just a little cool.  Unfortunately we forgot our camera, so you'll have to check out Kathy's blog for those pics :-)   Molly & John are a wonderful couple.   Rick & I felt blessed to be able to be a part of this special day.  Since our flight didn't leave until Monday, we enjoyed hanging out with Kathy, Dave, & Joanna after the wedding too.

Prescott, AZ

On Friday October 19th, two friends from work, Lori & Nahid (Jolah) took a "ROAD TRIP". We drove to Prescott, AZ to visit our good friend, Janet, who retired a year ago. The drive is about 7 hours one way. Above is a place we stopped for lunch - this was about the entire town; we ate in the cafe and some men were cleaning their guns in the adjacent bar - how fast can we eat???!?!?!?!?

Janet's husband, Tom, was so kind to give us the gift of a girls weekend - so he left to enjoy a weekend in Laughlin. Janet showed us around the town of Prescott - an old western town. The first afternoon we spent walking up Whiskey Row (know for having about 47 bars on the street at one time). We shopped a little and had a drink at The Palace; it had some wonderful old pictures and artifacts and apparently, Wyatt Earp used to hang out at this bar!!!!!

Friday evening, Nahid cooked us an authenic Persion dinner - YUM! And we talked until midnight (way past my bedtime).
On Saturday, Lori & Nahid took a hike, while Janet & I worked on some card making items. Then we headed back into town and shopped a little and had lunch. The time flew by and Sunday morning came all too soon, so we headed home :-( Next trip to AZ???????

I count my friends as special blessings.

Glacier, Seattle, & Tahoe

On July 19th Rick & I had Starbucks in Oceanside, lunch at Seatac and dinner in Glacier National Park - crazy, huh? We flew in to Kalispell, Mt. and rented a car and drove up to meet Rick's sister, Kathy, and Dave in Mini Glacier. When I was young I had camped at Glacier and Rick had never been there before, so two days really wasn't long enough, but it had been a few years since we'd seen Kathy & Dave so it was really special. Kathy & Dave were our private tour guides to the park....so we saw some pretty amazing sites. During the evenings we introduced Kathy & Dave to one of our favorite board games, "Ticket to Ride" and I think we got them hooked too!!!!

We saw a mountain goat and her baby at the side of the road and a moose in the lake.

We flew from Kalispell to Seattle on July 28th and spent the night with Becky & Sean and the boys.....another quick visit.....but we love every visit - no matter how short :-)

Ethan is soooo cute in his hat!!! I have some fun reading books on the computer with Micah & Ethan while Lucas is at school.

Finally for our originally planned trip.....Lake Tahoe

We spent two days in Tahoe at a timeshare visit we'd earned while in Kauai last year. This one is in South Lake Tahoe. One of the things we decided to do while there was to take a lunch cruise on the lake. It was beautiful!! The ride lasted about 2 hours. The boat was smaller boat, which meant there weren't a lot of people on the cruise, so we got to know some of the other passengers, which was really nice.

The larger paddle boat would have been fun but not as intimite.

The flight loads were pretty full....so we decided to drive home rather than fly. Neither or us had ever been down 395, so that just added to our adventure!!

May 2008

We flew up to Seattle to watch Lucas play t-ball on his special needs team....it was a lot of fun to watch! It just happened to be Mother's Day weekend that worked for us to fly up. It was wonderful to spend Mother's Day with Becky & Ali - I wish Kelly could have been there too. The weather was a drizzly and cold, but the game was still on.

We also got to spend some time at the Children's Discovery Museum again! This time we were able to go up onto the roof. There was a dinosaur "dig", music to make, and some cool play equipment too!!

December 2007

Christmas in Washington

Corban Micah

We visited the Space Needle and Santa was there too!

Lucas Ethan

"What did Santa bring?" We even had a white Christmas!

We flew up to Washington on the 23rd and Kelly & Jeremy, Corban, and Dominic flew up on the 24th. It was a very special treat it is for us to be together. Becky & Sean hosted Christmas for us all - everything was wonderful.

• we visited the Space Needle and Pike's Market
• attended their Christmas Eve service
• celebrated Christmas together
• played at the park and in the snow
• explored a Children's Discovery Museum
• and ate lots of yummy food!!