Life in 'R' Empty Nest

Weekend in Yellowstone

2011-09-19T08:18:00.000-07:00

Got to go to Yellowstone National Park with three of our grandchildren

last weekend. It was a blast. I have to say that all of our grandchildren

are so well behaved. We have gotten the opportunity to take

them places without their parents and they are always so well behaved.

I want their parents to know how proud we are of how they are raising

our grandchildren.

Now on with our trip. Carson spotted the first mammal, he said he saw a moose

swimming across the river, but it is an unconfirmed siting. No one

else saw it. The second siting was this bison, Paige saw it first.

I was a little cold on Saturday, but these 3

were real troupers. Paige was a little afraid of this geyser. I

assured her that she would be fine.

This is the first time I remember seeing any deer in the park, but I

am old and could have forgotten. We saw two.

This is the lower Yellowstone River Falls. This canyon is call the

Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. You can see why someone

named the park Yellowstone.

There are 328 stairs down to the overlook of the falls. Yes,

that means there is 328 stairs to go back up and yes the kids are

better shape than the Grandparents.

This is three Smurfs at Old Faithful. It was kind of a dud because it

was so cold when Old Faithful went off, all you could see was steam and then

no geyser insite and then it started to rain. So we pulled out these ponchos

for the kids and Morgan said "We look like Smurfs".

After a trip to the gift shop and ice cream, the sun came out

again and we were able to see Geyser Basin.

Grandpa likes this picture. He thinks it should be a screensaver!

To finish this post I have added a video of the waterfalls.

Hill Girls

2011-09-13T21:28:00.001-07:00

I was missing my Hill girls so I went to visit them last weekend.

I was so fun to see them.

This is our youngest granddaughter, Emmie. She is

growing so fast. She is quite the flirt.

I think I have the neatest Grandchildren. I am so glad they

like when I visit. We get to go see three other grandchildren

next month. We are so excited.

These girls are true girls playing Barbie. I got to play earlier in the day.

This is a video of our Emmie.

First Hike of the Year

2011-08-07T21:36:00.001-07:00

We left home at 5:30am to drive to the start of the hike. On our drive up, the last stretch of road is dirt. While we were on the dirt stretch, we came upon a moose in the road. The moose started running down the road, he was running at 25 mph and then slowed to 20 mph. He ran up the road for a good 1/2 a mile before he decided to leave the road. It was so awesome to watch. I am sorry I didn't think to have my camera out to take a picture. Anyway, on with the hike.

This is the start of the hike. It was a beautiful day. The sun shining, no clouds and clear air.

There was beautiful wildflowers everywhere.

Rich had the camera, so he is not in any shots. But here I am with the Foster's, our hiking friends.

Beautiful wildflowers and pine trees in the background.

My friend Dee Ann and I having a rest.

More wildflowers.

Her we are about halfway up our hike, taking a rest.

Wild columbine. It was just beautiful.

The first of four lakes the make up the Green Lakes. We only had time to see two.

Dee Ann and I crossing the creek to get to the second lake.

This is a picture of the outlet of the first lake.

Another picture of the first lake.

The second lake we went too.

Upper Green Lake, with glacier in the back ground and a waterfall

Had a wonderful day.

A Weekend Away

2011-07-26T17:38:00.000-07:00

We decided to go away last weekend, but didn't know where to go. Our son-in-law Aaron suggest this area east of Grand Teton National Park. We had never been there and the snow level is pretty low to go on some of our usually hikes, so we decided to check this area out. It is called The Togwotee Trail to Yellowstone. The pass is at 9600ft. The top of the pass opens up and there are these beautiful green fields. As we were driving on the pass to our motel at Lava Mountain, we saw this Grizzly Bear right off the road about 50 ft. We stopped the car and open the sunroof. I got my camera and started taking pictures. This bear just was walking and then it got to a stream and it starting running up the stream, just like my grandsons would do playing. Then we got out our spotting scope to watch him better. He just kind of ran thru the bushes and out to a meadowy place on the hill and started eating the vegetation. With the scope we could see mosquotes all over him. He even rolled on the ground to try and rub them off. It was like watching a little puppy play.

This is the bear running up the creek.

This the bear in the meadow

The next morning we drove to Brooks Lake at the top of the pass. It is so beautiful. I would camp there, but only in a camper.

After Brooks Lake, we went back to where we saw the bear the night before, to see if he was still there. We were looking with our binoculars, when we spotted a bear. We assumed it was the bear we saw the night before. So, we got the spotting scope out to see and what did we see. two bear cubs with their Mama. They were to far away to get a picture, so we just watch them for a while with the scope.

We then decided to take a drive on a dirt road. That is when we can upon this group of Elk. It was so neat to see them out in the field.

We then found these two rocks on the dirt road. We are pretty sure the marks were made by a grizzly bear looking for food.

We then took this picture of our favorite mountains, The Tetons. We are hoping that enough snow melts so we can do some hiking.

We had to go away for the weekend because it was way to quiet at our house. We had the whole family together, except Brian and Leilani, but we got see them at our family reunion in Nevada. It was awesome. So glad we could see all our children and grandchildren in a 3 week time period.

New Zealand

2011-04-21T11:02:00.000-07:00

I have decided that if I am going to get back into blogging, I need to not worry about catching up, I need to start from this year. So here I go!

This year in Febuary we had the opporunity to take a vacation

and go to New Zealand. We have been there before and we just loved it,

so we decided we would go back.

After 30 sum odd hrs of travel and layovers we arrived in Christchurch,

yes that is the same place were the earthquake took place.

Luckily for us it was 8 days after we got to New Zealand.

We rented a car and drove to Arthur's Pass, a little city in the

mountains west of Christchurch.

Arthur's Pass

We spent 4 days here and did some hiking. For you that don't know,

Richard loves to hike.

This hike was a little like mountian climbing.

We then headed to the west coast and visited the Tasman Sea

and Fox Glacier. It is amazing to see these huge glaciers only

miles from the ocean.

Fox Glacier

Dude stopping us from going on the glacier

Pancake Rock/ Tasman Sea

Pancake Rocks/ Tasman Sea

We then travel back east and south to the town of Te Anau. We spent a

almost a week here and did some hiking and site seeing.

Blue Pools

Hobbit House

The Lord of the Rings was filmed in New Zealand

There is a neat cruise that takes all day, but takes you to Doubtful Sound.

You can only get there by boat or major hiking(witch would take days).

It has beautiful waterfalls and wonderful mountains.

Doubtful Sound Waterfall

Doubtful Sound Cruise

Then we did a grand adventure and went on a 40 mile, 4 day, backpacking

trip. I have only been backpacking once, but thought I should try it.

The New Zealand people are very serious about their nature.

Kepler Track

Te Anau Lake from Mt. Luxmore

Day 3

Day 3/ Iris Burn Hut

It was different kind of backpacking because we stayed in huts,

with beds, flush toilets, and kitchen.

I had a good time on the backpacking trip and will hopefully come

again and do a different trip.

We are already talking about what we want to do the next time

we go to New Zealand. The people are so nice and they speak

english.

We stopped in Maui on the way home and saw this beautiful sunset

the night before we left.

Emery Sage Hill

2011-04-05T15:14:00.001-07:00

Our newest Granddaughter, Emery.

Cooper Talking

2010-04-24T19:20:00.000-07:00

I can home the other day, and this is what I saw.

It was so cute I had to blog it.

Hope this works! I could get it to open.

Newest Grandchild

2009-12-15T14:30:00.000-08:00

Congratulations Brenda and Aaron!

This is our new grandson.

He was born today and weighted 8 lbs. 8 oz.

and is 20" long.

We are very excited to have our 10th grandchild.

The boys are catching up, we now have 3 grandsons to

our 7 granddaughters.

Trip to Paris

2009-09-29T09:35:00.000-07:00

I have always wanted to go to France, because I was born there. My Dad was

in the Air Force, but my family moved back to the states

when I was two years old.

The first part of September I got my wish and we were able to take a trip

to France. Dick had a conference to attend in Paris and I got the

opportunity to tag along.

We arrived at our hotel around 2:00pm and decided to take a short

nap, that lasted 4 hours. I guess we were more tired than we thought. We then

decided to try the Metro and see Paris.

We got off the Metro and walk two blocks and this is the sight we saw.

It was awesome. I can't believe now that we actually went to Paris. We

walked around awhile and then had dinner at an out door cafe.

After dinner it was dark, so we walked back to the Eiffel Tower.

It was so beautiful in the dark, all lit up.

This is me in front of the "Pantheon". It was built by Louis XV to be

a church to honor Saint Genevieve, the patron Saint of Paris. It was later

turned into a Pantheon - a location for tombs.

This is Notre-Dame. It is a Catholic Cathedral. It was started in 1163 by

Pope Alexander the Third. It took 170 years to complete. As I walked

around it, I found it interesting that it has many different architectures.

This is the Seine River at Dusk.

This is one of my favorite spots in Paris. I think it is because it made
me think of my grandkids. This is a little park west on Notre-Dame. In the
daylight people are all over the benches, enjoying the fresh air along the
Seine River. But at night, the park is locked up and the rats come out
to play. YES, those are rats on the grass. We watched them for
a good half of an hour and we saw probably 20 on the grass at one time.
A lady walked by us and said, "Ratatouille". The movie is based
on fact.

This is a picture of the glass Pyramid at the Musee du Louvre.

It was beautiful. We walked around the courtyard, but didn't have

time to go inside and see the "Mona Lisa".

This is Sacre-Coeur. You can see this church from just about anywhere

in Paris. It is built on a hill. We walked up the steps and it started to rain

so we went inside. Visitors were walking all around in the church. There

was a Mass going on so we decided to sit and listen. It was in French

so we understood nothing.

After we listen to the Mass the rain had stopped, so we went on

a little walk around the area of the church. The picture above

and the picture below are of some streets we walked down.

This is a two-seater Smart car. They are everywhere.

Dad calls them gnats, because they drive around fast like bugs.

We enjoyed our trip to Paris, but we were ready to go south when it

was time. I will blog about our second week in France later.

Our Yearly Paintbrush Divide Hike

2009-09-01T07:29:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday the "Old Geezer Hiking Club" (Over 50 years old)

went on our annual "Death March" to Paintbrush Divide.

It is 20 miles and we do it in one day, 12 1/2 hrs.

This year we had a youngster, our friends brought their 32 year old daughter,

that jogs. She kicked our cans. I really think she could

have done the loop again if there had been enough day light.

At the start of the hike, you walk along a beautiful little lake call

"String Lake". The picture below is String Lake with the reflection of Mt. Moran.

I truly love this picture.

We are just taking alittle break and having a snack and something to drink.

As we were walking, I noticed a lot of wildflowers, so I stopped and took this picture.

As we were hiking up to the divide we looked up and Dad got excited because

there was the Grand Teton peeking thru the mountains.

As you get higher, you get to cross a couple of glaciers.

This picutre is looking down into Mt Moran Canyon(I think it has another name).

This is the highest point on the hike. It is Paintbrush Divide, at an elevation of

10,700 ft. We started at around 7,000 ft.

This is a view of the divide.

This is our group at the top of the divide.

These next two pictures are our favorite views of the Tetons

You can see the Grand, Middle, and South Peaks. This is from the

north, looking south down Cascade Canyon.

This is lake Solitude. We like to take a break here and soak our feet. It was cool

because there were little fish feeding and the water was so clear you could

see them.

This is the group at the end of the hike. I think we look pretty

good after hiking 20 miles.

Glenna & Lyle

2009-05-24T16:02:00.000-07:00

This Memorial Day, we decided to celebrate the life of my husband's parents. I can not say enough about Glenna and Lyle. They were such a good example to their children, in-laws, grandchildren and great grandchildren. I hope our whole family enjoys this video.

As I was looking though Glenna and Lyle's pictures, I found a poem that Lyle wrote for Glenna on their 50th Wedding Anniversary. I thought our family would enjoy reading it.

Here's to my wife

The light of my life

She takes care of me,

sometimes with too much PERSINTENCE

But now that life is not so great

she is only the reason for EXISTENCE

I see her walk by, in her swimming suit,

which she fills out quite nifty

And I say to myself,

its hard to believe,

we have been together for FIFTY

I look at her,

I see that school girl,

I fell in love with long AGO

She's been there,

good times and bad,

right by my side

Honestly say,

I love her even more today,

I want her to KNOW

Five decades together!

Its been a great RIDE!

We sure miss them!

Spring Trip

2009-04-06T15:19:00.000-07:00

We decided to go to Southern Utah for a little hike. Those who know us,

know that means a long hike. We went to Glenn Canyon Recreational Area.

Our goalwas to hike to Coyote Bridge, which is in Coyote Gulch,

which is connected toHurricane Wash.

Hurricane Wash was our starting Point.

We hiked down this wash for several miles before we arrive at the gulch below.
After 5 miles we joined up with Coyote Gulch, this is where we changed
shoes because we had to walk in the creek quite a bit. The gulch was so
beautiful with the different shades of red.
Below in a picture of Jacob Hamblin Arch, it is 6 1/2 miles into the hike.
As you can see it is a beautifully unique place to hike.

Below is a picture of our goal for the day, Coyote Bridge. It is 9 3/4 miles

from where we started. We had a beautiful day, which is a surprise, because the rest of

the time we were in Southern Utah, it was cold.

On the hike back I took the picture below of how green it was in the Gulch.
The trees were just leafing out it was truely beautiful.

On the drive back to the motel we stopped at a place called Devil's Garden.

Below is a picture of what the guide book call's HooDoo's.

Your guess is as good as mine, why?

The next day we when on a shorter hike, I think we only went about

8 miles. We went to Kodachrome State Park. It was only 20 minutes from

where we were staying.

It was a little colder this day. So we dressed a little warmer. You will see why

a little farther down in this post.

This is a cave with hand prints dug in the sandstone.

This is it hailing while we are hiking. We do some crazy things sometimes.

We sure didn't see anybody on this hike.

We found this cave and I took a picture so I could show how the snow

was coming into the cave.

Dad saw this and called it "Nose Wall", he said it looked like a whole
bunch of noses squished together.

After this hike we decided to drive up to Bryce Canyon and see if
there were any short hikes we could do on Saturday. Below is what we found. Even crazy
us, are not going to hike in below 20 degree weather. Needless to say,
the park isn't even open yet.

On Saturday we decided to take the scenic route back to Salt Lake City.

It trully was scenic. Below is a picture from Capital Reef National Park.

Yesterday, we got to go to the Sunday morning session of General Conference

in the Conference Center. We even got to watch them do "Music and The Spoken

Word" before conference started. It was amazing. The spirit was so strong in the Conference

Center. Needless to say, we had a great time.

Is Three Kids Enough?

2009-03-31T14:01:00.001-07:00

These are three of my adorable 9 grandchildren. I love to see

there smiling faces. This picture was taken last Sunday. They are so

happy. I think their parents are so lucky.

I am not so sure the parents think they are lucky. Below is a

picture of their Mom and Dad just moments before I took the above

picture. What do you guys think? Is three enough?

Teasing Brinley

2009-03-20T14:41:00.000-07:00

All of you know how much Grandpa likes to tease. Last night he was

having some one on one time with Brinley, teasing as usual.

Hope you all enjoy the video!

Yurts 2009

2009-03-02T07:35:00.001-08:00

So last Thursday we made our yearly trip to the yurts. Usually we go up early and

ski all day and spend the night. This year Dad had to work late, so we didn't leave

town until 5:30pm. Thursday was a terrible weather day and we thought

we are so dumb to be going up to the yurts. We will proably just wake up in the

morning and come home. Anyway, we knew that we would arrive in the

dark and have to ski into the yurts with flashlights, sounds fun. Well, we got to

Island Park and it was a blizzard. We didn't know if we could find the turn off

to Harriman State Park, and if we did, we didn't know if the big semi truck

behind us would be able to stop.

Well, we found the turn off and was able to get turn just find. We got all bundled

up and headed for the yurts on skis. We skied past the yurts and had to turn

back around. We finally made it to the yurt and tried to light the lantern and it

just wanted to explore for us. So we decide to go see if the other yurt had a good

lantern, luckily it did and no one was it the other yurt. So we got the fire started,

we had light and now we were great.

About 11 pm we look outside and the wind had stopped, the snow had stopped,

the clouds were gone, the sky was clear and we looked up and there was

the "Big Dipper" looking down on us. It was beautiful.

We awoke to a beautiful day, with 4" of new snow. So we set out on a very long

ski trip.

This is just a creek that runs through Harriman State Park.

As we were sking we saw this bald eagle in this tree.
Below is two videos, on of an Elk we surprised and it tried to cross a frozen lake
and kept falling through the ice. The other is the same lake with some swans that
were flying off, listen to the bugeling and the sound of there wing hitting the water.
We had a great day!

DEATH IN THE FAMILY

2009-02-13T09:05:00.000-08:00

I remember when we went to Salt Lake City to buy this vehicle,

Michelle and Brenda ask to buy something cool, because the time before we brought

a monster of a car (OLDs 98 and they got to drive until it died,

in fact it lived long enough for Brian and Jessica to have to drive to School).

So back to the story, my family was very excited when we drove

up to our house with this vehicle. It was only 5 years old and had

about 60,000 miles on it. That was in 1991.

Now it is 2009, and it has around 245,000 miles with no engine work. The only

body work was done after Brian drove it through the back of our garage one night

while his Dad was on travel, but I'm sure Brian doesn't want that brought up.

Anyway after putting $60 into it in the last couple of days, the engine still has the

compression of a new engine. But, it blew a head gasket and has some other issues

so, Dad feel like it is time to put him to rest.

It's been a good old car. In fact it has been our most reliable car for many years.

Dad figured out that it has only cost us 3 cents a mile to drive it. That is not maintenance

it is just what we paid for the car and how many miles we put on it.

Its been a good vehicle.

He will be missed. Sorry all our family can't be here for his services.

I know you are with us in spirit.

Good buy 4-Runner.

Febuary Blahs!

2009-02-10T12:19:00.000-08:00

The other day I was just looking out my window at a wintry day

in February and this caught my eye.

I thought it was so cool looking. I just love how the isicles are hanging down,

and the ones that fell are sticking up.

I have finished painting the shelves in the garage. We spent last

night cleaning the garage. I am so excited to have shelves to put things away.

I would love to be able to give these shelves to Michelle. Everyone who is been

to her house knows how much she would love to have the space

to have them. I know someday she will have more room than she has stuff

to put in that room.

Dad said I can't have any more shelves until I fill these up. I really don't

thinks he means it, because that would mean I might have to go do some shopping!

A Beautiful Winter Day in the Tetons

2009-02-01T16:17:00.001-08:00

Dick and I have always loved the out of doors. Our kids think we are nuts,

because what we do and what other people do are very different.

When we go on hikes, it is usually a death march(20 miles in a day).

So it has been very fun for us to find some friends that like to do the

same things we like to do.

Yesterday, we took these friends, Royce, Dee Ann, Joel, and Ilene cross country

skiing to Grand Teton National Park. Which happens to be our most

favorite place to be.

As you can see the day was beautiful. I don't think we have ever had

such a beautiful day to ski there.

This is us started out for our little adventure.

The Tetons were so pretty with the bright blue sky
behind them.

I love skiing through the tree and having the sun shining down from
above the trees.

These are pictures from the first half of the day. When we went to find a place

for lunch the wind came up and it turned into the worst day in the Tetons.

We finally got back to the truck and so glad to be there. We then went into

Jackson and found a nice Mexican Restaurant and

a very nice dinner with our

friends

Tending Kids

2008-11-19T14:34:00.000-08:00

There is a reason you have kids in your 20's and 30's, it because when you are

in your 50's it a lot harder.

This past week we have been tending our daughter Brenda's kids. They are great kids.

They have been so good. Still it is different to be responsible for the kids 24/7.

We have had a great time. We only had our little Paige breakdown once or twice

because she missed her Mom.

We had a shopping day on Saturday. The girls wanted to get fabric to

make some stuff. So they picked out the fabric they wanted. We went home and made

a purse/bag to each of them.

Everyday since Paige came she has been asking me to make her a sleeping mask.

I don't know why she wants one, but I made her one and she has worn

it to bed everynight. Last night I took a picture of her while she was sleeping.

She really likes her mask, so Morgan had to have one.

Today I got to stay home. That was nice. Carson and I have been having a good day.

After lunch, I told Carson we needed to take a nape. He said "NO". So I put

all his favorite things by my bed and decided to look at blogs for a few minutes

before I went and got him for bed. I finished looking and blogs and went

to find him and below is what I found in my bed.

It is so fun to be a grandparent. I truly love it.

I'm also glad the Mom and Dad come home tommorrow. I hope they had

a great trip. I remember taking trip and leaving my kids with my in-laws. The

kids had great fun and so did we.

To the rest of my children. I would love to tend any of my grandchildren,

so their parents can have so time away.

Our Yearly Trip to Michigan

2008-10-26T20:35:00.001-07:00

We arrived in Michigan on a Saturday.

We listened to General Conference on TV.
Monday morning this is how Michelle's bathroom looked.

By Tuesday night her bathroom looked like this.

This kind of thing happens a lotwhen we visit.

We just have to do some kind of project and this year itwas the "BATHROOM".

Wednesday afternoon we headed for the "windy" city, Chicago.

It was beautiful. The weather was great as you can see.

We went to the Shedd Aquarium, which the kids really liked.

The first night we went to see the show "WICKED". It was totally awesome.

I know that Dick didn't enjoy it as much as us girls, but he was a good sport.

Thank you Lorenc girls for taking us.

The second day in Chicago we had lunch on the top of the

John Hancock building.It was a great view of the city.

We then went to the American Girl story on our

way to Navy Pier. After spending the day in Chicago, and staying to late,

we decided we would eat dinner before we left the city.

Shae had wanted to go have Chicago Style Pizza

at Giordanos(sp). It is the Cold Stone of Pizza.

This is Michelle, Shae, Meghan, Rachel, and Zach at the end of Navy Pier.

We then headed off to the east side of Lake Michigan.

To a little artist town called Saguatuck, MI.

We rented a cabin/home on the beach for three days.

On our first day we went on a little hike.

(For you that know us little hike can turn into big hikes,

but this one wasn't.) The hike was about 1 1/4 miles oneway, to the beach.

I was walking with my two oldest granddaughters (below) and we saw a

deer, it walked across the trail right in front of us. Oh, how I love the outdoors.

And of course, you can't keep us out of the water,

even in October. We all got wet.

These are two brave and fearless girls!
And this is the brave Zacho, Masko, Backhoe.

This is the sunset over Lake Michigan

The last day of our little trip we went to Grand Haven and walked out to the

Lighthouse. We love to visit lighthouses.

We got back to Michelle's house on a Monday.

We started back to work on the bathroom on Tuesday.

Tuesday night we took our yearly trip to the apple orchard to pick apples,

ride on the tractor ride, and best of all have hot donuts and fresh cider.

This year is the first year Shae had been able to come.

We were glad that he could enjoy the fun with the rest of his family.

For some reason, I do not know why, we always seem to get some pictures

of us from the back.

This is a picture on the bathroom when Dick left on Friday. As you can see

Shae, Michelle and I still had a lot of work to do.

This is how the Bathroom looked when I left Michigan. We got a lot done, but I still

had to leave a lot for Michelle and Shae. You can't see the walls we replaced,

or the floor that is only half tiled, or the ceiling and walls that need to be

painted. I wish we could of got more done. I know that Shae and Michelle

can finish it. I think they will be please with how it turns out.

Thank you Lorenc Family for letting us come visit every year.

We love going and spending time with them.

Yearly Elk Bugling Trip In The Tetons

2008-09-28T19:45:00.000-07:00

We had a beautiful weekend in the Tetons with our daughter Brenda

and her family. We couldn't have asked for better weather.

This is the picture from the balcony of the cabin at Signal Mountain where we stayed.
This is our granddaughters Morgan and Paige on our hike up Cascade Canyon.

They were great hikers.

This is Brenda, Aaron, Morgan, Paige, and Carson on our hike.

The fall leaves were just beautiful. Usually by the time we go most

of the leaves have already fallen of the tree and bushes.

This is another view from the area our cabin was in. I was walking to the office to

check out of the cabin and looked and saw the reflection of Mount Moran in the water

and had to take a picture.

This is a video of the moose we saw on our hike. Carson was saying,

"COME HERE MOOSEY, MOOSEY, MOOSEY!"

He said it over and over again. He thought the moose was pretty cool.

Hanging Canyon

2008-08-27T07:46:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday we went on a what Dick called a "Training Hike". He picked

out a canyon in the Tetons we had never been too. Just so you know, the Tetons for us are

like the Ocean, we can never get enough of them.

Back to my story. This hike was not one of our 20 milers, but just a mere 10 miles

and it kicked our cans. But it was just beautiful, and I would climb it again.

This was taken just alittle way up the hike. This is Jenny Lake and

you can see it almost the whole way up the trail.

This is a water fall looking up to where we are going.
This hike is like going up the face of Tablerock. You go straight up and then

you find this beautiful little canyon with two lakes. This is a picture of the first lake and a

glacier behind it. To get to the second lake, you climb over the glacier and rock field(which

I hate to climb over) and then there is the other lake.

It was just sitting there in a bowl at the bottom of these beautiful

Mountains.We loved the hike!

This is a video of one of the four deer we walked up on as we were hiking. I was only about 10' away from these deer.

2008-08-22T09:56:00.000-07:00

Most of you know that Dad really likes his trees. You also know that a Ash Bore is damaging his trees, which makes him very unhappy.

Most of you also know that a couple of weeks ago Dad had a dream about his Ash Trees. In the dream he woke up and went to check his trees. There were Ash borers flying all around his trees, and to make it worse, he had no spray to kill the bores. So he came in to ask me if I would run to the store to buy some. I told him no, I was to busy sewing.

Now for you the know us, you know that would never happen. I would drop anything I am doing to do something for him.

So the other day I was out mowing and I saw these insects that looked like Ash Borer, buzzing around his trees. So I called him and asked how to spray the trees. He told me how to spray the trees, I got to the last tree and ran out of spray, so I hopped into my car a ran right down to Sunnyside Gardens and purchased some more spray. I then returned home and sprayed the last tree. Within 1/2 hr I could not find any of those nasty bugs around his trees.

So thus, I had busted the nightmere just like the "MYTHBUSTERS" do!

Oregon Coast

2008-08-11T13:11:00.000-07:00

This is the beautiful Columbia Gorge, Hood River, Oregon. We spent the first night of our trip here. It was just breath taking.

This was our second day in Lincoln City, OR. Grandpa Rich buried Hayley in the sand and Brinley decided to climb on top. The kids loved the soft sand to play in. Isabell hated eating at the beach. She didn't like sand in her food. Grandpa just teased her about eating a "Sand"wich.
This was a beautiful little cove on the beach by where we stayed.
This is the Yaquina Head Lighthouse by Newport, Oregon. I thought Meghan and Rachel would like this picture because almost everytime we go to Michigan we go see a new lighthouse that we haven't seen before.

This is a Japense Spider Crab. We saw it at the Newport, OR aquarium. This one was about 5ft across. They grow to be 13ft across. They were crawling in the tank and looked like huge red spiders. It was weird.

We had a blast and would at sometime like to rent a big house on the beach and take the whole family. Hopefully we can work that out.

We want to thank Jessica and Adam for inviting us. It was Great!!!!!

2008-08-07T09:31:00.000-07:00

I feel like it has been years since I blogged. Since my daughter Michelle and her family have left it has been non stop busy. I had just 9 days to get things ready before we left with our daughter, Jessica and her family to the Oregon Coast(which I will blog at a later date). We got home Saturday night, had Sunday meetings, a Young Women activity, and then getting my yard(1acre), and my house ready for our nephews wedding. They are using our house because he is getting married in Idaho Falls. His family is from Ely, Nv and her family in from Malad, Id. They are having a big BBQ her tonight, and the wedding tommorrow. We are also having a mini Williamson family reunion for the family that can make it. With families growing we can't have everyone here like we would like.

While Michelle and her family were here, she got us to get a new family picture done. We have done it for two and half years. We have had to beautiful addition since then. A wonderful daughter-in-law, Leilani and a new beautiful granddaughter, Brinley. Below are a samplin of some pictures we got taken.

This is all nine of our beautiful grandchildren.

This is the whole family. I can't believe how fast our

family is growing.

The photography took some pictures of Dick and I, I felt like we were having a photo shoot for our engagement. We felt a little silly. She even did a kissing one, but I'm not blogging that.

2008-07-21T09:47:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, we went to our favorite place, the Tetons. We love to hike in the Tetons. We took a couple, the Fosters, who have the same love of hiking and the Tetons with us. It was a joy to go on this 19.3 mile, Death March 7. Our kids know us well and all our hikes have a Death March rating. The scale goes 1 to 10. We are too old and out of shape to go on a 10. Someday we hope to climb the Middle Teton, which is proably an 8.5 on our Death March Scale.

We had a beautiful day! It was green everywhere, lots of waterfalls, and wild flowers. We saw three moose, a little buck deer in velvet, and a snow owl. It was a long hike, but oh so beautiful.

I want to thank Michelle for the software that helped me with this blog page. I hope later in August I will use it more.

More Four Wheelin'

2008-06-23T20:38:00.001-07:00

It has been fun having the grand children here--

but we can't wait until the rest of them arrive.

Hurry Hill "Gills"!

4-WHEELING

2008-06-15T20:05:00.001-07:00

Well, some of you will not believe the photos is this post. We have not

gone to the dark side. We are still the die hard hikers we have always been.

Our good friends, Mike and Peggy Parker invited us to

go 4-wheeling with them. And we are good sports so

we took them up on there offer. We had a great

time. We are not going to give up hiking, but 4-wheeling can be

added to the things we enjoy doing.

This is Me on Zach-O's 4-wheeler,

at least he thinks it his.

This is Rich on Tar Tar's 4-wheeler

This is our friend Mike who thinks we

will give up hiking for 4-wheeling.

ONLY IN HIS DREAMS!

This is our friend Peggy who knows us well enough to know

that we will never give up hiking, but we will add 4-wheeling to

our fun list.

Below are two videos for our grandchildren's enjoyment.

We hope they all enjoy them!!