2011 FAMILY REUNION 

Granby, CO

Our family on top of the ski resort mountain

We started our CO vacation by going through 9 mile canyon in Utah

.  This is a decent spot to go to if you like Indian historical sites.  There was lots and lots of dirt roads for this part of the trip, but it was fun.  We saw the famous balancing rock and took a couple small hikes to see the petroglyphs and also some ruins of Indian homes.  We found a cool cave on one hike where we imagined they went to cool off during hot summer days.

We also saw the famous hunt scene panel along with many other panels

We stayed the night in Vernal so we could finish the trip into Colorado in the morning.  After grabbing dinner we went on a walk from our hotel and found the Vernal Temple and a playground within a couple blocks.  We also met up with my sister and her family in the morning so we could caravan the rest of the way.

GRANBY, CO

Arrival!  We moved into our condo unit and said joyous hellos to all the arriving groups (my family is getting SO big!!) and went down to the play area to hang out.  One of our first activities the next day was going up this ski lift right next to our condos to the top of the mountain.  It was a free ride for foot traffic (pay for downhill mountain bikers) so we went up once and hiked down and then rode up and down again.  We all loved this activity and wished the lift was open every day!  Watching the downhill mountain bikers take jumps and ride down fast was very cool!

Do you see how big my family is getting?!  This is even minus grandma and the napping toddlers.  The hike down the mountain was gorgeous with SO many beautiful flowers!!  I couldn't believe how many flowers we saw.  I fell in love with the many, many Colorado Columbines and enjoyed the lovely lupines, sunflowers, Mountain Harebells, thin Indian Paintbrush and more I don't know the names of!!  

More gorgeous flowers!!  The kidlets in the middle pic led the way down the mountain.

More hiking!  Monday we went into Rocky Mountain National Park and had a lot of fun.  We hiked up to Adams Falls and hung out for a bit.  My whole family is the upper pic with my boys on the lower left and my handsome younger bro and his sweet cutie pie who stole the show every day.

While in the park we were treated to lots of wildlife!!  I'm not sure what you call the upper left wild animal (one of my other cutie brothers), upper right is lots of elk--cows and babies, lower left is the bull elk and lower right is my sweetie with moose--a cow, a yearling and you can't see them but twin moose snuggling into the grass!  We also got very lucky and while heading up the canyon we had a big herd of about 20-30 elk of all sizes cross the road just 20-30 yards ahead of us.  The last and biggest of the herd stopped and stared us down for a minute, almost daring us to try to follow.

Minute to Win it.  I totally had my bro in this cup racing contest but lost it at the very end.  Oi.  B made up for it and barely got her cousin.  My big J started out fastest in this M&M picture task but was defeated by my older bro and B had fun trying to bounce all the ping pong balls out of a box belted onto her waist.  

This minute to win it game was probably the funniest and it got everyone involved.  We had to put a cookie on our forehead and work it to our mouth without using your hands.  It was really tough, but I'm happy to announce that I was the first contestant to accomplish the task.

While in RMNP we saw some rangers.  Ranger PT taught us about animals adapting, resources animals need to live and about different trees.  We also saw a new ranger introduced to the park.  Our little B passed the test and became a Jr. Ranger.

The boys went out fishing one morning and golfing one afternoon so us gals decided to do a hike just ourselves to make up for it.  We hiked about 7 miles round-trip to Cascade Falls.  There was an abundance of water flowing down the falls and they were quite spectacular.  It was a great hike and we had a lot of fun.  Since it has been so wet and had rained the night before parts of the trail were a bit on the wet side.  The pic in the lower right corner shows one particularly wet spot on the trail that was under about a foot of water.

Most fun was just getting to see everyone and hang out together.  The cousins loved playing together and we made lots of memories.  One of my favorite things of the trip was seeing all the cousins lined up together along this bar every time we all ate.  Yum, we had some good food!!  Lower left pic is me and one of my sisters--together we began a feats of strength the last night there and we had several of us doing yoga positions, ab exercises, wall sits, push ups and more.  It was hilarious and and good workout!  Lower right pic is one of my brothers with a buffalo coat on (he's 6'5" and HUGE with that coat on!).  Fun times!!  Thanks mom and dad for setting it up and for the lodging and a good deal of food and thanks everyone for the fun times and yummy dinners!!!  Can't wait to see everyone again soon!!

NEW JERSEY LASTS

BELMAR BEACH

 One thing we knew we MUST do one last time before moving West was go the the Jersey Shore.  We chose Belmar Beach, one of our favorites and we wanted to make lasting memories there once more.  We took a friend of the family (mostly our 8 year old who is the same age, but really all of us love her & her family!).  She brought boogie boards with her so everyone wanted to try them out.  Even Big J rode them in the big waves.  The sea was angry this day and we watched several people be pulled out by lifeguards because of riptides.  Luckily we mostly stuck to the very shallows.

 Little J and Little A loved riding on the boogie boards with dad pulling them around.  I love my little ones' smiles, giggles and bright, happy eyes.

We found these lovely mermaids basking in the sun.

Once she got the hang of it B was a great little boogie boarder!

We found several of these little guys.  We made a small little home for this one on the sand complete with wading pool and his own little beach surrounded by a sand wall, but he somehow escaped when we weren't looking.

B's (and family) beloved friend

One of our other lasts was letting her two older sisters babysit (while we played volleyball! :) !)  We knew we'd be in big trouble if we left Jersey without giving them another chance to be babysat by the gals.  The kidlets would love it if we flew them out every time we needed a babysitter.

Our cutie-pa-tootie standing in a deep hole the kidlets worked on for some time.  Yes, we felt a little white trash when we realized we left little A's swimsuit at home and she'd have to just be in a swim diaper all day at the beach.  Oh well.  At least she had a swim diaper & is still (barely) young enough to get away with it!!!

Ahhhh, just before packing up for the day.  A truly beautiful day!!

TERHUNE ORCHARDS

One of our other local favorites we went to before leaving was Terhune Orchards.  We rode on their farm toys, visited the animals, drank their super yummy apple slush and the kids ate their tiny free apple!

Such fun!!  Good thing it's stationary since she can't reach all the pedals.......

Sweetness at the farm

My three sweet little apple dumplings

What did I learn on my THIRD cross-country move, you ask?

Digging into Ice Cream right out of the carton for one small ones' birthday on the road is super awesome!  And, they still make nice campgrounds with running water for under $10 a night!!  Thank you Glennwood, Iowa!!

 Inspiration Point in Nauvoo is inspirational.  I was inspired to take this cute picture.

Also learned that Joseph and Hyrum Smith were martyred on June 27th.  I'm sure I've heard this before but it just didn't sink in the same way until we were here that day.  We were in Carthage the day before and Nauvoo the day of taking a tour of where their bodies are laid to rest.  

I learned that things can get a little silly in Nauvoo after a 12 hour ride in the car and a night of 3 inches of rain in tents that are supposedly waterproof.  Yes, you read right, we survived literally 3 inches (we checked) of rain in two separate storms in the same night while "sleeping" in tents and didn't get flooded out; but it did get a little drippy in the tents.  We were glad to have good tents as others without good tents were not so fortunate and got much more than a little drippy.

This is me just trying to take a fun, 'artistic' shot of the temple.  So, I'll talk about:  I learned more about our Garmin GPS, which is AWESOME!!  We've had it for about 2 years but I figured out how to find playgrounds, gas stations and rest areas along our route without having to go far off the freeway.  Also learned that Nebraska has the best rest areas for kids off of I-80.  Guess they had to make up for the scenery.  And Wyoming was so windy the sandwiches I was making for lunch practically, and once literally, blew out of my hands.  But we saw a cool lizard too and lots of pronghorn so not all my memories of Wyoming are bad.  I also learned that anything over 7 hours driving time is just too long in the car for me.  But I somehow managed to stay happy 11 of the 12 hours on our long day. Dont' ask about the other hour.....

 I'm the tallest of them all.  Aren't we cute?  Courtesy of little J and his state flash cards that he quizzed us with, I learned that Alabama is the Yellowhammer state and that the state bird is the Yellowhammer.  Yep, on a cross country move we had plenty of time to go through all the states, several times.  My best state?  Texas of course! with New Jersey and Utah as a close second.  Little J says I'm super awesome at those so he even quizzed me on the state motto of them.  i.e.  Utah's motto is Industry.  And today at Temple Square we saw the state seal with INDUSTRY written in the middle of it.  I learned once again that B is a super big helper and could camp the rest of her life and be happy.  And little A stays just as happy with 37+ hours in the car as she does at home.  She is just one happy little camper.  (haha)ha

We learned for ourselves just how good The Melt in Cleveland truly is.  Here's big J enjoying his grilled cheese with yumminess on top.  We still decided against getting Melt tattoo's, which we learned would give us a discount for life.  We enjoyed our day and a half in Cleveland!  Big J's sister and b-i-l are great hosts!  Thanks for the fun guys!!!

 We had fun with the Nauvoo temple pics.  Can you tell?  This is like the third one!!

Celebrating birthdays is the best.  This is little A's 4th of 5 celebrations.  She shared with her Auntie, who's is the day before.  And her Auntie made a yummy six layer cake--rainbow style.  We didn't get a pic of the open cake but it looked quite awesome with all its' layers!
What else did I learn?  No matter how you look at it 37+ hours is just 37+ hours.  We weren't getting here without spending 37+ hours in the car.  And if I'm tired while driving any of those hours a couple minutes outside the car does wonders, after I've tried snacking, gum chewing, music, games, etc. and it's just not keeping me awake.  And, snacking on a car ride is tricky with diabetes.  By the last few days I was getting smarter and making sure I had carrots, cheese sticks and nuts in the front of the car for my snacks instead of the usual crackers and granola bars that I typically snack on for car trips.  All in all, I learned once again that I can do hard things.  And perhaps, finally, I'm hoping this is the last cross country move we make.  I really think, for all the trouble and pain, it's been so amazing and delightful to see more of America from the road rather than just the sky.