The BEST Vacation Ever!

This summer our family took an 11 day vacation!!! The crazy part was that 4 of those days were spent driving in the car. Ohhhhh....the quality time we had together on those long drives. :) Our trip started out on July 18th when we drove from our HOT home in Chandler to the McKinley's home in Austin, Texas. We were very excited to finally arrive at their house around 8pm that evening. The next morning our Texas adventures began...Our first adventure was driving to San Antonio. Here we are outside the riverwalk. Each kid, including Brent, picked somewhere to pose for the picture.

We strolled along the river walk looking for someplace to eat lunch. We never found a place that we wanted to eat at but we had fun talking to the ducks, watching boats go by and playing on the bridges.

Toni and I are enjoying our break from supervising our herd of kiddos!

Brittney and Mitchell begged us to take their picture as we were walking down the street.

The main part of our San Antonio visit was to check out the Alamo. Its great to force history on an unsuspecting youthful audience. Toni and I are so sneaky :)

That evening we joined Toni and Craig and some of their friends for an evening at the Oasis. This is a restaurant that looks out over Lake Travis. The big attraction of the restaurant is to have a seat where you can watch the sun set over the lake. I must admit we had excellent seats.

The next day our adventure was to canoe down the Austin River. We split up in teams of three; however, EVERYONE wanted to be in Mitchell's canoe. So poor Brittney and Grant were stuck with Brent. They found out later what a blessing that was since Brent is a SUPERSTAR canoer.

Jessica and William were the lucky winners of the Mitchell Canoe. Mitchell had to do most of the paddling work on this team. He did a pretty good job.

Toni, Matthew and I had the third canoe. We always seemed to be in last place as we paddled down the river. We did more zig-zagging than straight canoeing. But we were successful at going the full distance to Congress Bridge and back without tipping it over.

That evening we all went to the County Line restaurant for some Texan bar-b-cue. Yummy! The extra cool thing about this restaurant is that it is right on the river. If we owned a boat, we could dock it at the restaurant and come in from that location. The kids could have cared less about that luxury. They were thrilled that there were hungry turtles lurking in the water by the dock. Grant was the first out of the group to snatch one out of the water.

Can you see the two dozen turtles in the water behind us? This is what we would call "Grant Paradise."

The next adventure was to Hamilton Pools. Brent did a great job watching our stuff on the small beach.

We love coming to this picturesque swimming hole. Not only is it beautiful but the waterfall gives great back massages. All of the kids would swim across the pool to climb on the big rock where the waterfall came pounding down. Then they would jump back into the pool.

Oh look at Muscular Mitchell.

Toni and Matthew made it across the lake to check out the waterfall.

Grant loves to get his waterfall massage.

Jessica was another champion at making across the lake to the coveted waterfall rock.

When the kids weren't playing underneath the waterfall, they explored the rest of the grotto. Here William, Jessica and Brent are looking for huge spiders.

We were VERY sad to leave the McKinleys and Texas. We spent the next two days driving to Utah. On the second long day of driving we stopped at a spot outside of Moab, UT, to check out Wilson Arch. What an incredible work of art nature made!

This is another type of an arch down the road called Looking Glass. You should see two bumps on a rock at the bottom of the arch. Those bumps are Grant and Brent's head peering over the side. The arch is HUGE!

Next we went to Arches National Park where we saw quite a few arches. Brent and I are standing in front of a very large arch. If you look closely to the left of the picture, you will see Mitchell standing in the arch. Pretty cool! He looks so tiny!

Here the boys and I are are standing in front of the "North and South Windows." They don't look so big from this vantage point. However, the arch on the right is the same arch in the picture above where Mitchell looks like an ant standing in it. We saw many more amazing works of art there in the park. If you ever decide to go there, plan on bringing lots of water and plan on spending the whole day. There is lots to see.

On Saturday, July 24th, we went on our next adventure. Brent's sister, Barb, suggested that we take the kids to Lagoon. Lagoon is a roller coaster park. We stayed at this park for nearly 12 hours. It was a great place to go! It had a variety of roller coasters from sissy style, to an old wooden one to the ultimate scary of scary roller coasters. Here Mitchell and Grant are getting ready to go on "Blast Off." This ride shoots you into the air as if you were on a rocket then you fall back down.

Grant was so excited to be at the roller coaster theme park that he couldn't stop hugging on me and thanking me for coming. I was the recipient of lots of love that day.

Here Mitchell is getting strapped into a ride that spins you around in a circle and then spins you upside down. Although he went on this ride a few times, his favorite ride was Wicked. This ride starts out shooting you up the roller coaster track 110 feet and then you drop back down and race through many turns, twists and twirls. CRAZY!!!! Once was enough for me.

Grant and I had fun going on an old-fashioned swing ride. However, Grant's favorite ride was the Colossus. This is your typical roller coaster with two loops in it. Grant went on this ride 15 times. Once was enough for me! By the time we drug the kids out of the park at 10pm, Grant said it was the BEST day of his LIFE.

The last adventure of our trip was to hike Mount Timpanogus up to Emerald Lake. This is a 5.5 mile hike one way up the rocky mountain trail to the lake. Grant is pointing to the peak that we would have to climb over before we get to the beautiful lake.

Grant whined the ENTIRE way up the mountain. Right from the beginning of the hike he complained that his legs were too tired and that he felt sick and that he couldn't do it and that how could any lake be worth a 5.5 mile hike???? It was soooooooo annoying to listen to his constant complaining. This is a picture of Brent and Grant holding hands. No they aren't skipping with glee. Brent is dragging Grant up the mountain. By the way, Grant didn't complain the whole 5.5 miles back down the mountain.

Along the trail there were many waterfalls to hike by, get cooled off by and to admire. This is the waterfall Mitchell fell at and put a gash in his hand and banged up his leg. This is also where Grant slipped on a rock and got one of his shoes wet. Too bad this waterfall is only at the 1 mile mark of hiking up the mountain.

All along the trail were streams and many varieties of wild flowers. I took several pictures of all of the beautiful flowers along the lush trail.

We made it to Emerald Lake! We feasted on peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches, grapes, and granola bars. It was great to take a break from the difficult hike.

The lake is created by glacier melt. You can see the snow at the water's edge. Grant had a great time skipping rocks across the lake. I think he finally forgot how much he hated the hike up the mountain.

The next day we drove all the way back home. It was great vacation with so many different exciting activities to do as a family. But we were all glad to be HOME.

Alaska & Canada Day 6 & 7!

The sixth day of our trip was spent on the open seas. It was a long day of hanging out on the ship. To pass the time we played Mexican Train Dominoes.

We also spent quite a bit of time doing some whale watching. The whales would come up out of the water to blow through their blow hole. They would always be far enough away to where you couldn't get a picture of them. Sometimes there would be a pod of whales going up and down out of the water. Brent was the master of the binoculars and could always spot the whales first.

At 11pm there was a chocolate party in the Centrum. This is a chocolate sculpture of a king in his thrown. There were several other chocolate sculptures to look at and lots of chocolate treats to sample. What a yummy event! Maybe I should host a chocolate party at my house, could be fun!

We arrived in Victoria, Canada on July 1st. This is our last full day of our cruise. We walked from the ship toward town along the waterfront. It was a good half hour walk to the heart of the city.

It was raining all morning long. It wasn't pouring so it wasn't too bad to be out in the weather. Plus, it wasn't cold and windy.

Staying dry on our walk into town.

The first thing we did when we got into the city was tour the Victoria Parliament building. Victoria is the capital of British Columbia (just like Phoenix is the capital of Arizona). The building is made of granite walls and a copper dome roof. It is an impressive site to see.

The interior of the building was stunning. The walls had many paintings and many of the windows were stained glass windows.

This is their coat of arms.

This is where the legislatures make their laws. The majority sits on one side and the minority party sits on the other. This building was built in the 1800's. The distance between the two sides is a standard distance used in all of Canada's parliament buildings. The distance is not measured in feet or meters. The distance was two sword lengths apart. Sometimes debates could get quite heated and being two sword lengths apart was a safe distance. Our tour guide let us know that currently the legislatures leave their swords at home.

We walked a long way to get to our next tourist spot. This the Craigdarroch Castle. It was built in the 1890's. This 20,000 square foot mansion was built in three years. It has the most beautiful oak walls throughout the first floor entry way and stair case. Its amazing to witness the incredible skill the builders of this home had.

Brent is ready to enter the castle.

Many of the rooms had been restored to what they were when the castle was occupied by the original family that had it built. When the parents died, the kids couldn't afford to or weren't interested in maintaining the building. The building was used as a college, music school and even as a military hospital. Now it is a historical site to visit.

Every room of the house had a magnificent fireplace. We have 50 more pictures of the home. If you would like to see them all, just come on over sometime :)

Once we left the castle, had lunch at Subway, we decided to tour the Maritime Museum. This is a museum dedicated to the history of ships and the importance of the sea for the city of Victoria. The museum was quiet. It was filled with model ships, cannons, pirate memorabilia, and many other interesting things.

Brent thought the scuba suit was very cool!

We figured the boys would like to see the torpedo. I think it's longer than me.

Once we left the museum we wondered through the crazy town. The streets were packed with people celebrating Canada Day. Canada Day is to Canada as the 4th of July is to the United States. There were many celebrations going on all over town. With all of our walking through town, we were exhausted when we made it back to our ship.

On Day 8 we woke up as we were pulling in to Seattle, Washington. The cruise vacation was officially over as we arrived in Phoenix and were blasted with temperatures 60 degrees hotter than what it was every day on our trip. Although it was an amazing adventure, we were glad to be home.

Explore Alaska - Day 5!

Today we were up pretty early so we could see the Sawyer Glacier. This glacier created the Tracy Arm Fjord. A fjord is a narrow inlet from the sea between steep cliffs. The glacier carved out the fjord between the mountains. The water from the glacier helped to create the sea passage that leads back to where the glacier is today. It was COLD on deck early in the morning. I was extra bundled up. The ship moved slowly through the fjord. There were icebergs all along the way.

You can see Sawyer Glacier off in the distance between the mountains.

The glacier is magnificent. The varying shades of blue throughout the glacier are captivating to the eye.

While we were admiring the glacier, it "calved." Calving is when a piece of the glacier breaks off and falls into the water below. When it does that, there is a loud thunderous noise as it breaks away.

Brent had his binoculars out the entire time. He and another man were able to spot seals swimming in the water below and lounging on icebergs.

The cruise ship had to navigate around this island on the way to the glacier and on the way back out.

If you were to enlarge this picture, you would see two seals on the iceberg in the middle. We were looking at the seals from the 10th floor deck so it was hard to get a good picture of them.

Icebergs littered the path that the ship had to carefully navigate through.

We spent the rest of the day out on the open seas. So this night was another formal night. It was fun to get dressed up again and pose for pictures :)

Later that evening the cruise ship hosted the "Love and Marriage" game show. They needed three couples to participate. They tried to get the couple who had been married the longest to be one of the contestants. However, they declined. Fortunately, Lyn and Carole said they would go up (it was their 49th anniversary). It was fun to watch them answer questions about each other and to hear the answers the other couples gave. We had lots of laughs that evening!