Day Trip to Evanston

When I was about 12 or 13 my sister Jan and I spent a summer in Evanston Wyoming.

We lived with our cousin Lonnie and her husband Roger Cazin,

and we worked at their hardware store.

Since my dad is the youngest of 8 children, and his next sibling

is about 8 years older than him, most of my cousins on my dad's side of the family

are quite a bit older...many of them are older than my dad :)

Anyway, on the 3rd of October while my sister Jan was out here visiting from Georgia,

my dad, Jan and I took a trip to Evanston.

The hardware store has change A LOT since we worked there.

It's very different. It's more of a Home Goods store now.

 We had fun looking around the store and visiting with Lonnie and Roger.

My Dad even bought me my birthday present while we were there.

We found a pretty purple glass cake stand :)
(I didn't get to have until my birthday though)

We also had a nice lunch with them.

The drive was fun too, just spending time with Jan and my Dad,

my Dad is not above being silly...he's a good sport too!

I also enjoyed looking out the window at the beautiful scenery :)

My Trip to Utah - The rest of the story

I don't really know how to capture the rest of my trip.

We celebrated Easter

we stayed up late talking and reminiscing

we sang together

we played games

watched movies

ate yummy food

celebrated Mom's birthday

There was so much laughter and love!

I guess I'm just going to post a bunch of pictures :)

I love my sisters!

My sisters are all so amazing.

I wish Dresden could have been with us too...

I think we all need to do a sisters trip!

 My brothers have all grown into such great men

...but they still know how to be silly :)

It was fun to get to spend time with my nieces and nephews too.

Holden was so excited to take some pictures with my camera

 Oh, on one day we ate lunch at Cravings Bistro and it was so so good!

We had to try the fried Twinkies - they were on their last box and then no more Twinkies. They were pretty good, I think they would've been better with dark chocolate instead of milk, but that's just me :)

After lunch Mom and I went over to Cravings cupcake shop.

They won Cupcake Wars and since me and the kids like to watch that show I thought it would be fun to go there. 

The owner was actually there and was super nice.

and the cupcakes were delicious!

I guess that wraps up my trip.

I had a great time and I'm so thankful that I was able to go.

My Trip to Utah - Dad Turns 70!

I got to go out to Utah for my Dad's 70th birthday party. My parents didn't know that all of the kids were coming so it was fun to surprise them. It was the first time in 6 years that we had all been together...if you ask me (and nobody did) that is way too long!

Anyway, I had such a great time and loved every minute of my time there with my family. 

The day I got there we just spent some time visiting and my mom had arranged for some family pictures to be taken...she was so happy that the pictures would now include all of her kids! 
Here is one of the pics from dav.d photography

The morning of my Dad's birthday (after breakfast at IHOP) some of us went to a shooting range. This was a new experience for me. I shot a 9mm, a .22 and a .45...at least I'm pretty sure that's what we shot. One of the targets we shot at was Osombie...I think we killed him...well Shell and I scared him and Jonas probably killed him :)

After we got home we helped get things ready for the party. I got to fix my grandma's hair.

If only my daughters would sit as still as she did...

Then we went over to Joe and Melanie's for the party. 
It was nice to see a lot of my aunts and uncles some cousins and friends too.

I even won a prize for getting the most answers right on a quiz about my dad. This duck carved by my dad was my prize. 

The theme of my Dad's party was "I Wanna Be Like You" 
When we were little we used to lip sync a lot and one time we put together a lip sync for my parents of "I Wanna Be Like You" from the jungle book. My mom requested that we perform this for my Dad, so we decided that we would make fools of ourselves for his (and everyone else's) entertainment.
Here's a little part of our stellar performance :)


I also had made a slideshow of my Dad's life that we showed. I think everyone liked it. I measured the success of it by the fact that it made several people cry.

Anyway, I think Dad really enjoyed the afternoon.

I love this picture of my Dad, I just love his smile and his laugh!

He is such a great man.

I'm so thankful that I have the privilege of being his daughter!

I love you Dad! 

Weekend in Georgia

We were able to travel to Georgia over Veteran's Day weekend to see Mike's wonderful Aunt Juanita get married.

Here's a picture of the happy couple

It was a nice trip, I was really surprised that none of the kids brought their DSs along. We did have a couple of iPods that came, but otherwise it was books, crosswords, word searches, the alphabet game, a trivia game and the scribble game...and plenty of silliness too :)

We left early Friday morning and arrived in time for the wedding rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner at Longhorn. It was so nice to see everyone. We hadn't seen Mike's sister, Kim, in years...and we hadn't seen his brother Joe since he moved away from Maryland last year. Kim was shocked that both Noah and Dallin were taller than her...I can not believe I didn't really take any pictures. Everyone else had their cameras out and I was just visiting. They did have a photographer there of course taking lots of pictures...I'm hoping to be able to buy some of them. Here is one that they took of us before the wedding.

Grace and Anna holding Juanita's train as she walked down the aisle

A big thanks to Kim for sharing her pics with me!

Mike with his little sister Kim

Kim with Noah...the only reason she's taller than him in the picture is because of the shoes she was wearing :)

Getting ready to blow bubbles on the newlyweds

I love this shot of Mike being silly with Juanita's bouquet :)

Grace with Kim

Me with my wonderful sister-in-law

After the wedding reception we headed to Jan and Dale's house to visit with them for a day. 

Mike's cousin Emmy lives near them and so on Sunday night she came over with her kids to visit some more. The kids were so excited to see her kids again. After the wedding they kept talking about their new cousins. 

Some pics of them and their new cousins :)

Anna, Zoe and Grace

 Dallin, Isaac, Noah and Colton

 Donovon

On the way home on Monday we had a delay in North Carolina to replace three tires on the Suburban, fun...

Luckily they could get us right in and there was a Chick-fil-A across the street.

On the walk to the Chick-fil-A the girls found some new friends.

Our unexpected delay made for a very long day of travel.

I think we were all tired and ready to be home.

So...

we went to Georgia for a wedding and came home with new cousins and new tires :)

It was a short trip, but a good trip...it's always nice to spend time with family!

NYC - Day 5

Day 5

This was our last day, and it wasn't even a full day at that.

Constance left at noon, I had to catch my bus at 3:30

and the others had to leave for the airport around that time too.

Anyway, we still had a good day.
First we went to Magnolia Bakery for some muffins

...we went back later for cupcakes :)

Then we walked down to the United Nations Building

On our walk to lunch I took some random pictures
an interesting circle building
no corner offices? or all corner offices?
What do you think?

this building stood on columns
...not sure how I would feel about that!

had to get a shot of this one with the purplish-pinkish part!

These statues made me feel better about the size of my bottom :)

We had lunch at Norma's
(liked their sign projected on the floor)

*My review of Norma's*

nice atmosphere

loved the free little smoothies

great service

HUGE portions, glad I shared with Mom!

After lunch we went back to the hotel and got our bags...
grabbed a couple of taxis and went our separate ways.
...my taxi ride to the bus was terrifying...I was so glad to get out of that car.

Anyway, it was a great little trip.
I loved spending time with my mom and my sisters. 
I really wish Jan had been able to come.
We want to do another trip in a couple of years and have our awesome sisters-in-law come too!

Hmm...I wonder where we should go next time...