Hold your horses!

We had a big day. We started in Wyoming and were in Ft. Collins, CO for lunch. This was exciting for a few reasons. 1) Tom and I had never seen the CSU campus. 2) Our good friend Steph Mills is an alumna and has always told us how cool it is. 3) There is nothing like a college town in the summer. Relaxed, lots of parking, and nice weather! We had lunch at a local favorite (thanks to Steph's last minute suggestion) called Avogadro's Number. It was delicious. We ate outside in the beautiful 80 degree day and the kids played in the sweet tree house while we waited on our food.

After lunch we headed to the campus (after a stop at the bookstore for a fancy new green t-shirt!) We hung out in "The Oval" and soaked in the weather a little more before we hopped back in the car.

Our final destination for today was Burlington, CO (way out in the eastern part of the state on I-70) and the Kit Carson County Carousel! I know this is a crazy thing to get excited about, but I think it is really cool. This is one of the oldest, operating, hand-carved carousels in the country. I felt like 1920 called just standing there looking at it!! As you can imagine, Lilly was really excited for the ride (and she wasn't alone). Tom and Nora rode in a sleigh. Lilly chose a zebra. Garrett saddled up on a tiger and I chose the burro!!

I think we can all agree that it was fun. It is possible that it was startlingly fast for all of us! The idea of spinning around on a huge, 108 year old, wood and iron frisbee at 12 mph might have detoured me, but I'm so glad we did it. It was really fun! After we left we stopped by City Park (that's the only city park, in case you wondered) and played on their enormously awesome play structure for a while. While we were at the park Ms. Nora decided the time had come for her to sit up like a big girl!! I excitedly took a picture. I apologize for the quality, there wasn't a ton of time to focus! :)

The title for tonight's blog came from Lilly again. She was so excited as we were driving through town for the carousel. She was asking about all the animals that she would be able to choose from and decided to go with "HOLD YOUR HORSES!!" She could never have known that she really would have to hold on so tight! Lastly I'd like to boast about our License Plate Game stats... 45/50 states seen; 4 Canadian provinces!

The Great Sugar Lake

Today we got up early and were in the Salt Lake City area by lunchtime. We grabbed some sandwiches and headed for Antelope Island State Park. Antelope Island is just off the eastern shore of the Great Salt Lake. It is gorgeous and fairly convenient to the highway. As we sat under a shelter at the beach eating our lunch Lilly said, "Is this a Great Salt Lake or a Great Sugar Lake (big crooked, cheesy grin)?" I'm sure she wished for the latter! We had a really nice time picnicing and enjoying the peaceful solitude of this ecological marvel. Here are a few shots...

The kids have done really well. Nora lost it for a little bit prior to our break at Antelope Island. We arrived in Rock Springs, WY chipper and ready for a nice swim. Some pizza and (more) watermelon in our bellies helped too!

The Great Watermelon Boondoggle

This morning we picked Garrett up early and headed south with Boise on our mind. The kids were so great. The morning was quiet with drawing, coloring, and lots of movie watching. It was really nice to have our whole family together and away from home. The traffic was light and before we knew it we were in SW Washington enjoying the arid scenery.

Just before lunch, we crossed back into Oregon (out east) and noticed Hermiston, OR (AKA Watermelon Mecca) was the first city we came upon. Our kids love watermelon... in a way that exceeds normal admiration of a seasonal fruit. Our dog even loves watermelon. So we decided to detour (about 10 miles round trip) to Hermiston to eat lunch and capture a fresh Hermiston watermelon. We also needed fuel. We got to Hermiston's business district, found food, and gas quickly and set about the task of finding our prized melon. Not having seen any or any mention of them in town (although we did notice the proud display of watermelon on the water tower), I suggested we detour to Safeway. "Surely, they are selling them. They are selling them in our Safeway in Portland." Hum, well I didn't dig through the pile of very green melons, but I immediately noticed they were from a farm in (*GASP*) Cal-i-forn-i-ah (read in Governator voice)!! I left Safeway dismayed. (You may have noticed my Facebook comment) We drove out of Hermiston broken-hearted and the watermelon water tower chuckled at us as we passed.

We were disappoint to say the least but then just out of town what to our wondering eyes should appear but a farm stand with... YOU GUESSED IT! Beautiful, round, delicious Hermiston watermelons! I chose a fairly large one... 22 lbs to be exact. The women charged me $9.04 (which I figure works out to about $0.18/pound). Tom thought this was a little large.

Lilly thought our new friend needed to be safely restrained for the rest of our trip.

The women at the farm stand also gave us these awesome little watermelon candies! It was a great stop!!

As I sit here, I'm enjoying our watermelon... it was well worth the boondoggle!

I'll just put 'er over here Clark!!

Well, he's no Cousin Eddie but there is some Griswold-esk quality to this set up! Here are a few pictures of the packing and our trip down along with Lilly showing off the "Big Trip" map we made for her to show her friends at school. She thought we drove from about Oklahoma to Washington today... boy do we have news for her!

I was feeling like our set up was a little too Griswold, until I saw this guy!

We spent tonight in Everett, WA with our good friends the Jennings' and their two beautiful boys. Lilly and Elliott were excited to spend the evening together eating pizza and playing in Elliott's new playroom. Nora and Henry (11 weeks) were a little more chill, but we could tell they were happy to see each other. We sure were happy to meet Henry and see the rest of the family!!

We're really doing it Harry....

Here goes! I have decided to fire the blog back up (after a two year, law school induced hiatus) for our Great American Adventure! I'm anticipating frequent posts and lots of pictures, so stay tuned!! 

FLA Vacation 2011

We did it! We swam, fished, ate, and Mickey Mouse'd our way around Florida for 12 days! We had a ton of fun (all captured in the pictures below) and got to see extended family from Tampa, Orlando, Iowa and Oklahoma! It was busy, but we wouldn't trade it for the world!! Garrett asked this morning (we've barely been home two days) when we are planning to go back! I think that's a sign of a successful vacation! Much love to everyone that we got to see and we promise to meet up with those that we missed next time!!

Memorial Day Weekend!

We had a blast this last weekend up in Blaine, WA! The weather (finally) co-operated and we got 3 beautiful days to play. Wendy, Chris, Vivian and Chris' brother, Anthony, met us there. Here are some of the pictures!! I also put a few shots of Garrett and Tom at the CG base on Take Your Child To Work Day in late April and our visit to Fort Vancouver National Historic Site at the beginning of May.

Enjoy!