Summer Fun!

Wow! Where did the summer go! It went so fast and I haven't posted anything on here for a while. So here goes.........................

On July 2nd, Cliff, Morgan, and myself took one of the most fun spontaneous trips I have ever done. What?.....it is the only spontaneous trip I have done. On the Thursday before the 4th of July, Cliff and I were out taking a walk in the morning before we had to leave for Twin Falls for a wedding. I asked Cliff what he wanted to do for the 4th of July. We usually go to Idaho Falls and see the fireworks at the river and spend time with the family. Well, to my surprise....Cliff said, "do you know what I really want to do?" and when I asked what, he said, "I want to go to the Redwood Forest" He said he has always wanted to see the Redwoods. And to my surprise, I said, "ok, lets go". So we woke Morgan up and told her we were going on a roadtrip and wanted to know if she wanted to go with us. She said yes, we showered and got ready for the wedding, packed a few things, and off to Twin Falls we went. After the wedding we headed for California. We caught up with Highway 101 in Arcarta, CA. We followed highway 101 up the coast into the Redwood Forest. Below are a few pictures and then I will continue the story of the roadtrip.....

Here we are somewhere in Nevada filling up with gas.

This is at the first beach and sign of the ocean that we came to in California.

Morgan and me. I was the only one that actually went down in the water. However, I didn't go very far in as you can see. My clothes are still dry.

We were driving along the road toward the Redwoods and came across Paul Bunyan and Babe. They were huge. As you can see Morgan and I are at the foot of Paul. There was someone inside him and he would talk to people and carry on a conversation with them as they walked by.

These trees are huge. As you drive through the scenic byway on Highway 101 you will see the really, really tall redwoods, but we had to ask at the information place where to go to see the big ones like the one Cliff and I are standing by. Those are in a place called, "Stout Grove" and you have to drive on a dirt road back in a ways and then they have a trail that you can walk through "stout grove" and see many huge trees. It was awesome.

Here's Morgan at the base of one.

Morgan and I climbed up into one of them. The climb up was ok, but the climb down was a little more tricky.

Just a fun picture in the middle of the Redwood Forest. HAHA!

Now for the rest of the story.......while driving through the Redwoods and looking at our Atlas, I found that Highway 101 goes right through Forks, WA for those of you who are "Twilight" fans. When I mentioned that to Morgan she got excited and said, "hey, lets go". Now realize that we are in California and Forks is at the very top of Washington in the pennisula part of the state, by the coast. Anyway, to our surprise, Cliff said, "ok, lets go" So we followed Highway 101 all the way up the coast through Oregon and Washington. We visited all the places of "Twilight". We went to Forks, LaPush beach, and Port Angeles. It was so, so fun. We were there on the 4th of July and it was way fun. Below are a few pictures.

This is Whale lookout. It was actually in California still and we hoped to see a whale, but didn't. We weren't patient enough to wait.

This is a huge, long bridge that takes you from Oregon into Washington. It crosses the Columbia River where the river flows into the ocean. You can't see it all from this picture. This is just the beginning of the bridge. If you want to see more of it you can go to my Facebook page and see more pictures of our trip.It was an amazing bridge.

Here are are in Forks. Morgan thought we were going to be the only tourists for Twilight in the town and much to her surprise, it was filled with twilight tourists and there were many twilight souvenir stores.

Here we are in front of the high school. The parade had just ended when we got there.

Here's Morgan trying to sneak in and steal Bella's man.

So now we are on our way to the LaPush beach. It looked just like it did in the movie.

We say this print on the beach. It was awesome. You Twilight fans, figure it out for yourselves. HAHA!!

Morgan and I on LaPush Beach.

There was a board called, "Bella's Board" at the LaPush store. People have lefts their messages on the board. So Morgan is leaving her message. There were two Russians guys sitting just to Morgan's left and they kept laughing at her while she was trying to find a place to leave her message. It was funny.

So, this was just to fun to pass up a picture. We are leaving LaPush and Morgan sees this red house and barn with a Red truck in front. She says it looks just like Jacob's place with Bella's red truck in front. So she makes Cliff turn around so we can take a picture. We had to drive into their driveway to get the picture and while doing it.....a car that had stopped after us to take a picture in front of the LaPush sign, sees us taking a picture of this house. So when we are done and leave, we pass them as they have turned around and they came back and stopped to take a picture of this house. It was pretty funny.

Here we are in Port Angeles. This is the only picture we took. We are standing by the Ferry Dock where you would ferry across to the canadian island. Can't think of the name right now. It left me, but the island off British Columbia. But you know which one I am talking about. Morgan was ticked because they had their parade in the evening and it was going right down the main drag and we couldn't find a singe place to stop and eat and we were starving by now.. It took us all night to find a decent place to eat and we ended up not eating until we got to Olympia, WA. That was quite a ways and it was night and now the fireworks were getting ready to start. So we finally found a place to eat and a place to sleep.

It was then that I got a phone call from my friend, Sherri.....who has a key to my house.....telling me that my basement was flooded from a huge hail storm that hit Pocatello the evening of the 4th of July. I guess it was a freak storm and I am still getting my house back to normal. We ended up having to tear out walls in three rooms and repaint and recarpet all of those rooms. right now I am finally in the process of painting and then we can get the carpet in and get the furniture all back in the basement. It has been a mess. And...........everyone in the neighborhood has had to replace their roofs from the hail damage and we are STILL waiting on our insurance company for our roof. It has to be replaced as well. Its a long story, but we also ended up having to tear out our cement patio in the backyard and have an excuvator come in and build up the foundation around my whole house. We put in a deck instead of replacing the cement patio. It is very nice, but WHOW! what I project we have had all summer now. I will post pictures when I am all done. I should have taken before and after pictures.


Anyway, back to our trip. So we left Olympia the next morning and drove up to Seattle because Morgan had never been there. We took her to the Space Needle and then we headed home to our diaster.

The three of us in front of the Space Needle.

The three of us at the top of the Space Needle.

Well, our very, very, fun spontaneous trip is over and now it is home to see what damage our house has taken on in the hail storm!!!

OK....I don't know how I got this picture in here again, but oh well.



NOW ON TO OUR NEXT VACATION.......PRIEST LAKE!! We had a great time and here are just a few pictures.

Roasting hotdogs over the fire.

Here's my dad. This was his first year up to Priest Lake without mother. It was tough on him, but we are glad that he came with us.

Amanda having fun on a slide there.

Jenna and me cooling off in the water.

Having ice cream across the lake after a boat ride.

This is London. This is such a cute picture. It was her first boat ride. She was laying on a towel under the front dash so that the sun would not be on her.

The water was so nice. This is me. Just wanted you to know that I can still do it at the age of 52.

Here's Jenna and grandpa letting her drive the boat.

This is such a cute picture of London with my neice, Mekelle.

Well, summer is over and it's back to everyday life. It was a great summer, but also a stressful one with my house in shambles.