Trip highlights

I had high aspirations of writing down a day by day recap of the trip, but I think that would take me a solid week and bore most of you to tears!  So, here a few highlights:

1. The car ride-We drove together 3500 miles...1 way!  Fortunately, our rental had Sirius satelite, so I am proud to announce that my three children are now well versed in 80s top 40!  There was a little concern that there would be territorial disputes with only one back seat (we are used to the MV) but the only problem we had was that the kids had too much fun together.  VERY LOUD LAUGHING going on a few inches from Bryon's and my ears!  Some of my favorite moments with the family are in the car, and I wouldn't trade our cross country road trips for anything!

2. Jackson, WY- Eating an incredible breakfast on a chilly morning.  Nothing does it for me like a chilly morning, pancakes, and coffee.  Makes me ready for football season!

3. Hiking around Jenny Lake at Grand Teton National Park.  The kids did great on our 5 mile hike.  We encountered beautiful scenery, waterfalls, serene lakes, roaring rapids, wildlife, and that wonderful pine smell.

4. Old Faithful- This was our first stop in Yellowstone.  We were fortunate to see Old Faithful erupt 4 times on our trip!  On our second night, Bryon surprised me with a night stay in the famous Old Faithful Inn.  It was built in 1903, and it's primary purpose was to bring wealthy people back east, who weren't accustomed to camping out!  The details in the place are amazing!  There are columns in the lobby that were made out of local timber, that have grizzly bear scratches on them!

5. Lower Falls- This was a spectacular sight!  The whole scene didn't look real.  It is called Artist Point, because an artist, who was traveling with an expedition, said that the beauty of this place could not be translated to canvass.  We got a great look at the falls from far off, then drove to the brink of the falls for a better look.  After a very steep descent, we were standing on a platform overlooking the brink of the falls!  I had horrible mommy nightmares with my three kids looking over the edge of a 300 foot waterfall!  This was a very humbling, awe inspiring experience!

6. Wildlife tour- Most of our stay in Yellowstone was on the lower loop.  Do you know it takes two hours to get from the bottom to the top of Yellowstone?  Huge!  Most of the wildlife in Yellowstone hangs out in the upper loop, away from geysers and boiling mud.  We decided to take a Yellow bus tour to Lamar Valley, which is known for great wildlife at dawn and dusk.  We got to see a bull and cow moose, elk, a grizzly bear, two black bears (one of which was tearing the meat off a bison carcass!), deer, and sand hill cranes! What a fantastic experience!  On a side note, driving through Lamar Valley at dusk was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.  It must be what heaven looks like.

7. Olympic Peninsula, WA-  After a fabulous 2 1/2 day stay in Yellowstone, it was time to head to Seattle.  The drive through Montana was gorgeous.  I even  had a bald eagle fly right by my car window!  We got to Seattle late on Wednesday, and met up with my parents and my brother, who were all there to see my cousin get married that weekend.  On Thursday, my three boys decided to stay in Seattle.  They wanted to get laundry done (got a man, got a man, got a mighty good man!) and swim in the pool.  Mary Beth and I got up at the crack of dawn with my parents and brother and went to the Olympic Peninsula.  I had no idea that this is where Forks, Port Angeles, and La Push were located.  It was fun seeing signs for the three, and seeing the Twilight promotions everywhere.  It was so beautiful here, and I am itching to go back.  The sights and smells (think Pine Sol) were amazing.  The highlight of this day was heading up to Hurricane Ridge.  It looked exactly like what I imagine Austria looks like.  I heard tourists singing The Sound of Music everywhere!  I didn't think I would every see anything prettier than Lamar Valley, but Hurricane Ridge gives it a run for its money.

8. Touring Seattle with the family, Pikes Place Market, the first Starbucks, and the Space Needle. Also watching my sweet cousin, Colleen, get married.  I love cousin weddings!!  The wedding was beautiful and the reception was a blast!

9. Columbia River Gorge.  After reading Undaunted Courage, about the Lewis and Clark expedition, I have wanted to see this beautiful part of the country.  I was also excited to add Oregon to my "been there" list.  At 17, I had visited 45 states, and it took 17 more years to add a new one.  Only four more to go!  One of the highlights from this drive was seeing Multnomah Falls, an over 600 foot waterfall!  Also driving up to Mt. Hood and touring and eating at Timberline Lodge, whose exterior was used in The Shining.  This lodge was built during the depression in the works program established by Roosevelt.  Most of the workers were destitute, and were thrilled to have a job.  The love, care, and details that were put into this lodge were such a delight to see!  The kids also got to play in the snow, not our usual July activity!

10. Driving down the Oregon coast.  Seeing Ft. Clatsop, where Lewis and Clark ended their pursuit of the Pacific Ocean.  The boys worked hard here to earn a Junior Ranger badge, and they were sworn in as junior rangers in the museum!  The Pacific coast was beautiful.  Huge rock formations dot the coast. I loved seeing mountains to my left, and the ocean to my right.  We also got to see sunbathing sea lions on our drive home.

Well, that was the trip in a nutshell!  Other than some flight difficulties on the way home, the entire trip went off without a hitch!  I enjoyed spending lots of quality time with my little family.  The kids were good as gold.  I love their ages right now!  We love that we drove all the way to the Atlantic Ocean last year, and to the Pacific this year.  I wonder what we will do next summer? 

The pictures are up!

Vacation 2009

Fourth weekend

We had a fun and relaxing Fourth of July weekend!  Lots of errands were run and goodies were baked on Friday.  Saturday morning, we participated in our neighborhood's annual Fourth parade.  My parents were able to join us for the parade and a great barbeque dinner that evening.

Missing from our pictures was Matthew, who was having a great time with his church friends enjoying fireworks on a beautiful lake at camp.  We picked him up yesterday, and I let him know how much I missed him.  He smiled sheepishly and said, "Sometimes you are having too much fun to remember to miss your family!"  OK, that made me sad, but I was so happy that he had such a great first camp experience!

Thomas also lost two teeth this weekend: the two on either side of his two front teeth.  He couldn't believe that of all weeks for Matthew to go to camp, he missed the excitement of being there for the teeth losing!  What a shame!

A picture blog of our busy week!

This was quite an eventful week in our house!  We decided to do a few home improvement projects this summer, and the first one was to paint 3 rooms in our house.  We have lived here 3 years, and have left every room the same, neutral color.  After months of debate (green/red?  red/green?) , we went with green in our dining room!  

Our guest bath is mostly complete.  We have hand towels that are being embroidered for the towel rack, and I am going to spray paint the gold frame in the second picture, silver.

For the den, we decided on brown.  This will be transformed into our movie room this fall, and we wanted a darker color to help make the room more movie friendly!

On Sunday we drove near Houston to be with Bryon's mother for her 60th birthday.  My in laws are friends with a car dealer in Houston who has a car museum with hundreds of cars from the first cars to current ones.  All three of my boys were very impressed!  Matthew took over 200 pictures at the museum!

Here is Mimi with her 6 grandchildren:

Her four grand daughters:
And her three children:
And here is a car that retails for 2 million dollars!  I could think of a lot better ways to spend 2 million dollars!

This week was Baylor basketball camp.  Thomas went for 4 hours each day and learned more about one of his favorite games.  Five or six of our star players participated in the camp as well, and were so sweet with the kids!  In the first picture, the man on the left is one of our best players, Quincy Acy.  Our announcer at the games referred to him as "Quinnnncyyyyyy Aaaaaacyyyy!" in a very deep voice.  Mary Beth loves to copy the announcer and she did her impression for Quincy, which he loved!

The boys with Anthony Jones.
Matthew was star struck to meet Tweety Carter.  He just stared at him for the longest time and said, "So, how was it being in the NIT championship?"  It sort of reminded me of the Chris Farley sketch with Paul McCartney!  Tweety talked to Matthew for a long time, and I am so grateful that these players were so kind to some of their biggest fans!
Thomas making his 10 foot shot!
Matthew has been looking forward to going to church camp for the past two years.  The kids are gone for 5 days.  I love seeing him so excited!  He packed everything himself, and got a huge grin on his face when he talked about camp.  I am so excited to hear how things went, and I find myself wondering what his is doing often during the day.  

A few days before he left, we said something like we would miss him over the Fourth of July.  Once Thomas heard he was going to be gone over the holiday, he burst into tears not wanting his brother to be gone.  It was such a sweet moment, and it is nice to know how much Thomas looks up to Matthew.  Thomas was very teary the day he left, but we assured him we would have lots of fun with him being the oldest Barnhill kid in the house!

Matthew joking asked if his large back pack made his bottom look big!

After we dropped off Matthew, we headed up to Arlington to watch our number #2 Rangers play the #1 ranked LA Angels with some of Thomas's friends from his baseball team.  Before the game, Thomas and Mary Beth got to meet Elvis Andrews (who had stolen 4 bases the night before) and Darren O'Day, who is one of the pitchers.

Thomas got quite the rep on his baseball team for taking his shirt off in practice.  He thought it made him run faster, and cooled him down.  The child is very proud of his burly physique, and the kids always cheered when he took his shirt off!  It came as no surprise that midway though the game, the shirt came off and lots of belly rolls insued.  Sweet Thomas makes me laugh constantly!

Also, midway though the game, Mary Beth became quite bored!  I think I heard the most dramatic, "I'm BORED!!" 30 times.  She then said, "I DEFINITELY love God more than baseball players!"  Good to know, Dear.  Once Hank Blalock hit a homerun and the fireworks blasted, she became the worlds biggest Rangers fan, and screamed, "Hit a home run!" before each batter!  She got to see one more fireworks display when Blalock hit his second walk off home run!  What a fun game!

Thomas is doing the "Byrd" before Marlon Byrd went up to bat.  All the fans "flap their wings" for one of our star players!

Thomas and his friend Zachary, who rode up with us to the game.

"Yeah for fire works!"

Another exciting event this week was Mary Beth's swimming lessons.  Mary Beth is a lot like me, and is very easily motivated by presents! ;)  It was so important to me that she learn how to swim without floaties, that I told her she could pick out any toy at Toys R Us if she learned how to swim this week.  In three days, she went from not wanting to stick her head in to swimming!  As soon as she touched the other side of the pool, she squealed, "TOY!"  She now has a new Disney Princess tent!  Money well spent!

Always stopping to pose at the other end of the pool!  What a ham!