How could I have forgotten?

It seems that I failed to include some of the most important pictures of the pool -- the pool decorations!!! So here is one of the "Tacky Tikis".

It's hard to get the full effect from a picture, but you don't want to miss the lights and smoke. Be sure to check them out at the Kissinger Pool!

Posted in: on Sunday, July 29, 2007 at at 9:48 AM 1 comments  

My parents' pool

The day has finally come......my parents' pool has water in it and you can actually swim in it!!!! I (and a lot of other people I'm sure) were starting to wonder if this day would ever come!! It looks great and was hopefully worth the wait. I think my mom is probably in it as I post this. The doctor gave her the okay this morning to go swimming, so she's wasting no time!! : ) Here's a few of the pictures I have of the process!




















So when's the pool party?????



Posted in: on Thursday, July 26, 2007 at at 4:26 PM 6 comments  

Great day!!

After much fretting and Bret having to finally do the labor for the "installers" we finally have high-speed satellite internet. Yea!!!! I'm so excited. Now when I open my blog pictures actually pop up, not just boxes where pictures will eventually be in goodness-knows-how-many minutes! And if that weren't enough excitement.....Adam then went to the bathroom in the potty!!! #1 and #2!!!! Happy days!!!! I thought it would never happen. Not that he's happy to do a repeat performance anytime soon, but at least it's a step in the right direction. What a day! : )

Posted in: on Sunday, July 22, 2007 at at 4:27 PM 0 comments  

Doing well

Just thought I'd let everyone know that my thyroid surgery went well. I guess it took a little while longer than anticipated because of the size of the gland and blood vessels around it. The anesthesia left me extremely nauseous so that wasn't much fun. The nausea medication then knocked me out, so I wasn't good company!!! I came home yesterday. Here's a picture of me with my bandage on. The incision is actually lower than I thought it would be.



I got to take the bandage off today and take a shower! That felt great. Besides being a little hoarse I'm doing great! I'll keep you updated!

Posted in: on Friday, July 20, 2007 at at 1:30 PM 3 comments  

4th of July

Since my parents are no longer having their annual 4th of July party we actually had to come up with something else to do this year!!! We had friends over for swimming (which kind of felt like we were at my parents' since we have their old pool now!!!).










Then we went to Bret's dad's house for dinner, followed by fireworks in Auburn. I have a new camera so I had to play around with taking pictures of the fireworks. There is actually a "fireworks" setting on my camera, so this is what I got. Kind of cool.













Hope everyone had a great 4th as well!! Who knows what our plan will be next year!?

Posted in: on Tuesday, July 10, 2007 at at 9:16 PM 2 comments  

Alaska cruise

Our cruise was fantastic. Wow - Alaska is absolutely beautiful. I'm so glad we went with the room with a balcony. It was totally worth it. Our ship is down below docked in Seattle. Our room was on the top floor that you see with balconies, the second one from the front.

After we left Seattle we spent a day at sea on our way to Ketchican. We signed up for our excursions, learned our way around the ship, wrote a postcard to the kids, and of course ate! When we got to Ketchican we didn't get to dock. I guess only 3 cruise ships can dock at a time, so they rotate who gets to pull up to the dock. That week our ship had to anchor out in the water and boat people to shore. It was kind of cool though. Once we got on shore we took a bus to the forest and went on a zipline course. There were 7 ziplines and 3 suspension bridges between 80 and 120 feet above the ground. On the longest zipline, they said you could get going about 35 mph. It was kind of freaky, but I did it!! One of the girls in our group bailed. She made it through 2 on the ziplines and was done. They had to lower her down to the ground (which actually looked scarier to me than going along the ziplines themselves, but oh well!). Here I am in all the gear you have to wear and then going down one of the ziplines.




From Ketchican we headed to Juneau. We were one of the first groups off the ship that day and one of the last to get back on. It was great. First we headed to Mendenhall Glacier. It was pretty cool, especially since it had recently calved and the snow left behind looks bright blue. There is a trail you can hike that warns about bear encounters, so we promptly headed off there to see if we could find one!!! We did finally find one right back at the parking lot!!! Go figure. Anyway, it was up in a tree filling itself full of berries and leaves. It was about a year and a half old, so not full-grown. It was pretty entertaining to watch. It was sitting on this teeny little branch just ripping leaves and branches off of this poor tree! I got to see a bear though, so I was very excited.







From the glacier we then went whale watching, and we got the absolute best tour we could ever hope for. First off, the weather was great. The entire week actually was beautiful. We never had rain even once. How we got so lucky, I don't know, but I'm not complaining!!! We started off on our tour and came across a pod of transient orca whales. They said it was not real common to see them, so we hung around and watched them for a while.



Then we went a little farther and came across a group of humpback whales. First we saw their sprays and tails coming out of the water. Then they got closer and closer. From what they told us, they usually feed on their own. However they will sometimes come together to "bubble feed". They start rounding up the fish and blow bubbles up underneath them. This confuses the fish, so they huddle together in a big "bait ball". The whales all then come up together with mouths open and swallow all the fish. The were actually doing this right under our boat and the water around us started churning with bubbles. It was somewhat disconcerting. Then they all emerged from the water with mouths open right off the bow of our boat. It was absolutely amazing!!!! The picture of course doesn't do it justice. It was so cool though. People were just in shock that this had happened. It was an amazing trip!!!




Next we went to Skagway. We didn't do any excursions so we actually got to finally walk around town and do a little shopping. It's a cute little town with wooden sidewalks and of course totem poles. You can walk the whole thing in about 10 minutes, so we passed the rest of our time at the world-famous Red Onion Saloon. That was entertaining and we met some really neat people next to us who were actually on our ship as well.

Once we left Skagway, we made our way up the Tracy Arm fjord to see Sawyer Glacier. It was a beautiful ride through there. I have tons of pictures of the scenery - waterfalls, floating ice chunks, etc. That was one of the best reasons for having a balcony. The upstairs balconies on the ship were so packed with people you couldn't see anything, so we went to our room and had an undisturbed view of everything!! However, the one downfall of having had all that nice, warm weather was that the glacier calved quite a bit. The water was so full of ice when we got close that we couldn't actually make it all the way to the glacier. That was disappointing since that was one of the main reasons I had booked that particular cruise. It made me especially thankful that we had done the excursion to Mendenhall.
We saw lots of bald eagles along the way, but I was especially happy with this picture. Between the boat and the bird moving, it's hard to get a good shot. I was thrilled with this one though.From there the ship docked at Prince Rupert, Canada. We were only there from 5 - 10 p.m. and since it was our anniversary, we stayed on the ship and had a nice dinner. We didn't feel like battling our way off the ship with 2000 other people anyway, so it was nice and quiet onboard. Finally, we headed back to Seattle. We did one last tour in Seattle before going to the airport to fly home. We took a tour through the city by bus and then went to the Space Needle. What a great view. I really enjoyed Seattle. It's a beautiful city. I'd love to go back when I can stay longer.


It was a great trip, but it was nice to be home (especially after having just gotten back from our other trip!!!). It's amazing how much changes in just one week - the chicks grew, the tomato plants grew, the kids grew!!! Now reality sets in and it's back to the grind!! : )

Posted in: on Thursday, July 05, 2007 at at 1:56 PM 4 comments  

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