Best Friend + 1st baby + I love to travel = Trip to Seattle

I went to Seattle over this past weekend to visit my best friend Sara who had her first baby in May. She has lived there for 3 years and this was my first visit out there. We had such a great time together and I miss her already :( They did a great job of showing me around Seattle. It is a well-rounded place that was close to mountains, beach/water, and a big city. One day when Harrison is older I can tell him that Aunt Amanda was on his first hike with him! Needless to say we ate a lot of seafood and visited coffee shops every day which I loved! Thanks for a great visit Sara and Bill!

Arizona Vacation

My work sent me to a conference in Arizona last week so we planned to make a mini-vacation out of it since at least I was going for free. Matt flew to Phoenix at the end of my conference and we headed up to the Grand Canyon. I was so glad to get away from the heat. It reached 114 degrees in Phoenix and the weather in northern Arizona was much more mild.

The Grand Canyon was the first stop and it is as breath-taking as people describe it. We had to make sure to stop several times and just take it all in. It is mind blowing to think of how that was all created way back when.

Our next stop was Monument Valley. This is located on a very large Indian Reservation at the Arizona/ Utah state line. They let you drive your own vehicle on a very rugged red dirt road path that circles around all of the monuments. This was a fun experience while driving around in our Cobalt rental. Matt treated the little car like it was a Jeep, which probably should have been required for some of these roads. (After the whole trip we were pretty sure we were going to have to tell the rental place that the car needed new tires, shocks, and a muffler.)

Our last stop was Sedona and this is by far the most beautiful place I have seen. I wish we would have prepared better for Sedona because there was a lot of hiking available and we only got one day in. The red rock country side is so amazing and spiritual to look at. It is very much a Hippie/New Age town. Many people have claimed to have a spiritual connection with this area and I understand that now. Apparently there are numerous vortexes throughout Sedona which are "high energy hot spots". The energy is masculine or feminine and not always felt by every one. We didn't really understand this concept but we would at least give it a shot. (read below)

Below is Cathedral Monument. This is one of the vortex spots that we hiked. They say there is no defined spot of energy, that it could happen anywhere along this area. We did not experience any energy spots probably because we were distracted by the intensity of this hike. I can officially say this was our first "unexpected" rock climbing experience. There is a trail at the base of this monument that we thought was the trail and that they made us stop at the base of the monument...........nope........ once we saw people at the top we realized you can climb straight up it and that's what we did! It was beautiful once we were at the top but of course the sun decided to come out full force and make the hike harder.

Terre Haute Family Cookout

This last weekend we had my family up for a cookout. Most of them haven't been to our house in almost two years and this seemed like the way to get them up here (all you Hautians reading....don't wait so long next time!!) Our little nephew and little cousin also came up and the boys had a great time running in our backyard. It was a great time with great food and great peeps.


Grandkids

(I hope we all look as great as G-ma when we are older)




Cousins

Siblings

Daddy & Son

The Chef

Mommy & Son

Yellowstone

Our vacation to Yellowstone was amazing and even though I have already e-mailed out my 500+ photos I felt this trip deserved a little narrative. We hiked a lot....I was shocked to learn that only 5% of the people who visit Yellowstone actually hike. I guess it's because there is so much to see on the ground level but I think the views from the mountain tops were the best.

Sepulcher Mountain
This is our first hike attempt. I call it an attempt because we weren't sure of the exact mileage starting out and before we reached the top we were already at 5 miles and we had to turn around and still go back 5 miles, so we didn't make it to the top of this one. (Day 1, we were just warming up)



This is a photo of the Grand Tetons which we were lucky enough to have time to drive down to these massive mountains. This park was just south of Yellowstone. We wished we would have allowed more time to hike the Tetons.

Bunsen Peak

This is the view from the top of Bunsen Peak. The elevation on this one was 8500ft. Can you see the itty bitty road with the parking lot.....that's where we started from.

Mt. Washburn

This hike is one of the most popular because it has an active fire tower at the top. It was 10, 200 ft.

Our tallest and most strenuous hike was Avalanche Peak which was 10,566 ft and straight up the mountain. It was very cloudy on that day and the pics weren't great enough to share but at least I can say we did it!

Yellowstone has it's own version of the Grand Canyon running through it with a huge waterfall. I could have stood here all day and watched it. This photo is used on many of the post cards for the park.

Also there are hot springs and geysers all over the place but here are just a few pics.

We saw an abundance of Bison and Elk. It was so nice to watch the animals in their natural habitat and not think of humans as their predators. I felt like we were just visiting in their world and as long as we kept our distance they didn't care. We also saw black bears, grizzlies, and a couple of wolves trying to attack the Bison.

We feel like we conquered Yellowstone and drove every square inch of it so we are glad to have this one down in our memories.

Built with Love

I came home from shopping and lunch with some girlfriends today and Matt said "I built you something". I now have a cute little flower box on our shed! It' s the little things in life that make me smile! Now I just need to think of some other things before the "handyman" wears off :)

Spring Project

Over the past two weekends we have been building a shed together. I'm sure our neighbors were thinking. "What the hell are those kids up to now?" One asked if we were building a boat house but I'm sure they were happy to see that we weren't "letting the neighborhood go". We've been wanting to do this for a while to clear some room in the garage. We had the perfect spot that we never utilized outside of our fence by the pond so it doesn't take away from our yard space. In 2 days we had the whole structure up and the 1st coat of paint on. I was a painting fool because we were racing against the rain. Now it is completely done and someone can't stop admiring his work. I am amazed at how fast we built this but it has been easier than our previous projects. It is an 8 x 12 and according to Matt we saved about $1500 by doing it ourselves so I'm satisfied.

The Man Cave

We are probably done with projects for this year because our summer trips are going to suck some money out of us. We leave for Yellowstone in 5 weeks and I can't wait to detach from society and explore a beautiful place with my favorite person!

Master Bath Remodel

So after 8 weeks we are done with our bathroom remodel. This has been our winter project and one heck of a learning experience. We gutted the whole bathroom, which only took 2 hours between the two of us. So now we have tile floors, a tile shower, new vanity and fixtures, double sinks and a glass shower door. I can take credit for the design and labor but Matt did all the great tile work and plumbing which was the tedious stuff. I'm so glad we can work well together in such a small space :)

Before

After Before After Before After Before

After
Before

After

Recently we needed a break from our construction zone so we went hiking to Whitewater State Park near Richmond, IN. Since Cody has been such a good sport with us taking over his "bedroom" during the remodel we wanted to spend some QT with him so he got to go hiking too.

Cody and Me after lunchtime.

My teddy bear being lazy while we slave away in the bathroom.