Giddy-Up Vacation '13

GIDDY UP!!  The Learish Family headed west this year!!  Man, did we pack in as much as we could!  We packed up the van and headed first to Estes Park, CO.  We rented a little cabin in the woods.  Our back yard had elk and bear wondering around and the front yard was the river!  There were other cabins scattered around so in the evening it was like your typical camp site.  All the kids were running around playing night games, while the adults chilled around a huge fire pit having a drink or two.  S'mores and live folk/mountain music also entertained our evenings.

 

 

 

We went fishing for trout and caught these three.  Plenty for dinner the next night!!

 

On one of several trips into the National Park we found our way to the Continental Divide.  We saw snow, elk, deer and some breathtaking beautiful scenery.

 

We rode a cable car to the top of a smaller mountain and did some more climbing, exploring and fed these little chipmunk like animals (yes, we were allowed to feed these animals).  Acacia took time each day complete the necessary research to become a junior park ranger!

 

Randy and the kids went fly fishing one morning.  They had to hike a bit to get to the river, wearing their hip waiters.

 

We went horseback riding in the mountains.

 

And this is the famous Stanley Hotel, where Steven King stayed while writing The Shining.  This is also where the movie was filmed!  Scary!

 

A day of whitewater rafting proved to be the highlighted activity for the family!! 

 

Lots of hiking and exploring.

 

After a week in Estes Park, we drove north to Cheyenne, WY.  While here we spend a day on the air force base for the open house.  We saw trained attack dog demonstrations and took tours of the missile launch sites.  This we VERY interesting for Randy and I and we spend several hours in a variety of buildings and bunkers.  All top secret, so no photos allowed.  But, Randy and Chris got to take part in a mach missile launch!!  After receiving the code and launch coordinates they fired off 10 missiles!

 

We bought the wristbands for the kids to ride the carnival rides endlessly for 4 days.  I guess they are starting to out grow this activity as they did not ride that many rides!  But, we wandered the carnival site, art fairs and various vendors selling their collectibles and unique creations.

 

We saw a buckin' bull show and the rodeo!

 

There was an Indian Village with dancing, Indian singing, drumming and flute playing. 

 

We saw Dwight Yoakum, Thompson Square and Luke Brian (and man was it raining).

 

After about 6 days in WY we packed up the car again and headed north to Custer Park, SD.

 

We went to Mt. Rushmore!

 

We drove through Needles Parkway.

 

And Custer State Park, where we were ambushed by a heard of bison.

 

On our way home we made a pit stop at Wall Drug and then on to the Bad Lands before driving through the night to arrive back home in Madison.

 

I can't even begin to share all the other things we did on this trip.  It truly was amazing and any part of it I would highly recommend to anyone!!  I can't wait to go back and see the tons of stuff we did not have time to see.  Also, we could not have asked for better weather.  Sunny, 80's - NO humidity and NO bugs what so ever!!  Just perfect!

 

Here is a link to see all our photos from this trip.

 

Click here to see a slideshow of all our Giddy Up vacation pictures!

Soccer Golf Acacia and friends '13

 

A local golf course has added soccer golf to their 9 hole golf course.  I took Acacia and a few of her friends for a round.  It was flipping hot as ever, humid and as it turned out, it was the beginning of my 5 week bought with Cyclospora (although I did not know this until 4.5 weeks later).

 

It's all in the technique!!

Chris' new TV '13

Chris has sold enough of his stuff to have the money to purchase his own TV!!  We spent a pretty long time in Best Buy debating over features and sizes.  At one point we were even going to sell Chris our plasma and then get a new BIGGER TV for us.  But, in the end, Chris picked the perfect TV.

Now, we have to get the old TV out of the basement.  This thing weighed a couple hundred pounds.  Randy asked that I help.  It was painfully obvious, I would not be able to assist with this task.  So the neighbor came over to help.

 

Here is Chris with his new TV.  I was 27 years old when I bought my first appliance, and it was a washer and dryer (and I split the cost with Randy).  Chris is 10.

Congrats to Chris!  We are very proud of his ability to save his money!

Randy paid dearly for a couple days with a bad back after getting the old TV out of the basement.  :(

Chris turns 10!! '13

Chris is in the double digits now!  His birthday is June 11th.  This year that fell on a Tuesday.  We had a little cake at the house after we had Chris' choices for dinner.  I asked him what he wanted for dinner since it was his birthday.  His reply .... "Croissants!"  OK - easy enough.  Croissants with what?  "dah ... butter."  

I can't even remember what we had but for sure we had croissants with butter!

The following Saturday we had a few of Chris' friends over for pizza, more cake, shooting off the water rocket and opening presents!!

Does this cake look familiar??  It should.  He wanted the exact same cake he had last year.

After all the cake and pizza was gone we packed up the van and the truck and headed to Legacy Academy. A HUGE indoor warehouse play gym.  It has everything.  This is exactly the same thing Chris did last year as well!  We rent the place out and can invite up to 80 people!  So, the invite list was his wrestling, soccer and baseball team, cub scout pack, after school class, regular 4th grade class friends and neighbors AND Acacia's soccer team and her friends.

Aside from a hurt pinkie finger and one bloody nose, it went well!!  Everyone just ran around and slugged each other with foam bats for 2 hours and then we were done!