Trip to Seattle - March 18-24, 2011

This past week Dennis and I had an incredibly fun vacation.  We left Idaho Falls about 1:00 pm and travelled until we made it to Coeur d'Alene.  We stayed at a Guesthouse Inn for $39.00 - it was small, but we were tired and didn't care how big it was.  We got up early the next day and traveled the rest of the way to Troy's house.  The weather was gorgeous so Troy and Laura took us and Travis's family to a little park near their house.  The sun was shinning and Hunter tossed tons of rocks into the water.

The next day we went to the Woodland Zoo - again the weather was bright and sunny.  Troy and Laura sitting on a Hippo!

Hunter with a big lizard.

 The bears put on a spectacular show for us.

 After the zoo we went up and had pizza with Deon and Donna - the girls liked looking at all of her spoons. The next day we went to the sea aquarium - as you can see Laura has the upper hand on Troy.

 All of us on the pier outside of the aquarium.

 The next day we went to the ocean - again we had wonderful sunshine - did I mention that the sun was shinning.  Here is Travis and Ryann with their little family with the ocean in the background - the girls loved combing the beach for shells.

 
 After spending a night and a day at the ocean we traveled up the road and found the oldest spruce tree in the world.

 After visiting the spruce tree we went to the rain forest further down the road and found this tree which was actually growing around the top of another tree - it was kinda of creepy.

Oh, such much to see in such a short amount of time, but I think Dennis and Hunter sum it all up.    Ah - all is well with the world!

Lizzie and the Osmond Family

Lizzie is one of the chosen few that will be getting help from the Osmond Family.  She is getting her hearing aids paid for by the Olive Osmond Hearing fund.  I am so glad that there are people in the world that see a need and go after it.  We are so thankful for the Osmond family and their incredible donation to help Lizzie hear again.  Here is the article that was written in the newspaper about it. (Justin was so cute with Lizzie)
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho -- Two local families stand in need and are getting help from a very famous family, and you can help, too. Four people in the two families live in a silent world. They need hearing aids to make their surroundings come alive, and those don't come cheaply. Enter Justin Osmond, founder of the Olive Osmond Perpetual Hearing Fund. Justin Osmond goes all over the world to raise money and fit children with hearing devices. His father, Merrill, who many know from The Osmonds, is kicking off his worldwide benefit concert tour in Idaho Falls. "Then all of a sudden you put these little hearing aids or these little devices on these little kids and they just light up like a Christmas tree,” Justin Osmond said. “They hear their mom's voice for the very first time. I mean it is so life-changing and when you see the change that is wrought in their life, it brings a change to yours, and that's why I'm doing this.”

The benefit concert is May 12 at the Colonial Theater in Idaho Falls and it will feature Merrill Osmond. Also a marathon is May 14. There will be a half marathon, a 10k and a 5k. (Lizzie will be there for both of these events! - I am not sure that she will actually participate in the Marathon considering she doesn't walk yet)
Oh, I forgot, Lizzie is getting fitted for her hearing aids tomorrow, March 14th.

Cabin Fever

It's still winter in Idaho.  I was getting cabin fever a couple of weekends ago and just had to get out and do something different.  Dennis had a Friday afternoon off, so we ate some lunch and just took off driving.  Dennis had heard about some herds of deer up by Swan Valley so we decided to head in that direction.  Before we hit Swan Valley we saw this road that took off to the right so off we went.  We thought there might be some cute winter cabins, but we didn't find any.  We just kept going up and up and up this mountain road.  Not another truck or car to be found and no place to turn around.  Finally we made it almost to the top of the mountain, but Dennis's truck would not make the final grade up the hill.  We backed down the road a couple of car lengths, put it in 4 wheel drive and gunned it up the hill - low and behold a house on top of the hill.  It was the most amazing view I had every seen - you could see 360 degrees around the entire valley.  I tried to capture the view in pictures - we were just unbelievable surprised at how beautiful it was - all that white, untouched snow.  Well, we stayed for a few minutes, but was not sure if it was private property so we decided to go back down the mountain. 

We continued our little adventure which took us to some old hot springs where Dennis had gone camping years earlier - however, the only way into the springs was by snowmobile or walking and we were not prepared to do either, but hopefully this summer we would like to return to that area and do some exploring.  We then headed over to Jackson to see if the Elk were around and then up the road to see the mountain goats.  It is always such a fun site to see wild animals so close to the roadside.  We drove over to the Visitor's Center to see what it looked like in the winter time and it was practically buried in the snow.  I did take one picture of the water running by with a small duck swimming in the water.  It was very scenic.  We also found some campground signs that we thought we might try to locate when the snow has melted.  Notice that Dennis is standing next to the side of the road (no coat of coarse, me bundled up) so you can see how how high the snow was piled up.

Well, we got a bite to eat and then headed home - it was a great day to go for a drive in the snowy mountains of Idaho and Jackson, Wyoming.  Oh, one thing that I forgot, we drove over by the ski hill to see the skiers night skiing and found this road next to the mountain and decided to take it - it took us underneath the ski hill and to these exclusive condo's - starting at $750,000 to just rent - WOW!