2018 Blue Jeans Week 22

Finally catching up!  And our last few days of vacation were this week and then we got back to "normal" life--whatever that means.  "Re-entry"--what I call returning to life after vacation-- is always sort of rough, but we sure enjoyed out time together as a family.  Take a look at our last week. . .

Spent a fun day in Gatlinburg, Tennessee! And Yes, we did see two black bears during our time in the park!  Pretty impressive!

Enjoyed some amazing Southern food at Paula Deen's restaurant in Pigeon Forge, TN.  So good!!!

Spent a fun down down by the River Bottoms in the park.

Hiked up to an old school house which was a short mile hike round trip, but as we were leaving the school house it started pouring rain!  We were so soaked by the time we got back to the car!  The longest half mile ever! 

And one last look at the beautiful Smokies before we head home....

Got home and Miss O had her seminary graduation.  Seminary is an early morning (6 a.m.) scripture study class that our church has for all high schoolers.  Miss O has gone all 4 years--every day she has school she has 6 a.m. seminary!  Way to go Miss O!!!  We are proud of you!

In the summer my kids enjoy cooking and doing creative things in the kitchen.  First summer kitchen project was decorating cupcakes.  Miss E got some cool new piping tips--Russian piping tips--and enjoyed trying them out.  Looks pretty impressive to me!

Thanks for catching up on us!  Hope you are well and have a great week!

2018 Blue Jeans Week 21

Continuing our vacation at Great Smoky Mountains National Park....

Hiked to Grotto Falls today....so pretty!

The Smoky Mountains

We hiked about 8 miles on the Appalachian trail.  Miss E thought the Maine destination looked good :)  

Clingman's Dome which is the highest point in the park.  You can drive up there and then take a steep half mile hike to this lookout.  It was pretty impressive!

Hiking along the Appalachian trail was so beautiful, but it was also a pretty tough hike!

We hiked along the Appalachian trail to Charlie's Bunion which was the beautiful rock cliff.  You could see forever!  So beautiful.  It was a full 8 miles out and back which was the longest hike we have ever done so far as a family.  We have done a lot of shorter ones, but this was our longest. We were all very sore and tired, but proud of ourselves!

And this boy had a birthday while we were there!  Happy 13th birthday Mr J!

There is a ski resort in the area that has an alpine slide and Mountain roller coaster which we enjoyed one day.  

More pictures coming.....getting caught up....thanks for visiting!

2018 Blue Jeans Week 20

So I am totally playing catch-up again....we had graduation and then school got out for the other kids, and then we left on vacation, so I am just getting caught up here on the blog...This week was the last few days of school for Mr J and Miss E, and then we headed on vacation to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  Pretty awesome.  Take a look. . .

We so LOVED having Ben's Mom and Dad here for graduation!  Ben and his wonderful Mom.  So awesome to have her here on Mother's day!  She is an amazing Mom!!!

A picture of my flowers right now.  All the iris are in bloom and so pretty.  It was nice to have these out for the graduation party!

Miss E and I celebrating her being done with school!  She will be my lone high school-er next year!

Got in one final Girls' Lunch Out before school got out for the summer.  We take a break for the summer, but start up in August as soon as school starts. Sure love these amazing friends of mine!

Last band concert was this week for middle school.  Mr J had a solo in the jazz band.  He did awesome!

And then school got out and we packed up the car and headed on vacation!!!!  We planned it early to accommodate every one's summer work schedules.  All 3 girls are working full-time this summer, so this was the best time to go.  We have always wanted to visit the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  We love National Parks, and this one did not disappoint!

Our first full day there we went on this beautiful hike to the Laurel Falls waterfall.  So pretty!  It is so green there and so many TALL trees!

This is the cabin we rented for the week we were there.  The picture really doesn't to it justice, but the driveway was SCARY STEEP!  The cabin was wonderful, though!  We sure loved the remote and quiet location, but still just a short drive to town.

Thanks for visiting!  More vacation pictures coming!

2016 Blue Jeans Week 30--vacation!

We are the type of people that like very relaxing, low-key, get-away-from-it-all vacations.  So this summer we did a glorious week at a cabin in CO elevation of 10,000 feet.  The highs were 70, the lows in the 40's-50's.  It was glorious.  We told the kids no electronics were allowed, and we didn't have service where we were anyway, so it didn't matter.  We had a great week being together as we prepare to take our oldest to college in a few weeks.  Ugh.  but that is a rather depressing thought right now, so we are just going to focus on the great vacation we had.   Take a look.. . .

We had a wonderful kitchen in the cabin and we planned very easy, quick yummy meals.  We were so excited when we went to a near-by grocery store and they had Dunford chocolate cake donuts covered in chocolate icing.  My grandma always had these when we came to visit when I was growing up, and they are divine!  They are made in Utah and we were so surprised but super excited to find them in the mountains of CO!  We sure enjoyed these for breakfast!!!  If you ever see them at a store, buy them!!!  They are sooooo good!

Went to a small church up in the mountains and enjoyed this gorgeous view!!!

Did some early morning fishing.  Didn't catch anything, but still fun.

Did lots of hiking at different places each day.  Today we went around a mountain lake that was ice cold and gorgeous!

Burr!!!

And we even found snow up there!  That was exciting!

More hiking. . .

Finding beaver dams

My favorite thing about the vacation--the big front porch and reading--in my hoodie no less!  Love it!

Exploring different mountain streams

Throwing rocks into lakes

And then blowing out 2 tires--(they are on the other side) way up in the canyon miles away from anything. . .having to get towed and 2 new tires.  Not on the agenda for that day, but it sure was exciting :) ha, we just kept saying "everyone is fine.  No one is hurt.  It is fixable and we can pay for it."  Counting our blessings :)

With the car in the shop for a day waiting for new tires we sure enjoyed the cabin and playing games together.  Spot it was a favorite.  Did lots of puzzles too.  

And more hikes---lots of fun!!!!

So enjoyed our time together.  Getting back to real life is hard especially with that college starting looming before us.  Just a few weeks before our oldest leaves the nest.  Oh my.  But we sure enjoyed the time we had together!  Making memories!!  

Thanks for visiting!!

Vacation Review--Yellowstone National Park

So let me preface this by saying Yellowstone is huge--like really, really huge.  90% of the people that visit Yellowstone (and there are a lot of people that visit it) only see 5% of the park.  That said, we saw about 1% in our short time there.  I wish we could have stayed longer, but we just didn't have the time.  We hope to go back some day, and actually stay in Yellowstone.  That is the way to really see it--stay in the park.  That is also not the easiest thing to do.  Their rooms/lodges/cabins get reserved about a year in advance.  I checked 6 months before we were going to be there and couldn't find anything.  So, Yellowstone is definitely a plan ahead kind of trip.  I think if you want to camp, it is a little easier and some places are first come first served, but we (meaning me) did not want to camp.  So not my thing :)  So here is a look at a little, tiny bit of the Amazing Yellowstone National Park. . .

There are geysers and hot water springs everywhere.  This was near Yellowstone Lake

These pools are extremely deep in the center and very, very hot

Of course you have to see Old Faithful--it is over Miss O shoulder and not erupting at the moment or anytime soon because there aren't thousands of people waiting to see it.

This is the landscape around Old Faithful--awesome, like a science fiction movie or something.  

And here we are with thousands of others waiting for Old Faithful to go off.  Yes, it was raining and cold.  And yes Yellowstone is pretty crowded, but it was definitely not as bad as we had heard such as back to back traffic and such.  We didn't run into that at all.  We got around really easily, but there are a lot of people there, and, as with almost any National Park, English is not the main language you hear.  Lots of people from lots of different counties are there which is cool.  Did you know National Parks are truly an American idea?  And Yellowstone is the first ever National Park.  My kids had fun trying to figure out what languages everyone else was speaking.

Old Faithful erupting--a pretty amazing sight.  It needs to be on your bucket list :)

Yellowstone also has its own Grand Canyon and 2 amazing water falls.  This was the lower falls.  

And then the landscape is just so neat and so varied--you have areas like this, the lakes, meadows, mountains, plains, and there are a lot of animals.  We saw lots and lots of buffalo, deer, elk, a coyote and many others.

This area was neat with the runoff into the river.

This was the Dragon's cave

And Mr J was excited about the mud pots

The wildflowers were gorgeous!!!

And then just as we were leaving the park we saw this. . .a grizzly bear

A real, live, in the wild grizzly bear.  That was cool.  We obviously weren't very close to it, and we didn't try to feed it (you will need to obey all the "Do not feed the bears" and other animals signs while there) but it was truly amazing to see.  Such a fun trip and a great way to leave the park!!!  We hope to get back someday!