• Travel

    Mountain West Trip: Denver, CO

    June 23, 2020 - By 

    Thank you for following along on our Mountain West Trip. This is the last post for this trip. Today I am talking about what we did the last day in half, all of which was spent in and around Denver, CO. We had a few things on our list for Denver. First two things were Denver Mint and Coors Brewing Company. The Denver Mint wasn’t doing tours that day for some reason, so we headed over to Coors Brewing Company for a tour. It’s $10 for non-Colorado residents ($5 if you live in CO) and it includes a full tour,…

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    Mountain West Trip: Roadtrip from Vernal, UT to Denver, CO

    June 16, 2020 - By 

    Today we’re continuing on our Mountain West Trip that I’ve been sharing. Click >>> Mountain West Trip 2019 Posts to see more from this trip. As we drove through Vernal, I snapped a few more pics as we headed to Jenson, UT. Our first stop was Dinosaur National Monument. Since the boys are older, they weren’t super thrilled about it. I enjoyed it, because the teacher in me still geeks out over this kind of fun stuff. Exhibits at the Quarry Visitor Center introduce the variety of resources and places to explore within the monument. The Quarry Visitor Center is…

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    Mountain West Trip: Roadtrip from Jackson, WY to Vernal, UT

    June 9, 2020 - By 

    Today we’re continuing on our Mountain West Trip that I’ve been sharing. Click >>> Mountain West Trip 2019 Posts to see more about this trip. We got up, loaded the car, grabbed some hotel breakfast, and headed out for more open road! Not long after that we passed this sign that said Auburn, WY. Since we’re from Auburn, AL, we’re always interested when we see other states with towns called Auburn. It was hardly a town with a population of less that 400 people in the 2010 census. The first settlement in Auburn, WY was made in 1879. The bottom…

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    Mountain West Trip:Grand Tetons & Jackson Hole

    June 2, 2020 - By 

    Today I’m continuing on with another post about our Mountain West Trip. If you remember we left off on our Part 2 from Yellowstone. That night we stayed at the Head Waters Lodge at Flagstaff. This was a cabin like room with all the amenities you need except TV and internet. We did have a little bit of a walk from our car to our cabin, but there are sidewalks and luggage carts to help you lug all your stuff to your cabin. After a very hard sleep, we woke up and loaded the car back up and walked over…

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    Mountain West Trip:Day in Yellowstone-Part 2

    May 3, 2020 - By 

    If you missed my 1st post about Yellowstone click>>>>Mountain West Trip:Day in Yellowstone-Part 1 Part 1 is highlighted in Yellow. Part 2 is in Blue. Click map to see larger view. You can click again to zoom in even more. (Original Map Courtesy of https://yellowstone.net/) The next area we hit was Fountain Paint Pots Trail (map). This boardwalk is about a half mile (.8 km) walking loop. Some of the highlights of this area include: Silex Spring Silex is Latin for silica, which is a major component of rhyolite (extrusive igneous rock), Yellowstone’s most common volcanic rock. The clear blue…

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    Mountain West Trip:Day in Yellowstone-Part 1

    May 2, 2020 - By 

    If you missed my first few posts from our Mountain West Trip you can see those listed here. This post is from the 1st half of our epic day in Yellowstone with so many amazing sights, which means so many pictures to share. From traffic jams caused by bison crossing the road to geysers and hot springs. In this post, I’ve added some GPS coordinates and linked them to Google Maps. I kinda wished I’d done that previous travel posts, but never thought it would be that important. My Canon EOS 6D DSLR Camera has a built in GPS which…

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    Mountain West Trip:Wyoming Road Trip

    February 28, 2020 - By 

    This post is continuation of our big Mountain West Trip we did. Here’s the first post in case you missed it>>>Mountain West Trip – Colorado Springs We got up that morning and checked out of our hotel in Castle Rock and headed to Wyoming, with romantic country music sang by a good Romantic country music songwriter playing in our car for a fun trip! Our final destination for that day was Casper, WY, where Drew has been since May. While I was so anxious to see him, I was excited to see more of Wyoming and explore it a little…

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    Pacific NorthWest Trip Page

    January 22, 2020 - By 

    This is the landing page for our Pacific Northwest Trip, where we traveled the Washington Coast, Seattle, Part of the Oregon Coast, Cannon Beach, Ecola State Park, Portland, and more! (Click on any of the pics below to see related post.)

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    Pacific NW Trip: Grand Floral Parade & More

    January 19, 2020 - By 

    When planning this trip and knowing that the Rose Festival would be going on we structured it so we’d be in Portland at the right time. We decided that since we were here during the Grand Floral Parade that we needed to go. I was glad we did. It was also Fleet Week, which is always a sight to see. We were hoping to get over to ships after the parade to get a tour of one of the US Naval Ships but we missed it by a few minutes. So instead we walked up to the near by bridge…

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    Pacific NW Trip: Exploring Oregon Coast

    December 20, 2019 - By 

    In this post, I’m continuing to share about trip to the Pacific Northwest. This is the day we spent on the Oregon Coast, which is always my favorite. We first drove out to Cannon Beach. There’s several lots where you can park for a small fee as well as free street parking, which is what we ended up doing. After we parked we looked up on the internet to see when low tide was, because if you want to look for sea urchins and star fish you need to plan ahead. Luckily for us, low tide was about to occur…

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    Gatlinburg Fun & Soccer Tourney

    December 13, 2019 - By 

    In early December we headed off to Gatlinburg for a soccer tournament. Follow your team’s journey with the detailed match reports by SportScore. Friday Friday we worked half a day and then went and check Alex out of school. Came home and loaded the car and picked up #5 to try and make it to Gatlinburg in time for their Christmas Parade. Our friends, the Farrows were there with their younger son, so we met up with them at the parade. Here I am with Julia. I loved that they had a car that looked like the one from Christmas…

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    Pacific NW Trip: UW Tour & Mt. Rainier NP

    December 11, 2019 - By 

    University of Washington Tour The last day in Seattle began with a tour of the University of Washington that was done for the conference attendees and their families. Walking the campus, I loved the mixture of —style and new modern buildings. Here you see Gerberding Hall (GRB) on the right and Suzzallo Library, which are both Collegiate Gothic style of architecture that is so beautiful. This library is probably the most iconic building on campus. This is the Graduate Reading Room, which takes up the entire western side of the library at 250 ft.long, 52 ft. wide, with a 65-ft.…

  • Life

    The Weekly [11.18-12.1.2019]

    December 2, 2019 - By 

    There wasn’t much going on the 18th-24th, so I decided to combine the 2 weeks for this week’s weekly. PICS We enjoyed watching Drew sing with AU Cappella the week before last. This is a pic of the group after the concert. Here’s one of Drew’s solos “Billionaire” by Bruno Mars. Pictures 1-7 are from Thanksgiving weekend. 1: Here’s Drew and Grampa discussing business related to Drew’s Marketing Business major. 2: Wednesday before Thanksgiving, we enjoyed homemade Cavatelli with Meatballs. So yum! 3: That night we went to Wesley Chapel, FL for a Soul Circus Cowboys concert. Rob’s Uncle Mike…

  • Life

    The Weekly [11.11-17.19]

    November 18, 2019 - By 

    PICS 1: The Auburn University Marching Band (AUMB) along with the Auburn Wind Symphony band performed at the new performing arts center. It was amazing to see 300+ band members on the stage. My son Drew is not in the AUMB this year, but we still enjoyed supporting the bands. 2: It got really cold last week, really fast! Lows in the 20’s, highs in the 40’s. Then it warmed back up a bit. 3: I laugh so hard anytime Rob is sitting on the couch and the cat jumps up there and crawls in his lap. It’s funny because…

  • Life

    The Weekly [11.1-10.19]

    November 11, 2019 - By 

    PICS 1: We started out the month with a quick trip to Atlanta to see Elton John in his Farewell tour. That weekend was his last time to perform in Atlanta before he retires in the next year or 2. Rob is such a big Elton fan and is sad that he won’t be touring anymore, but understands that he is 72 years old and wants to spend time with his family. It was such a great concert with all his greatest hits and a few lesser known songs. That man played for 3 straight hours and Ray Cooper (percussionist)…

  • Life

    The Catchup Post [August – October 2019]

    November 8, 2019 - By 

    Here I am playing catch up again. Instead of calling this the Weekly since it’s more than just a week’s worth, I’m calling it The Catchup Post. This is post is going to catch us up from my Summer Wrap Up post from around August through October. Sheesh! I will start back with my “The Weekly” posts next Monday and *fingers crossed* hope to keep those up through the end of the year! August We had one last hurrah before getting knee-deep back into school and all the activities that Fall brings. Weekend Trip to Mobile At work, we have…

  • Travel

    Trip to Kentucky & Ohio

    October 30, 2019 - By 

    This is a really long post, but I decided to include everything in this one post because I’m desperately trying to get caught up on all these travel posts. Rob had a conference in Covington, KY, which I tagged along for to add a couple more states to my bucket list. Saturday Saturday we left after Alex’s soccer game and headed to the airport. Flying above the clouds and seeing the sun go down. We flew into Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG).  They had some really cool skeletal replicas, but we were in a hurry so I just snapped a…

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    Pacific NW Trip: Riverboat Dinner Cruise

    October 19, 2019 - By 

    Here’s my 2nd post to continue Day 5 from our Seattle Trip. I did the first post about Alex and my trip to Snoqualmie Falls. That evening we met up with Rob to get on a Riverboat for a Dinner Cruise. We boarded the Virginia V behind the University of Washington School of Oceanography, which is a special location just for this private event. The water way near the School of Oceanography is the Portage Bay which connects to the Lake Union. After boarding we went to the open bar and got some drinks. Soon after that they stocked the…

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    Pacific NW Trip: Snoqualmie Falls

    October 16, 2019 - By 

    For today’s post, I’m continuing to share about our Seattle trip. I’m actually splitting this day into 2 posts. This post is about Alex and my trip out to Snoqualmie Falls, which is a beautiful waterfall about 30 miles east of Seattle. It’s located between Snoqualmie and Fall City, Washington. We parked at the Lower Observation deck. When we got there, I was happy to find a nice bathroom before walking to the falls. As we followed the trail to the sounds of the falls, I heard a woodpecker. I glanced over and saw a woodpecker through the trees. As…

  • Life

    2019 Summer Wrap Up

    October 13, 2019 - By 

    I can’t believe it’s mid October, but alas here is my 2019 Summer Wrap Up! Every year I enjoy looking back at everything we did over the summer and I thought I’d put one together for this year. I usually start these posts with the run down of May. I did my weekly summary posts up through June 22nd, so here’s the links for those. May 5-11 May 12-18 May 19-June 22 After the guys got back from Omaha, it was time to get Alex ready for Boy Scout Summer camp. They went up to Camp Rainey Mountain in Clayton,…