The most beautiful place on earth!

While Sami was there with us, Mom wanted to head over to the peninsula to show us Forks, WA (home of Twilight...). Me, hating Twilight the way that I do, was skeptical, but now I see why this place was so inspirational for Stephanie Meyer. We left early in the morning and took the ferry over and then drove to our first stop: The Most Beautiful Place on Earth: The Rainforest. Seriously, If I could, I would live right in the middle of it!! But don't take my word for it:

Our Ferry: The Walla Walla

First shot of the rainforest. It's just so green! I don't know why, but I LOVE moss!

If you look closely below the hanging moss on the trees, you can see a beautiful, clear mountain stream.

Our happy hikers!

Moss! Lots and lots of MOSS!!

See the knarly roots on these trees? Turns out that seeds fall from the trees and deposit into fallen trees and find nourishment in them, then as the tree decays, the roots find their way through it to the ground, and these funky, above the ground roots result. Really, in person, it's impressive!

The kids loved looking for things we couldn't see! Sloan and Andi found this little treasure. Before I could get a good picture of it, he crawled under the brush, but you can still kind of see it...

Just pretty.

More pretty.

Trying to get a picture of all the kids by this "tree cave". I actually like this one!

Andi, sitting all prim and proper, Ethan doing a "manly pose", Mason copying Ethan, and Sloan...

turning around to look in the cave for bears. Oh my.

City Pass: Day 2

Day 2 on our City Passes took us first to the Science Museum. The kids loved playing at all of the exhibits, and the butterfly habitat was a favorite of mine (sadly I didn't get any pictures...). Here's what we did get:

Honey, I shrunk the kids! Mason loved this oversized table. Notice how Andi was the only one who followed my creative instruction to, "Act like you're eating something!". We got to watch the movie from the poster in the background, and it was really cute! I think that if I didn't have three little monkeys of my own, I'd get an orangutan!

Seriously, I think that all of my toys at home must be too normal-sized for my kids to play with...

After the museum, we headed over to the famous, Pike's Market for fresh fish and flowers. A great place to buy both!!

Home of the flying fish!

City Pass: Day 1

My sister, Sami and her oldest daughter, Andi came up to Seattle from Texas to spend some time with Mom and us Gailey's! We did so many things with the City Pass tickets that Mom got us, I can't even remember all of it! Here's what I do remember, thanks to photographic evidence:

Our first morning was spent at the Seattle Aquarium. They got to touch things in the touch tanks, learn about tides, and were mesmerized by the sea otters and seals. It was so fun, even if Mason is scared of bath toys now...

After the aquarium, mom got us tickets to "Ride the Ducks"! It was actually our second time on the ducks, but it's always a treat! These are World War II vehicles that ride on both land and water. They start by giving you a tour os Seattle and end the tour in Union Lake, home of the "Sleepless in Seattle" house!

Next was a quick stop at the Space Needle!

(Mason's not asleep, just too grouchy to look at Grandma while she takes his picture...)

Nothing sweeter than a mother and daughter on vacation!

Our Duck tour guide told us that from the top of the Space Needle, the Music and Science Fiction Museum was designed to look like a broken guitar. Must be really abstract, 'cause I don't see it... do you?

What a fabulous way to and a day!

We feel good!

Oh, we feel so good!

Catherine, Sarah, Rachelle, and Brooks. The gang's back together!! (Minus Andrea and Rayma...)

The weekend of June 25th was my 10-year High School reunion in Vernal, Utah. Go, Utes!! I decided to go to be able to spend the weekend with my high-school bestie, Rachelle! We had a blast! I cannot believe that it's been 10 years!!

It was a whirlwind trip, but a great escape for the weekend! Thanks again, Mom, for taking time out of your busy schedule to watch my little critters!! They still talk about it!

I flew in on Friday around noon, and then we went straight to the mall!! I forgot how much fun it is to shop when you don't have boys trying to escape from the dressing room or a husband telling you to "Just pick something!". I really do love to shop, and she's a great shopping buddy!!

After walking around all day, a pedicure was in order! Sadly, I didn't get any pictures like these stunning ones...

We made it to Vernal late Friday night, but still enjoyed lots of time together before I left on Sunday afternoon. We, of course, re-lived the staples of our youth, and got all gussied up on Saturday night for the reunion. Everybody looked just the same, just grown up! Sadly, not many people recognized me, but that wasn't a huge shock. I guess the highlight of my night was the appearance of my little brothers in my reunion video! I didn't even make it into the video! Ah well, it was fun, even if I only walked away with handfuls of messages for my brothers!

Thanks again for a lovely weekend, Rachelle!

Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch.

In a previous post, I included a video of my middle son, Sloan, speaking a few German phrases for my mom. I grew up speaking these phrases with my mom, and in High School when German was offered, I jumped at the chance to learn more of my German heritage. Not that I remember much... mostly just the same phrases my mother said to me and I repeat to my sons each night before bed. All the same, my mom and I bond over a love for German heritage and my boys can't sleep at night before they hear me say, "Ich liebe dich!".

So, while I visited my mom in Seattle for the summer, we took advantage of our proximity to Leavenworth (a little town about two hours away that due to it's surroundings uncanny resemblance, reinvented itself into a mock Bavarian town.) and took the kids to see little Germany!

It was a great day! We bought pastries in the little bakery. We ate ice cream on the sidewalk from the little sweet shoppe. We browsed in all the cute little shops, and since it was...

ACCORDION FESTIVAL!!

We got to do a few little extras!

They had bouncy houses and climbing walls for the kids while enjoying the mountain air and the sweet serenade!

Ethan made it all the way to the top! It was really high! I was so proud, even if he was too scared of letting go of the rope to ring the bell at the top...

We ate lunch at this cute little cafe, and when I mean little, I mean little! It only had, like, 18 seats!

Yum!

Isn't it just darling?!

The scenery is not too bad, either!

Seriously, the view on the drive alone was worth it! Two whole hours of this. I wanted to stop and finish the trip via raft!

As you can gather, we had a great time! Thanks again, Mom, for making our stay with you a fun and memorable one!!

Alive!

It's been forever since I blogged. In fact, so long since I really blogged that I've been putting it off longer than I had to because the task of catching up became too daunting.

But today is the day! Or rather, today is the beginning. My posts are going to be overloaded with pictures since it's been so long, I need to break the posts up.

Today we are going to start with a summary of what our summer has been like:

In May Josh graduated Dental School (See multiple posts below...) and we decided to just get our move on sooner than later and ordered a POD for the week after graduation. It was a crazy week, but we were happy to be on our way to see some family.

We started our trip in Fallon, NV to see Josh's parents. After a few fun days there, we headed further north to Boise and stayed just overnight with Josh's sister, Angela. After that, we drove the rest of the way to my home away from home this summer, Seattle, WA! I gotta say, I did enjoy being able to go outside this summer! The last three have been spent hibernating away from the Vegas sun... We did so many fun things, this is the main reason I can't do all my catch up right here! (Stay tuned!!) Mom took such good care of us, maybe too good! My boys keep asking me what else we're going to do! Thank you for a super fun summer, Grandma!

Josh left for BOLC June 8th, and the boys, Grandma, and I were on our own! We had a great visit with Aunt Sami and Andi who came to see us (Stay tuned!!). After one exciting event after another the end of our stay came. The boys and I left Seattle on July 19th, beginning our 33-hour trip to Oklahoma. Of course, this was exciting, too. We started by going down to Boise for more time with Bingham cousins and after a few days took off for Heber, UT for time with all the Gailey and Munson cousins. My boys were ANGELS in the car! I really kid you not. They took a vote at one point and decided that they didn't want to stop for lunch if it meant getting to Heber faster! Too bad mommy's bladder needed a break around Tremonton!

The boys played their little hearts out in Utah for a few days and by Sunday night we were packed and ready to hit the road on Monday morning. Unfortunately, my boys also picked up a little bug that began late Sunday night! Sloan puked all over the guest room around midnight (Sorry again, Janalee!!) and I quickly followed suit. Ethan made it until we were pulling out of the driveway Monday morning (the show must go on!!) when he puked in the Tupperware I had the foresight to provide!! We were quite the traveling circus that day!

Monday night we made it to Colorado Springs, CO to see our good friends, the Liljenquists, (after a 10 hour drive!!) and had a blast at their beautiful new house! Tuesday morning we were on our way to Garden City, KS where we spent the night in a hotel and went swimming and dined on pizza in the hotel room; a much needed relaxed day for Mom!! The drive was only 4 hours!

Wednesday we made the rest of the 6 hours in a straight shot (Thank you, Red Box!!) and pulled into our new driveway around 4:00 pm. Josh had unloaded our POD completely by himself and I was able to unpack the kitchen and make beds before nightfall. The last few days have been a blur of boxes, but I am happy to say that we only have a few things left! I'll post pictures when Josh has time to finish his "Honey Do" list.

The point is this: We have made it safely to Oklahoma! We are loving being home together and now are just trying to prep Ethan and Sloan for the first day of school on August 17th! I've learned that we are where we're supposed to be. (On Thursday my neighbor came to introduce herself and it turns out that she's the YW President here and behind me is the Primary President! The sweetest couple from our Branch brought us cookies last night, and we thoroughly enjoyed church in the Anadarko Branch yesterday!) The Lord works in mysterious ways, and I guess that includes a move to Oklahoma!!

Thank you to all of you who have kept us in your thoughts and prayers. Thank you to all of you who made our trip/summer the best it could be. We miss you all and hope to see you again soon. Remember, we do have a spare room and an air mattress!! Enticing, I know!

Like what you see?

Then head over to Very Jane and take a look at today's really awesome deal! Only $4.95! My sister, Sami, is being featured today on this super-cute site , so if you have been wanting some Welcome Vinyl for your home, hurry on over!!