Left Coast Trip

What do you think? Do you like my clever and creative title for this post? Okay, I guess I'm not in a clever or creative mood today. In the time I've spent up there I've figured out why they call it the "Left" Coast. The important thing is that we did have a nice trip to Washington and Oregon a couple weeks ago, and I thought I ought to post about it, if for nothing more than to let you see some of the cute grand kids. I didn't get any of Kathryn or Trevor because they were so busy getting the house and yard ready. I'd already slowed them enough by just being there.  Nor did I get any of Melissa, but that's okay, she didn't get any of me. LOL!

First we went to Kennewick,  Washington, to Kathryn and Trevor's new home, where we spent the night and talked them into letting Hallie and Megan go with us to Oregon the next day.  I was kind of surprised, but they did, and I'm sure glad.

When we got to Dustin and Tamra's we relaxed the first day and played some games and played with there toys, and even played some Wii, but I didn't get any photos of that.

I hope by now that you know that if you click on a photo you can see it larger.

Hallie helped Tamra with some of the cooking. We did eat really really well on this trip - notice I said "well", not right or healthy. But boy was it good.


The next day happened to be my birthday and we headed out fairly early for the coast around Newport. What a WONDERFUL day that turned out to be. If you're familiar with the Oregon coast you know that it's usually cold and damp and foggy and cloudy. Not that day it was P E R F E C T. The clouds were just right, the temperature warmed up a bit and the tide was out quite a way, allowing for lots of FUN exploring and seeing things some of us had never seen before in the wild.


For example both the girls are holding real live star fish in this photo. Of course we returned them to the ocean after the photo was taken. I'm sure Hallie was off finding some other cool stuff like crabs or anemones or something else fun.


Later on Jeanne and Anna had a chance to share a little private time.


Whether it was the sea or the surf or the exercise or Dustin and Tamra's cooking and preparing, I don't know but we shared one of the absolute best lunches that I have ever had in my whole life - no kidding.


I've kind of reserved this blog post for just pictures of the family, but I did get lots of other really great photos at the beach and if you want to see some of them just visit my other blog here. I do have to say that with the the beautiful coast, the weather and family it was the best birthday that I can remember in my adult life.

Friday we headed back to Washington with Dustin, Tamra and family in tow, and on Saturday we paid a visit to a local Kennewick park that is right on the shores of the Columbia river.

Davis really enjoyed himself just wandering around all the fun toys.



Avery had a great time in the swing as well as several other toys.


Among other things, the girls really enjoyed this tire swing, where they could be together as they played.


They finally cajoled grandpa (me) to get them swinging and twirling as fast as they could go. You would never guess that Anna has to take motion sickness pills to ride in the car, because she was on this thing for probably close to half an hour.


Seems like Campbell is still working on that correlation between dark jackets and hoodies and being hot. He does love a hat or his hoodies all the time. The rest of us were sweating with just short sleeves. The important thing is he did find some toys that thoroughly entertained him. He had a ball.


Sean was moving so fast around the toys I never caught him until he took a few minutes to repose by the side of the river.


THANK YOU Dustin and Tamra and Kathryn and Trevor for a wonderful trip. And thanks to the Oregon State Patrol welcoming committee for reminding me of my civic duties to obey the speed limit. LOL!!!

Mesquite Adventure

Right after breakfast these guys are about to go out into a cloudless sky at a temperature of about 98 degrees, but it is still very early, so it will get warmer quickly. So why are they smiling? Well, because they get to go golfing with me. Okay, at least they get to go golfing.

Sean

I was going through some of the photos I took on our trip to Oregon last month and I saw this one I took of Sean sitting on a little log chair by the South Falls (I think). Sean was a real sport and escorted Dustin and I clear down there and back without complaining. There must have been 500 stairs, but it was worth it. OBTW, I think he carried my tripod the entire way.

Oregon

Well after a spring and early summer that made us wonder if we had woken up in Oregon even when we were in Utah. So, when the weather dried up and got sunny we decided to go to Oregon. Well really we had really decided some time before because we had been invited to Anna's baptism. So the time came and off we went, or maybe since we are in Oregon now, I should say off we came. We decided to make it a little bit of a leasurely trip, and since I had a new camera I wanted to test out quite a bit.















The first day just outside of Vale, Oregon I saw a house that I just had to get some photos of.

Quite a few miles later I was driving along when I looked out to the left and saw some cowboys bringing in their horses on their four wheelers. I thought that was kind of ironic and so I went back and as I did the farrier (horse shoer) pulled up. I went up to the fence and asked them if they minded if I took some shots of them working with their horses and they said they didn't mind. So I snapped a few.

That night we stayed in the town of Burns. Since we got their fairly early I asked the lady at the front desk where there were some pretty places near by to take some photos. She told me about a place only a few miles away and said that I might even see some wild horses. As we were driving up the road she told me about we saw a large group of horses right by the side of the road. It never occured to me that they might be the wild ones she had mentioned. I took quite a few photos and it was really a little later that I figured out that they might be the wild horses. It was a realy interesting herd to watch, for the short time I got to see them.

We spent the night on a miserable hard matress and woke the next moring to continue on to Albany. But on the way I wanted to see more of the beauty of Oregon.

On down the road after the city of Bend we got into some of the really beautiful part of Oregon. I pulled off onto a side road and crossed a little bridge and found a little spot where I could get some beautiful photos. As I got closer I noticed several tiny little frogs. I had to be very careful not to step on any of them. There are a bunch of them in this photo, I counted 17 of them.

After getting past all the tiny frogs I did get some photos of a beautiful area.

We finally made it to Dustin and Tamra's house.

It makes a papa proud. Well at least we also get to see Tamra and our sweet little grandchildren.

Watch for further developments - and PHOTOS!!!

Do You Know What's Better . . . . ?

Do you know what's better than spending time with grandchildren? Not much that I can think of. We had a wonderful time in Louisville. It was so good to be with Kathryn, Trevor, Melissa and five of our grandchildren. I have to say that after we had been there about a week I started to feel sorry for Trevor, I thought how much fun it would have been to have to have my parents-in-law come and live with us for 10 days and disrupt our lives like we did theirs, but he was a real trooper and never complained . . . outloud . . . to us. I really appreciate thier patience and hospitality. We are hoping that when Trevor gets through with residency he will find a job fairly close so we can visit more often, and make our visits shorter (much shorter). We've been back a few days and settled back in. Also, one more big THANK YOU goes out to Melissa's Husband Jeff for taking such good care of Annabelle for us while we were gone. Having her there was really comforting to us and she seems to have weathered the seperation much better than she has some of our other trips in the last couple years.

Here are a few photos from our time with family the last few days before we left.

Day Two

Pretty exciting day for both Trevor and Hallie and Megan. For Trevor it was his last day of work for about a week and for Hallie and Megan their last day of school for over a week. The next week would be devoted to fun with family, not to mention the real reason we had an excuse to come all the way to Louisville. Of course for the big girls there was the all important trek all the way to Cincinnati to the Gap outlet stores. To be honest I have my serious suspicions on some of those outlet stores, but the girls had a good time and didn't have to worry about Hallie, Megan, Trevor, Campbell or me, so I'm sure it was worth it. While they were gone and Hallie and Megan were in school, Trevor, Cambell and myself went to a nearby Mexican Restaurant. Campbell was in rare form and they asked us not to ever come back. ;^] Enough said. Then when they got back Kathryn and Melissa got down to some serious portraiture work on little Avery. Again, I think a good time was had by all. Even Avery seemed to enjoy most of it. I guess girls don't mind putting on silly looking clothes for the camera. After that Kathryn gave Melissa a few free lessons on PhotoShop. I think I could stand a few lessons myself. While they were doing all that Davis got to spend some quality time with his favorite Grandma Law, and he seemed to think that was all right too. All in all Day 2 was a great day ~ well, except the poor Mexican restaurant.

Memoirs of Kentucky '07

Yes, it's been a month since we returned from our visit to Kentucky. It was such a wonderful visit that I wanted to make sure I tried to do it justice in my blog post. After all, if it hadn't been for this visit we probably wouldn't even have this blog because that is one of the things we did while we were there.

Thanks to Trevor for making the flight arrangements, we flew from Salt Lake City to Chicago and then on to Louisville where both our daughters and Kathryn's family met us at the airport. We were so excited to see them, and they seemed to be excited to see us. It took a while, but we even got a happy smile from Campbell.

I think Hallie was most excited because she knew I was bringing the Tickle Monster with me. She couldn't wait, and neither could I.

We had a great time seeing their new home in real life. I must not have watched the video they brought home very close, because the house we walked into bore very little resemblance to what I remember seeing then. It is a lovely home with lots of room. (And now I understand it even has a working oven. ;-) ) All of the rooms are very roomy and comfortable. With the three of us (including Melissa) barging in we were not at all crowded.



We had some great times both at their home and away. You can't be with Kathryn and Melissa without playing some games, so we did that and enjoyed some time on the back porch playing with the kids' bubble machine and of course just watching and being with them. I was also honored to get to go to Hallie's school and eat lunch with her and her friends. I think the only place I've ever been that was louder than that lunch room was the Indianapolis 500. What a delightful cacophony of happy children.



We had such a great time visiting some of the places. We enjoyed a Sunday evening of riparian entertainment on the banks of the Ohio River near downtown Louisville. Besides watching the kids play we got a free watercraft show as a local boy enjoyed his stand up jet ski. I think he enjoyed us watching him as much as we did. It was fun when the river boat tour went by. He enjoyed showing off for them and then gave them a really good fire hose style spray from his water jet.



The Louisville Zoo and the Kentucky Horse Park were certainly highlights also. It's hard to say that because the whole visit was such a highlight. I could not believe the size and beauty of the Rhinos there. As you can see Jeanne and I bagged one of our own, but they wouldn't let us take it home. I think it would look great in the front yard. We all loved the bird cage. Believe it or not, Megan had no clue that there was a bird sitting on her head. Of course Hallie was very aware of it, but she didn't even flinch. I don't know why, but it didn't take long and the birds were all over me. In the middle of the zoo is a really fun water park with lots of cooling squirts and showers, and no additional charge - what a great idea! At the Kentucky Horse Park we got to see some of the most beautiful horses you've ever seen and some genuine race champions close up and personal.

All we wanted was a silly ball
There always has to be something that, though it may not be a highlight, is certainly memorable. Such was the situation with our trip to the famous Valhalla Golf Club. Notice the word "club" not course. There is a difference. It all started very innocently as we were headed out to the zoo. Melissa remarked that Jeff had mentioned to her that if she got near a golf course that she couldn't remember the name but she thought it started with a V, it had something to do with the Ryder Cup and he would like a souvenir ball from there. We searched our GPS and found a place called Valhalla. As it turned out it was only a few miles south of Kathryn and Trevor's place and not really far out of the way on the drive home from the zoo. Trevor and I decided we would stop there and pick one up for him on the way home. Our GPS led us straight to it, and as we got there we could see we were in a different league. First of all the iron gates at the entrance. Fortunately, some idiot had left the entrance gate open and so we just drove in like we knew what we were doing. As we drove past the manicured course we knew we were on golf's hallowed ground. It truly was a beautiful sight. Soon we pulled up the club house and, as you might imagine, it was different from the local public courses that we are used to. As I got out of the car and walked toward the entry I noticed the young men in their red knit shirts and khaki shorts cleaning the carts and lining them up. I greeted them with a friendly smile and nod. I walked into the pro shop and started glancing around at the nice displays and products. I was quickly approached by a young lady who inquired if I was a member or a guest. I told her I was neither, that I just wanted to know if she had any golf balls with Valhalla and the Ryder Cup logo on them. She informed me that Jeans were not allowed but she supposed if we hurried she could get me the balls and I could be on my way. I got a sleeve, of which one went to Jeff and one went to Eric and I kept the third, and we made our escape before we embarrassed Valhalla Golf Club any further.Frankly I don't think even if I had mentioned I was with "Dr. Grubbs", it would have mattered. He was wearing jeans also.


While we're on the topic of Golf, I don't think any vacation is complete without some golf - Unfortunately I've had some "incomplete" vacations by that definition. Kathryn mentioned Trevor and I going golfing a few times and Trevor was kind enough to humor me, even though it is not his favorite game. We searched and searched on the Internet and finally found what looked like a suitable course (meaning cheap and close) just a few miles away. Trevor called and asked if they rented clubs, and after the voice on the other end of the line went and checked in the shed we found that they did. We arranged a Tee time and headed out. Upon arrival I noticed it had a nice club house and we headed in. The gentleman told us he had set the clubs outside, and as I looked it was obvious that this was a collection of clubs that had been lost and forgotten by many different golfers over the years, that and he only had one set. I figured there were two of us and we were only playing nine holes so I would buy 6 balls and just keep what was left over at the end. Out we went with our shared bag of clubs and six balls to try out an unknown course. They had recently reset the holes and so he pointed us toward Tee #1 and off we went. To this day I'm not sure if we got the right holes in the right order, but we ended up after nine holes on a green that was fairly close to the club house so we must have done okay. Nine holes usually takes about 2 hours but with only two players on a cart it's not uncommon to see it done in much less. I think we took about two and a half to three and much of that time was spent out in the briers and bushes looking for errant balls. In one case I saw my ball land close to the edge of the fairway and we never did find it. However, you'll be interested to know that we came back with two balls. Oh, by the way, we found seven that weren't ours. Let's see 6 + 7 - . . . oh well, you get the idea. The Score? Who knows I quit counting after the second hole.

It's trite, but it's true: All good things must come to an end - and I'm not talking about this post. The time came when we had to come back home. We had arranged to fly out of Indianapolis instead of Louisville. It saved us some $ but I thought Indianapolis was only about 60 miles away. . . It turned out to be a little over 100. But also, Jeanne had not been back to Indianapolis since we moved away in 1984, and even though I was back to Indianapolis once I had not been to see our old home since we'd moved either. We wanted to get a photo of our old house where we lived when Kathryn was about the age Megan is now. One goal I had while we were back there that I had not accomplished yet was to take the family to eat at White Castle. An epicurean experience not to be missed. Well we kept missing it and finally had to drive about 9 miles off our route to get to one, only to drive right by one about half an hour later in Indianapolis on the way to the house. Even as hard as we tried, we couldn't eat a whole case so Trevor had about a dozen or so to take home with him for supper that evening. Strangely, we never heard what happened to those. ?? When we finally saw the house we were somewhat saddened to see how the yard had been let go, even though the outside of the house itself looked much the same as when we left it over 23 years ago.

Our homeward trip took us from Indianapolis to Las Vegas and then to Salt Lake City. We found all well when we got home, but look forward to getting to Kentucky again before Trevor's residency is completed.