Home Sweet Home

Yep, we are HOME!!! Got home yesterday evening and boy was it good to see our house. We had a WONDERFUL, awesome vacation, but there is nothing like coming home to sleep in your own sweet, KING SIZE bed (with all the room you want!!!)

Unfortunately, the last day of our trip (which was all driving)I developed a headache which turned out to be a migraine. UGH. I think maybe the fact that our Saturday drive (We were in the car for about 15 hours!...which took us from near Scottsbluff Nebraska to my sister who lives near Kansas City, Missouri) was the longest day EVER probably contributed to the start of my headache. Or perhaps it was just the culmination of two weeks of stuffing myself with the most junk food possible, or perhaps just knowing the wonderful vacation was coming to an end?

Whatever the reason, I did develop a headache despite my taking two of the very expensive migraine pills I just bought. oh well.

I woke up this morning with a still nasty headache. I decided to not return to work until tomorrow, taking a sick day today. I just feel I could work with this pounding headache. I think the rest did me good cause now it is late afternoon and I am feeling much, much better. I think I'm gonna live. And I'm actually kind of glad to be returning to work. (Ok, I'd rather return to Glacier National Park for a couple of weeks, but ya can't have everything!)

Now to some more pictures!

These were taken on 6/17, Tuesday almost 2 weeks ago. We drive from Jamestown, North Dakota to Walford City, North Dakota. In between we visited the Knife River Indian Villages, the Enchanted Highway and drove around in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park (north and south units). WHEW! That is a lot for one day!

So, here are quite a few pictures from that day. I hope you enjoy them.


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This first picture is one of the metal sculptures that make up the "Enchanted Highway" which is a stretch of road that runs on a 32-mile stretch from Regent to Gladstone, North DAkota. You can read more about the ENCHANTED HIGHWAY HERE! It is pretty interesting actually. In brief, Gary Greff, who is a retired school principal, decided to build these metal sculptures to entice visitors to come to his hometown.

The Enchanted Highway features the World's Largest Metal Sculptures produced by artist Gary Greff.Gary is a native of Regent, North Dakota. He was a teacher and a school principal and had never done any art work or welding prior to 1989. He then began dreaming of ways to bring people and businesses to the small community of Regent -- fearing the town would someday die if it relied solely on farming. A hay bale strongman built by a farmer inspired him. He watched people pull off the road to snap photos of the oddity. He wondered how many people would stop for huge metal sculptures.

So here are pics of the sculptures that I got along the way.


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This was the sculpture of giant crickets.


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Amy and I decided to try to fit our butts into the little kids bouncy things. Lets just say they were a slight bit too big to fit (our butts that is) - ha ha.


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This is the Fisherman's Dream sculpture.

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The Pheasant Sculpture.

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The Theodore Roosevelt Sculpture.


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The Family Sculpture.

We then went to Regent and enjoyed a nice lunch of Panini Sandwiches. Here is a picture of my sister, my dad and Brandon hamming it up behind one of the sculptures on the main street in Regent.


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Since there are so many pictures, I think I'll end my post here for today. I may or may not do another one later. The next one will be of the Prairie Dog town that we came upon in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and some pics of the park and of the buffalo we saw there also.

Heck, I may even do another post today. We shall see. I really want you guys to enjoy the pictures and I'm afraid if I post too many at a time (like the 35 or so I want to post for each day...) then it may be a bit overwhelming. So....I'll stop here for now.

It is good to be home!

Pictures from the first of our trip!!

Surprise! I actually remembered I could upload photos at slide.com as well as my drop shots so there is more than one way to skin a cat! This is just a small sampling of what is to come, but I figured this should hold you over until I get home and get some more posted.

These are from the firt two days of our vacation - June 15 and 16. We drove to my sister's house the first day, stayed overnight there and then hit the road the next day driving about 12 hours.

I hope you enjoy the short slide show of a few of my favorite images. Be sure to read the text at the bottom of each picture. I think you can click on the picture to stop the slide show if if goes too fast.

We'll be home soon and then more photos to come. Everyone have a great weekend.

A quick hello

Just posting to say I likely won't be posting the next few days. We will be home soon and once we are, I'll start posting trip pics. I am really disapointed that I can't upload photos whie here, while I have extra time but for some reason blogger isn't cooperating with me.

It won't let me upload photos. Also, dropshots, which is usually the site I use to upload my photos to (and then I cut and paste the html code for my blog) isn't letting me access my photos either. Weird.

Anyway, stay tuned as I've been going through my photos and I've already picked out a bunch I hope to post. Um, about 150 or so. EEEEKKK.

Until then.....

Today and some Pictures to share with you!!

This is a first. I'm actually going to share some pictures with you about our day TODAY and post this TODAY. I believe it is a first. Usually I have all these good intentions and either post them weeks or months later or never get around to posting them at all.

I brought my laptop in the car with me today so I was able to upload my pics as I took them and get some of them watermarked. Now, I just need to upload them for this post! I thought I'd share with you some of the best from today.

We left first thing this morning and drove along a scenic drive called the "Sekirk Loop" I think it is. We stopped at a place called Kootenai Falls. Mom had scouted the place out in one of her books so off we went! (she has good taste in where we go and what we see!!) We also went into Canada into a town called Creston.

First, some pictures from Kootenai Falls which also included a swinging suspension bridge. did I mention I'm afraid of heights? I wasn't sure I could make it across the bridge, but I did.

The picture at the top was what it looked like looking from one side to the other. Keep in mind, if people are walking on it (limit of 5 people at a time) the bridge would sway back and forth side to side. (eek!)

This picture shows what the bridge looked like from the side. We had to hike quite a ways to get to it. Isn't it beautiful? (OK, scarey, but beautiful)



Here is a view up the river from one side.




Well crappola! It seems the internet and blogger isn't cooperating with me, wouldn't cha know. I had about 16 more pictures I planned to post on here tonight but I can't get any more to upload!!! I don't know what blogger's deal is.

Normally, I upload them to drop shots and then cut and paste the html code here, which is MUCH MUCH faster than uploading them through blogger. However, for some reason, on this laptop, which is my work computer, I can't get to my drop shots account. So....I am left with no way to post my pictures on here for the time being. I'll try again tomorrow through blogger (which is painfully slow) and hopefully post more of the pictures.

I have to say, this is one of the things that frustrates me about blogging - stuff not working correctly. GRRRR - I hate spinning my wheels.

Well, enjoy these few pictures. More later.

Ramblings

I think I have too much time on my hands. We are on vacation (with my parents and sister Amy) currently in Idaho. (tomorrow we are going to Canada to sightsee!!!) I'm thinking some more pictures are in order!!

Anyway, today we just stayed here at the condos and slept in (which for me meant waking up about 8:00 a.m....I just can't sleep that late for some reason!). I did go for about a 2 mile walk so I did get some exercise. This evening, I also went for a bike ride with Brandon and my dad. it was a perfect evening..the temp is about 70 degrees and it was sunny today. Very, very pretty. not too hot and not too cold.

Mom had originally planned for us to go to a national park today that is a couple hour drive from where we are staying but we decided to just stay here and relax due to the fact we will be riding in the car an awful lot the next few days and that can get old and tiring! So now we are ready for tomorrow!

I think I have too much time on my hands because the fact of the matter is, I have problems relaxing. I always have. It seems like though I complain about being busy, I like nothing but. Anytime I have a little extra time to "do nothing", I'm bored. And it makes my mind wander idly to silly things.

Things like feeling sorry for myself. And I hate that. I am so blessed. I know I am. I have everything that I need and way more than a lot of people. And I'm not just talking about material things. I have a great family and a nice home, a good job that I love (most days), a great son, my health, etc. So why is it that sometimes I tend to focus on the one thing that I think I don't have? That one thing is basically a Man. A relationship. That significant other.

Most of the time, I am OK with it. My life is so full without a boyfriend or husband to share it with. It is OK. Normally. But sometimes (such as today) it hits me. Everyone I see has a spouse or a boyfriend. And I know it is silly and really selfish of me, but I start thinking why not me? I know there is nothing wrong with me, but I can't understand why God has allowed me to be divorced and "manless" for 10 years!!!! TEN YEARS. It isn't like I haven't "paid my dues" ya know?

I truly don't understand it. I know I just need to trust God that he has my future in his hands and he knows what is best for me. But still, I'm human and I really want that companionship. I want sommeone to share all that I have with, someone to talk to about every little thing. Someone to share all the joys and sorrows with...someone to grow old with. I see my self getting older and it scares me. I don't want to spend the rest of my life alone.

Sorry for the complaining, but I just needed to vent.

Also, do you guys ever find yourself looking at other people's blogs and thinking "wow, I wish I had their life"? Silly I know. I do that. In all fairness, I guess I also look at other's lives and am thankful that I don't have to go through the trials and tribulations that some do....so I guess it works both ways.

Also, I've missed blogging. I really have. As I've been working my way through my bloglines accounts today (if I haven't gotten to your blog yet, I'm working on it...) I have about 70 blog feeds I try to keep up with and since I haven't been visiting anyone for months and months, some have hundredsand hundreds of updates. There just isn't time to read them all I'm afraid. But, I'm trying to read at least a few of them. I've been doing it for hours today. And thoroughly enjoying it I must say.

In doing this, I realize how much I love reading my bloggy friends' blogs. I do. I feel I have gotten to know so many of you (and some I do know in real life...) and I miss you. I truly do. So, I hope some of you are still out there and I hope you'll keep reading. I don't blame you if you don't...but I'm glad for the readers I still have :) I would personally hug each and every one of you if I could.

I'm going to post this and then I'm off to try to work on another post - one with a few pictures of our trip!!!

Night With Friends (After a Day at the Lake)

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Doesn't that look good? Well, it WAS! After our day at the lake, Turk wanted to take us to this Turkish Restaurant in Dallas. We had reservations at 9:00 p.m. and they were supposed to even have Belly Dancing! Turns out the belly dancer cancelled so there was none of that. The food however, was really good. I have always been kind of a picky eater so I wasn't sure about it, but it was good.

Brandon liked it too. He even had a pizza with lamb on it!

The best part of it was that we also got to see our mutual friend Trish and her two kids. They were busy during the day (they had family in town) but they came over to meet us for dinner. It was great to see Trish and her kids Rachel and Cameron.
They are so adorable!

Brandon did his magic tricks (he is into doing card tricks these days) for them and they were loving it.


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Here is a picture of all of us.


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Trish and her kids.


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All of us girls!


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These were taken the next morning on our way to church. We are always goofing off. It was such a fun weekend,though it was too short. We are hoping to all get together again for July 4 weekend.


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Day at the Lake

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A couple of weekends ago, my good friends came in town for the weekend. It was so great to see them, as always. Jana (the gal on the far left) and I went to high school and college together and Chris (the gal on the right)and I went to college together. We get together a few times a year and we always have such an awesome time when we do.

This particular weekend, we went to the lake in my friend Jana's brother in law's boat. Her brother in law's name is Mike and he was kind enough to indulge us for the day. He has access to two VERY NICE boats. One of which is actually a yacht! It is huge and probably larger than my HOUSE. We took out the smaller boat.



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There was fishing....this is Lucas (Jana's son) and Brandon trying their luck right off the dock.


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Lucas was quite amused at the fishing!


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This is a partial view of the yacht. Brandon and Jana climbed up in it to have their picture made.


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This is Turk, Lucas' dad, hamming it up for the camera.


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Chris, Dana, Annah and Jana sunbathing on the back of the boat. We went to an island and anchored up with some friends that Mike knew and we swam and fished and had a great time!


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This is Mike, our gracious boat host (Turk's brother).


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One place had a hammock alongside where their boat is docked. How nice is that? Annah is relaxing and Brandon is trying to sneak up on her. BOYS!!!



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Sailor Boy Brandon


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This picture might give you some idea of the way the dock looked. I could not belive how nice the places were. Big screen TV's, furniture nicer than in my HOUSE -all out in the boat slips (covered, but still outside). Really cool.

We had a great time. That evening, we ran home, cleaned up and went to Dallas for dinner at a Turkish Restaurant Turk wanted us to try. (he is Turkish if you hadn't figured that out...) It was fantastic. More pics on that in my next post.

The posting is a bit sporadic, as you all (the few readers I still have left) have come to expect from me. But, I'm a bit busy as I'm actually on vacation and have been for about a week now. We have traveled to Glacier National Park in Montana as well as a day trip to Canada even. Having a wonderful time and yes, taking lots of pictures. In fact, I've taken over 1,100 already! I'll share a few when I get a chance (after we return).

Hope everyone is having a great weekend.