Catching Up

If we could ever stay home long enough, maybe I could get caught up on posting. This summer has been crazy so far. So here I am finally updating, but it is from clear back in May! Jeff and I were chaperones for Prom on May 8th. It was kind of cool this year, because for the first time it was held at the Treasure Island in Las Vegas.

Here we are in our masks, since it was a masquerade.

Then on May 28th the Keel family reunion was held at Bryce Canyon. Everyone brought their four-wheelers and had fun riding them. In fact, that was all that Josh and Isaac wanted to do was go on "Wanger Wides".

Here are those two cuties  waiting for their next ride.

Dad caught this cute smile from Finley!

Everyone gathered on Saturday for a pot luck dinner together.

Lexi is such a good Tia to her neices and nephews. She loves them all so much, and they love her back!

Grandma and Frank relaxing after dinner. By the way, did I mention that it was FREEZING COLD there? Fortunately I came prepared with coats and sweat shirts! ( I wore both at once).

There was a really cool museum with stuffed animals of all kinds, and lots of butterflies and bugs too. The kids really liked it. This is Jake and Josh.

Lexi and her Dad.

Isaac and his favorite person.

Out in the back they had some deer the kids could feed. They had a blast, but of course one of them bit Isaac's finger and he boobed for awhile. But amazingly he got over it and fed them again.

Cute little Charlie and Finney sharing a chair.

The scenery was so beautiful. This is Keith, Finley and Jeff.

We did a little hiking, which was pretty fun. This is me, Hillari, Liz Isaac and Josh.

More hiking. This is the ones of our family that could come this year.

Me and my honey.

We really had a great time with some of the family. Gone are the days when every single person was at the reunion. Especially our kids, who are scattered far and wide. But it was a wonderful time with those who could make it!

Scrap-A-Thon

Every year in the spring my good friends Patty and Debbie and I head to Patty's cabin for our annual Scrap- a-thon. We have such a fun time, and I know I look forward to it for months before it happens. This year Patty, who is always thoughtful and sweet, was extra sweet and this is what Debbie and I found when we got there:

She had these baskets of goodies for us filled with all kinds of cool scrap booking supplies. Also to note: the little bowls of almond M&M's. We can't carry on without some chocolate. I usually scarf mine up first thing and then start eyeing up everyone else's. We always stay up really late into the night scrapping. And this is what we woke up to on Saturday morning:

It was so beautiful. But I'm glad I snapped this picture first thing because it didn't stay around for long.

Patty's hubby made us this wonderful chocolate lunch! He surprised us with a chocolate fondue he prepared and cleaned up himself! Bob's such a good guy. He always insists on buying us all dinner at Milt's, one of my all time fav restaurants. This is the aftermath of the chocolate lunch:

We seriously have so much fun together. We talk and yak and we do get lots of pages done too. We did three scrap book challenges this year too. Each of us brought a kit for everyone to see what we each came up with, using the same stuff. It was a ton of fun.

And of course we stayed up waaaaaay too late every night:

We are already planning and scheming and looking forward to next year! Thanks Patty and Bob for being such great hosts!

Lexi's Birthday

Lexi actually celebrated her birthday twice this year, or maybe three times, if you count the surprise party she had at her place. But the weekend before her birthday in April, she came down with her roommates, Amanda, Emily and Lexie to go to the fair. I fixed them breakfast out on the patio that morning. It was really fun to cook and eat it outside, and the weather was perfect. After that we all went to the fair for the day.





This picture is not that flattering of me, but I think I was still in my jammies, so that should explain everything.

The roommates:  Amanda, Lexi and Emily. Lexie Casalou was not at the house yet.

  

We didn't have time to make a cake, so we had to make do with cookies and poppy seed bread. We stuck a candle in it for something to blow out, and sang happy birthday.

Lexi wanted to wait to open her presents because she had to come down again in a couple of weeks for Carlie's wedding. But she traipsed upstairs where I had been hurridly trying to wrap her presents and saw one of them! So this next picture is taken when she came for the wedding. She was thrilled with her new Brita water filter pitcher and filters, and her "Klean Kanteen". She also got some money, so when she headed home I took the day off work and we went shopping. We had lots of fun trying on clothes (and buying some!) and having lunch together. This was a strange birthday for her in a way, but I hope she had fun!

Georgia Trip Part II Y'all! (Finally)

Well, I guess it's time to finish up the Georgia post. I am so far behind on posts! This is a really busy time of year for me at work, so that's part of the reason for the delay in posting. The other reason is that I just don't like to...........especially when I have lots of pictures. Anyway, we left the Dollywood area of Pigeon Forge and headed to Asheville, North Carolina to see the Biltmore House. Sorry, some of the pictures are black and white. I needed them that way for my recent scrap book retreat. Here we are in front of the mansion.

This place was unbelievable! The pictures don't do it justice, and sadly you can't take pictures of the inside. In case you've never heard of it, it was completed in 1895 by George Vanderbuilt. He and his familly lived there until 1930 when it was opened to the public. There are four floors and a basement, and the furnishings and luxuries are exquisite.

In a time when most people didn't have electricty in their homes, Vanderbuilt had a bowling alley and an indoor pool with electric under water lights in the basement.

Many of you might be wondering how we managed with Rhys in a high falutin' place like this. Well, we had him on a leash. Otherwise, I'm sure we would have (A) lost him in one of the 30 or 40 bedrooms, or (B) had to replace something very, very expensive.

On the way home we passed through South Carolina as well, so we traveled through four states on this trip! When we got home we spent a couple of days seeing some of the sights in Athens. I absolutely love covered bridges, so we went to this one near Athens called Elder Mill Covered Bridge. It was really pretty there.

I apologize again for the black and white. This little stream under the bridge was so pretty.

This is the actual bridge. Isn't it so cool? I just love it.

Rhys was sticking his bare toes in the water.

We adore this little boy. He is so cute, and he has a mind like a steel trap. I mean this kid is smart.

John took us to see the campus of UGA, where we posed in front of this really gross looking bulldog. It's been around awhile.

Not the greatest pic of Holli and I, but I had to have a picture of me and my sweet firstborn daughter.

We took Rhys to this really pretty park that had a FREE, that's right, free, zoo. Granted the zoo didn't have tons of animals, but just enough to be fun for Rhys. We liked it. We didn't have to tromp around all day and get too tired.

The happy (well maybe not Rhys. I think he wanted down.) family.

Holli and John's Ward had an Easter egg hunt at their former Bishop's home. Rhys didn't get it at first, but finally figured out that you pick up the eggs and shake them. I think he even started putting them in his bucket and not opening them immediately.

This kid never, ever got tired or slowed down at the hunt. He was on the go every single second. I know because I volunteered to follow him around and keep him away from the electric fence surrounding the huge yard, that Jeff swore was turned on!

Then we had our own little hunt back at their apartment. What fun! Rhys really has the hang of it now.

I don't have any pictures, but no visit to Georgia would be complete without trips to our favorite restaurants, Five Star Day Cafe and Knat's Landing Bra and Girl (yeah, bra and girl; Kind of tacky name, but the food is good) for sweet potato fries and fried green tomato sandwiches. Yummy! We also sampled some boiled (pronounced "bold") peanuts. They're different, but they grow on you.

Well, all too soon our stay was over. But I am so glad we got to go and visit all these fun places and best of all, visit with our daughter and son and cute little Rhys. Thanks guys for such a fun time!

Spring Break In Georgia, Y'all Part I

During Spring Break this year Jeff and I took a trip to Georgia to visit Holli, John, and Rhys. We had such a great time, and there are lots of pictures, so it will probably take two posts. The day after we got there we drove to Tennessee to Pigeon Forge. Yes, friends, we went to Dollywood! Since Spring Break was early this year, spring had not really arrived in Georgia or Tennessee yet, but we still managed to have fun at Dollywood, even though it was cold and rainy. We knew it would be, so we were prepared. And by "prepared" I mean that we took the infamous Mickey Mouse panchos, but left them in the car. The good news is, cold and rainy means we were there with only about 300 of our closest friends instead of 5,000. The first thing Rhys discovered at the hotel was this luggage rack that he loved to have Bampa take him for rides on. We had to pass it every time we left the hotel, and Rhys never gave up on asking for rides!

I'm telling ya, Dollywood was pretty dang fun! Who wouldda thought? I thought it might be cheesey, and it kind of was, but in a good way. We didn't get very many pictures there, because did I mention it was cold and rainy? There are some amazing roller coasters there, and I love roller coasters!

We pretty much walked on to every ride

They had some cute little play areas for Rhys.

This picture is just too cute. You can't see Rhys in all his glory with the hood on and all, but he is so darn cute! And he is a handful and a half too!

Here's Jeff in this goofy coffin.

Nobody expected Rhys to enjoy Dollywood, but he did, and he was really good. We didn't have room to bring his stroller, so we stopped at a Walmart to buy him a cheap one, and all they had were these pink and lavender ones with flowers on them. ( It looks kind of blue in the picture, but it wasn't. It was very lavender and pink) John was not thrilled, but we had no choice. Poor Rhys in his girlie stroller. But he didn't seem to mind. He loved the kiddie rides. The only problem was, when the ride ended he cried when he had to get off. There was one ride that had ducks you ride on and Rhys called it "Quack Qack." He really liked Quack Quack.

The next day we drove to nearby Gatlinburg. It's a cute little town with lots of fun shops, but we were limited on how many stores we could drag Rhys in to. He isn't a shopper. Rhys doesn't like to sit still for very long.

Look who Holli and John ran into! Eat your heart out Doozie! Miley Cyrus just happened to be shopping in the 50% off section.............yeah right.

The picturesque main street of Gatlinburg.

We're not sure why this was the name of this store; there was nothing "Jakish" in there. But we thought it was a cool name!

I just had to make a quick phone call...........

There was a really huge, but cute Easter basket fulll of eggs in this area and we wanted Rhys to pose in front of it after this picture was taken. We should have never let him out of his pink stroller! All he wanted to do was make dents in the gigantic eggs by throwing them on the ground, so we had to get him out of there fast, and didn't even get the picture!

Does he look like he could cause some mayhem? Yeah, good thing he's so cute.

We rode on this gondola ride, which was a little disappointing, since they crammed way too many people in there, and if you were stuck in the middle, you couldn't see a thing. All the way to the top we plotted how we were going to ask for our money back, but of course we're all talk. The ride back was a little less crowded and more enjoyable. In the Fall this view would be spectacular!

When we got back to the hotel, Rhys got a little stir crazy after being in his stroller all day and then the hotel room, so we found a park to take him to so he could run around a little. He has more energy than the energizer bunny! But we sure did have fun with him. I think I'll end the post here, so be on the lookout for Part II y'all!