Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore!

Today we met Mom and Daddy downstairs for breakfast. The boys took there cards and played which gave us a chance to really enjoy a nice slow breakfast. We said our good-byes and drove to the Hoover Dam. The tour director said if you rubbed the feet of the statues you would have good luck in Vegas. (Hence the picture.)

After HD we drove into Las Vegas. Daniel wanted to stay in the Pyramid hotel so we stayed at the Luxor. It took over TWO HOURS to check in. After standing in line for 20 min. we were off to our room. It was dirty..........We waited 45 minutes for the bellman to to bring us our new rooms keys. We go to our room. It was dirty...........We waited 20 minutes for the manager to call us back. We gave up and went down to the front desk. Third times the charm. We FINALLY got into a room that was clean.

Las Vegas was way too much for Le. He was over stimulated with the noise and lights. By the time we walked to dinner he was begging to go back to the room. After a week of beauty, peace, and quite Las Vegas was a shock to all of our systems!

The next morning things were much better. Our flight didn't leave until 3:30pm so we had the morning free. We hung out at the pool and took it easy.

Now we are back home safe and sound. It felt good to sleep in our own beds last night.

Poor Sandy had to go back to work this morning. We didn't get home until 2:30am so I know he will sleep well tonight!

Day Two At The Grand Canyon

We made it to sunrise this morning!

We've had another great day. We took the boys to the IMAX to see the Grand Canyon movie. It was very good as all IMAX are. Daniel decided he was having a heart attack at the start of it. Once I convinced him his heart was racing because of the movie he calmed down and enjoyed the show.

We checked out a couple more view points of the Canyon and did some gift shop shopping. We then drove over to the Grand Canyon airport for the helicopter ride. We really didn't know if Dan was going to do it or not but he did! They loved it. Brian, Makenzie and I watched from planet earth and took pictures.

WHAT A DITCH!!!!

Today we arrived at the Grand Canyon. It's HUGE! I can't wrap my mind around its enormity. We met up with Nanny and Pa around lunch time. After lunch we took the afternoon and drove through the park pulling over at every view point.

This morning Pa and I made a date to watch the sun rise over the canyon. We missed it by 10 minutes but it was still spectacular. We will try again tomorrow. Anyway, we walked out the front door of our hotel (which sits on the rim of the canyon) and not 30ft away were two huge elk. They were so close you could see the fur on their antlers.

It is still early here. We plan to see some more canyon, do the IMAX, and the boys are going to do a helicopter tour. (Julie will NOT do a helicopter.)

A Day of High's and Low's

We grudgingly left Mammoth Lakes this morning heading south toward the Grand Canyon. It is an 8hr drive. We drove 6 of them today. We had some great views along the way. We saw Mt. Whitney which is the highest point in the lower 48 states. Then we continued our drive to the lowest point in the lower 48 states in Death Valley. It was 113 degrees in the shade. (But as they say, "It was a dry heat.") It was hard to believe we were shivering cold at 11,000 feet less than 48hrs ago! Tomorrow to the Grand Canyon!

Our Third Day at Mammoth Lakes

ANOTHER great day. Today we went to Yosemite National Park. It is so beautiful. The drive up took close to three hours but it was worth it. We saw a bear with her cub (TOO CUTE!) We saw a herd of moose. (Or meese as daddy calls them.) We hit all the high points. We saw Mariposa Forest which has one of the largest trees in the country. We had to hike .8 miles. After yesterday Daniel was NONE TOO THRILLED. But, we all made it and it was worth it. We also saw Bridal Falls, the dome, and more beautiful scenery than I've ever seen in one place. Sandy and I were talking about it and we have always been so impressed with Ansel Adam's work. But, really, you can't screw up with scenes like that. We are now more in awe of the picture than the photographer.

We made it back to the hotel at 8pm and again sleep was NOT a problem.

Our Second Day at Mammoth Lakes

Those are my children jumping off the log!

Today was another great day. We went to the Devil's Postpile which is a rock formation created a gazillion years ago by a volcano. The rocks are all hexagon shaped and look really cool. It was a nice 1/2 mile hike down to the postpile and beautiful. We then hiked to a place called Rainbow Falls. I have one word WOW! It was a 1.3 mile hike to the falls. The mist from the falls create rainbows. We hiked another 1/2 mile to the bottom of the falls and the kids swam. The water was SO cold but they didn't seem to care.

Dan is struggling with altitude sickness, poor thing. Going back up the steps from the falls was climbing in elevation too fast and he got a nose bleed.......Again.....it's been an on going thing......

The hike back was a little more grueling. We forget sometimes that Daniel is SEVEN! At one point during the last 1/3 of the hike back Daniel was laying on the trail saying he wasn't going on. Then, along comes Duke. He was a black lab hiking with his owners. They told Daniel to grab onto Duke's collar and let Duke pull him up the hill. (I want you all to say a little "God Bless Duke" for me.) If it hadn't been for Duke, I think Dan would STILL be laying across the path.

Believe it or not after all that hiking we took a gondola ride up to the top of the mountains. It was breathtaking. We were close to 11,000 feet in the air and could see for Miles. After that, the kids went rock climbing. Needless to say we ALL slept .

Our First day in Mammoth Lakes

Today we met up "officially" with Brian, Yancey, McKenna and McKenzie. We started out day driving 30miles up the road to, believe it or not, a gas station for breakfast. It was a Mobil Mart. It's the only "gas station" to be written up in Conde Nest (Did I spell that right?) for their food. It's also the only gas station I'll ever pay 43.00 for breakfast..............The food WAS good and we sat outside overlooking Mono Lake. This is a salt water lake (2x more salty than the ocean) that has these creatures in it that build "tugas" They look like big pieces of coral coming up out of the water.

After breakfast we drove to Bodie, CA. This is an abandoned ghost town. Again, the drive was awesome. The last few miles is a dirt road so you sorta get a feel for what it might have been like long ago. The ghost town is preserved in a state of disrepair. We could look in all of the windows, go in a couple of buildings, etc. In the museum they gave the kids books to earn Junior Ranger Badgers. (If you have kids and go to ANY govt. park you need to check this out! We've done it in various states. Even though we read about the ghost town to the kids on the way up, by the time they were done earning their Junior Ranger Badges they knew more than us.)

On the way back to Mammoth we stopped at the Mono Lake Visitor Center. The kids earned another badge there. We met up with one of the park rangers. Leigh was her name. She was SO nice. She took the time to work with the kids on their badges and answer their questions.

Check out the pictures. Truly, the pictures don't do the views justice.

Kick off of vacation

We are having a GREAT time on vacation. We left Greenville after work on Friday and drove down to Atlanta to spend the night. We flew out at 8:30am Sat. and arrived in Las Vegas at 9:40am. The flights were on time, the seats were decent, and for 6.00 a seat the kids could play all the video games and watch tv and movies. (I would have paid 12.00!) We picked up our mini van and we were off.

The boys saw a show on the Discovery Channel a few weeks ago about Area 51 and a restaurant/bar/casino/inn there. I was not wild about going because it was taking us over an hour away from our final destination. We still decided to go and I am SO glad we did. The drive was FABULOUS!!! It was deserted two lane roads the whole way. We drove over 200 miles and saw maybe 30 cars. We saw wild mountain goats, rams, deer, it was GREAT. We had so much fun deciding we were being watched. If we saw an odd rock formation we would wave to it so the government could see us. We imagined all types of odd things at the ends of these dirt roads that turned off into nowhere.

We made it to the "Aleinn" as you can see. There wasn't much there (of course) but they had pictures on the wall of spaceships that had been seen in the area and a gift shop and again it was so much fun. We were there all of 15 minutes and we were on our way to our final destination. We didn't think the drive could get any better but it did. We drove out of the desert and into the mountains. There were a couple of times we went around corners and all four of us would gasp. The most incredible thing to me is that even though we were three hours ahead "body time" the boys were great.

We made it to Mammoth Lakes, CA around 5pm ate dinner and went to BED!!!!!! Enjoy the pictures. I will try to post more later.

No trip to the farm is complete w/o target practice!

This was one of Daniel's first times. Both boys had great aim!

Check out Grandpa's orchard

We went up to the orchard to pick peaches but they weren't quite ripe. Looks like they are going to have a good crop of peaches, and grapes.