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Christmas Book is Done!!

December 10, 2012 By JulieK

I am so happy that this year’s Christmas book is done!! We call it the “Christmas Book” but really, it’s my year in review book which I give as a Christmas Gift! (and has no actual Christmas pictures in it!!) The book is 50 pages, and a pictorial overview of many (not all) of the things that we did throughout the year. I use Photoshop Elements and digital kits and elements to create the book, when it’s done I upload it to an online publisher (www.lulu.com) and have it printed for the grandparents and aunts/uncles. This year’s digital kit and pages are by Melissa Bennett from Sweet Shoppe {if you don’t want to see the cover ahead of time… look away now :) }

Vermont: A Weekend Away

October 9, 2012 By JulieK

So, I didn’t make anything crafty this weekend… Instead we took advantage of the long weekend (Thank you, Columbus!!) and took a little road trip to Vermont!! We’ve driven to Vermont a few times, and each time we fall more in love with the state!! Of course, it doesn’t hurt that it’s peak foliage weekend, and fall is my absolute favorite season!! Here’s what we did… (Warning… this will be an epically long post with pictures :)

We got up early Saturday, started the drive north before the traffic got bad… and our first stop was the Quechee Gorge… Still early, and a little bit foggy, but beautiful!

You know you’re in Vermont when you pass a truck on the highway with 3 GIANT pumpkins in the back :)

Stop number two was the Rock of Ages Granite Quarry… We got there just in time to take the tour up to the actual quarry… Pretty neat!

After the quarry, we also saw their outside granite bowling alley!

and we knocked down a few pins!

A trip to Vermont wouldn’t be complete without a stop at Ben & Jerry’s… We did the tour there and then had ice cream… Maple Walnut… Yummy!!

Next was the Round Church, which is the only round church in the US… A very nice man from the local Historical Society was there and gave us lots of information about the church itself and the history.

Next on the list… Lunch at Bove’s, Funny story about Bove’s… When I first met Mike, he and one of his friends were doing the website for Bove’s, and they used to get paid in sauce :) once a month or so, a box would arrive filled with various types of Bove’s pasta sauce!! Yummy!!

On the road again… The Vermont Teddy Bear factory is next! We took the tour here too, and I have to say I am shocked to find out that the Vermont Teddy Bears are all hand finished, the entire back part is hand stitched on, that’s crazy!! That was a fun tour! I had no idea how they were made, I want to move to Vermont and sew teddy bears!!

Next up was a little driving tour just to see what we could see, it was raining out, but that never stops us! One stop was in Bristol… Love the quintessential downtown!

We stayed in Shelbourne, at the T-Bird Motel, which was, BY FAR, THE CLEANEST motel/hotel we have EVER stayed in… And we travel a lot!!! It was not fancy, and it was not super modern, but I haven’t ever stayed in a cleaner place… It was great!! We will absolutely stay there again… And, it turns out the the owner used to work in Tewksbury, small world!

Breakfast at the Dutch Mill restaurant, right next to the motel, and another fabulous small family owned place. The owner was very personable, and even took Sean on a little tour of the kitchen to see how they make the home fries, ’cause according to Sean, they were the best home fries ever!

Our plan for the day was the Shelbourne Museum, but we had a little time before it opened, so we went to the tallest filing cabinet in the world :) 38 drawers high, made in 2006 by artist Ben Alvarez. It’s quite the kitschy site!

We did spend the rest of the day at the Shelbourne Museum… Mike and I have been before, and it’s fabulous!! a collection of old buildings and artifacts that have been moved there, and they are all full of amazing exhibits.

The lighthouse from the top of the hill.

The end of the Circus building.

The working 1920’s Carousel

From the deck of the Ticonderoga

another shot from the deck of the Ticonderoga

In front of the old schoolhouse

On our way home… We had another fabulous breakfast at the Dutch Mill, then we took the ferry to NY… It was early, and pretty chilly, but not a bad ride!

Hey! There’s me :) and Sean (Kathryn was in the car trying to stay warm!)

and on to the ruins of Fort Crown Point…

I love this one with the ruins of the fort, with the brand new bridge in the background!

The lighthouse.

Then on to Fort Ticonderoga…

Then Mount Defiance where you can drive to the top and see Fort Ticonderoga from the top of the opposite mountain!

Back across the ferry to Mount Independence… which wasn’t as great a view as Mount Defiance, but we’re still glad we drove over… Lots of real working farms along the way, and we even got to watch them harvesting corn! Think Sean is tired of posing with his sister??

After Mount Independence, we started to head home… Saw some more beautiful foliage, and also drove over many of the new bridges that were a necessity after Hurricane Irene’s destruction last year…

It was a full weekend, but it was so fun! We {HEART} Vermont!

Amazing Vacation part 2 Mount St. Helens

July 17, 2012 By JulieK

So, part two of our amazing (not train) adventure was to take the (horrible) train from East Glacier, MT to Portland OR. The plan was to arrive at 10:30 or so in the morning, go to the hotel, change and then head out to Mount St. Helens so we could be there in the early afternoon… Well, the train was (surprise!) very late… So, we arrived in Portland just after 3:00, and stopped to check in at the hotel and headed out… Arriving at Mount St. Helens around 6:30, which meant that the observatory was closed. But, that’s OK… It was still amazing… Being (ahem) 43 years old, I remember when Mount St. Helens erupted. We anxiously watched the news coverage, and I’ve seen the documentaries since… A fascination with a natural disaster that happened in our lifetime that we can remember. It was breathtaking!

Here’s some photos, which don’t do it justice… Our first inkling that we weren’t visiting just any mountain, were the trees, whole stands of them that were all the same size and type… A section of douglas firs that had a sign in front of them that listed them as all planted in 1986… There were many other signs, other types of trees, all planted together in the same year. Preceeded by this sign… (remember you can click on the pictures to see a bigger view).

Then there’s the mountain. You come up to it, and see the side of the mountian, but the crater comes later. Here’s the first view.

from the parking lot of the observatory, this is what you see, stumps

then you climb up to the observatory and the mountain and crater come into view

30+ years later and it still looks like a moonscape (with snow and a glacier)

a close up view of the crater

the opposite hillside

the fallen trees on the opposite mountain, look at the soil, how any of the plants grow in what looks like pumice is amazing

travelling back down the mountain we came across this lake

The difference in the water between here and Glacier was amazing. In Glacier, all the water in the rivers, the waterfalls, the lakes, was glacial water that looked like magic, the pictures didn’t do it justice, it was a beautiful turquoise blue green… I know Mike laughed at me every time I said it, but it really looked like magic water. They should have looked for the fountain of youth in Montana, had Ponce De Leon seen the water there, they would have been sure that the fountain of youth had been discovered. The water here at Mount St. Helens was gray. Crazy, just gray, didn’t look like magic at all… in the river it looked almost like milk. The ash, it made it completely gray, so different than Glacier. Beautiful in its own way. I didn’t get a great photo, but it was getting dark, and we wanted to be off the mountain before it got too late because we had to drive back to Portland…

One more vacation post is coming, the last one will be about our journey along the Columbia River and Oregon Trail to Mount Hood.

A Glacier National Park, Montana Vacation

July 16, 2012 By JulieK

WOW is the word that immediately comes to mind now that we are home from a quick trip to my new-favorite National Park! This post will most likely be VERY LONG, I took a few more than 600 photos on this trip :) I’m going to break it up and only post Glacier today, and later in the week I’ll post about Mt. St. Helen’s and Mt. Hood… Bear with me :) The kids went with my Mom to the lake, this year they finagled a 10 day visit :) so, once we were sure that the weather would cooperate (actually with 2 days of planning) we were off on what we originally called “The Great Train Adventure.”

So, the plan… Fly to Chicago, take the Empire Builder (Amtrak) train in the sleeper car to East Glacier where we had a rental car, and a hotel we could walk to from the train station… The hotel is a 100-year-old lodge originally built by the Great Northern Railroad. Then, after 4 days in Glacier National Park, hop back on the train again and continue to Portland, Oregon where we could drive to Mount St. Helen’s, and Mount Hood. Sounds exciting, right?

My ONLY complaint at all about the trip, it was mostly fantastic… O.M.Gosh… If I were as bad at my job as Amtrak is at theirs, I would be fired. I certainly would not be getting government subsidies for being THAT bad at my job. First, we left Chicago 4 hours late (and from the conversations around us from people who take the train regularly, it turns out that it’s a normal occurrence). So, we would have had time to connect with Mike’s cousins that live in Chicago, where we thought we only had a short layover… Ok, that made us 5 hours late getting into East Glacier, so instead of arriving at 6:45 pm, we arrived just before midnight (according to the hotel manager, if you manage to get in on the same day you’re scheduled, it’s a good day). Ok, that was a heck of a long time on a train that’s a lot closer to riding the Red line than your image of the Orient Express… But, that’s Ok… Our train leaving East Glacier was supposed to board at 6:45, and at 11:45 it finally arrived. Wow, so we were supposed to arrive in Portland just after 10am, we finally got there a little after 3pm. What a mess, we will never take a long ride on Amtrak again, what should have been the “great train adventure” turned into a wonderful vacation where we had to endure 2 horrible train rides. Amtrak is HORRIBLE, did I mention that already? Just in case you missed it, Amtrak=BAD. As an example, we’re already running over 3 hours late in our trip to Portland, OR. 2 stops before (just after Spokane) the conductor comes on the loud speaker to tell us that because we were so late, the track crew couldn’t wait for us, so they went ahead of us and removed a section of track to work on it, we’ll be pulling over to wait while they fix it… Wait?? What did you just say?? They knew we were coming, and they took out a section of track?? Yup… Enough of that… The REST of our vacation was amazing!!

Ok, back to the fun stuff…

I am a person who LOVES mountains, and mountains with a river (like the Kancamagus Highway in the White Mountains of New Hampshire) are my favorite places to visit. Add in that the water looks MAGIC ’cause it’s glacier water, and I’m in heaven!! We went on various hikes (and man, I’m out of shape!!) to simply amazing scenery. I LOVED it!! The lodge we stayed at is 100 years old, beautiful on the inside and out, but also bare in the rooms… No TV, no internet… This connected girl had a little trouble on the days I couldn’t get in touch with the kids ’cause we had no cell service or internet… But that’s Ok, the scenery more than made up for it!! And, the kids were fine without us :)

Here’s a few of my favorite photos..

Scenery from the side of the road

That is a Rocky Mountain Goat standing on the side of a cliff

One of many waterfalls we hiked to

waterfall…

just look at that!! beautiful!

Did I mention we saw lots of waterfalls?

At Logan Pass climbing the snow field (much easier going up than down!!)

a smaller fall on the way to Virginia Falls

Rocky Mountain Goat on the side of the road

ah, mountians! We were chasing the sunset when we came across this field of flowers with the mountains in the background

On our way to Avalanche Lake, what a climb that was…

Along the way… (Gross!!) Fresh bear poo…

worth the hike! Avalanche Lake, surrounded on 3 sides with mountains and waterfalls… Looked like the setting for How to Train your Dragon :)

a little friend visited while we sat for a minute before we had to hike back

so… this picture doesn’t look like much… BUT it’s our “bear” shot… Which I missed… Driving along a windy road, came around a corner, and crossing the road was a black bear!! We stopped, he stood on his hind legs for a second (and was probably as tall as I was) and then ran for the woods… where I got a pic of the woods… Oh well, I was just glad that we saw him from the safety of the car :)

Many Glacier

Suspension bridge on a guided hike

the destination of the hike! Grinnell Lake

ummm, yeah, there’s lots of Rocky Mountain Goats coming over Logan Pass!

These female Big Horn Sheep crossed my path about 10 feet in front of me…

And, finally, a shot of the hotel we stayed in!

If you made it this far… Thanks!! I had a wonderful time in Glacier, and would go back again in a heartbeat!!! (but not on the train!!)

I’ll post pictures of the rest of vacation in the next couple days :)

This is the main book we used… Pretty true to difficulty levels with only one exception… The Avalanche Lake hike is much more difficult than listed, the rest all seemed true to the descriptions.

Happy Birthday Buddy

June 29, 2012 By JulieK

I find it very hard to believe (and I know I say that every year) that my baby boy is 11 years old today!!! Seems like just yesterday that the “little” 8lb 11oz chunka chunka arrived!! We’re on summer vacation, and when he goes back to school in the fall, he’ll be in the 5th grade!! How can that be?? I found a couple of fun older pictures to share… I was so excited to find this one of Sean and Oscar!! I didn’t know I had it!