Back from vaca

I think that once you get back from a vacation, you need another vacation just to unwind and unpack and do laundry and clean the house and pay bills and go grocery shopping!


Anyways, we had a great time in Seattle and Whidbey Island this past week. We did soooo many things! Here's what went down in the crazy, liberal, save the earth, pot smoking city of Seattle--

#1. Air Museum
This was pretty cool despite the fact that I thought it was going to be waaaaayyy boring. We got to see neat planes and sit in them and walk through the history section of WW1 and WW2. I am amazed at how we can fly anywhere we want to go and how a plane can stay in the air. I think dad was the one who loved it the most because he used to fly planes, so it was fun for him to explain stuff to us.




Megan flying a Blue Angels



Mom in an airplane



Toby could barely fit in the cockpit of the plane. Good thing he didn't choose to fly planes! What would he do if he had to eject?

#2. Harbor Boat Tour
I really enjoyed seeing the city from off the shore. Seattle is really quite big and beautiful. I love how the city is surrounded by water. We also got to see a bunch of cruise ships leaving for Alaska. It made me want to go on one!




View of the city from the boat





Toby and Tammy-we were sooo cold!

#3 Aquarium
I really enjoyed walking through the aquarium. We were able to see a tide pool and touch sea cucumbers and star fish and all sorts of slimy things. We even saw sharks and sea otters. Mom pointed out the beautiful and colorful fish that she saw when they were in hawaii. I have never seen such brightly colored fish! I tried to get some photos, but it was hard with the glass and the reflection. One of my favorite things were the jelly fish. They were in a clear tank with bright lights. The lights would change colors and you could see right through them. It was pretty cool. Another thing that was pretty cool was the octopus. It was gross and big and I would not want to be caught in it's arms! Still-it was neat to see.


Jelly fish!


Such a pretty fish. Don't know what it's name is though.


Wouldn't want to be swimming with this shark. He makes toby look small!



The girls were a little bit nervous to touch the sea creatures.



The attack of the octopus!




Pretty gross looking huh!?


#4 The Science Center
I have never been to such a cooler place! We spent a good part of our day at the science center. Very neat stuff. We looked through glasses that made you see things as if you were drunk, and on drugs. I couldn't even see straight! It almost gave me a headache. We learned about genitics, how gravity works, how sound works, and many other cool things. We also walked through a butterfly exhibit. This was beautiful! They had a bug exhibit and that was gross. I swear I could feel them crawling on my skin. We were up close and personal with bees, black widows (the size of a quarter) and other nasty bugs.



Toby is riding on a bike that is holding him up by a 200 pound weight. I didn't do it because I was too nervous! I didn't want to fall!


This table and chairs is to show you what life is like for a three year old. If you are six feet, then this table makes you only three feet. It was hard for me to get up on the chair and I could barely reach the table! Poor kids!


Can you read what this butterfly says? If you look closely, it looks like the butterfly has the word 'suck' on his wings. Don't know why it looks like that but all the white butterflies had that on their wings. It was pretty funny.


#5 Mariner's Game

This might be one of my favorite things that we did while in Seattle. We went to a Mariner's game against Boston Red Socks. It was sooo much fun. We had great seats-they were in the middle of third base and left field. It was such a great game. We won and the Mariner's hit two home runs back to back.





Ready to go to the game! Toby had never been to a major league baseball game, I was excited to share this with him.




Safeco Field! It was so cool to be a new baseball stadium. I am glad that it didn't rain so they had the roof off. But, had it rained, it would've been neat to see them slide the roof over.


The family at the game

Well, there's more to post on our vacation, but I'll do that later.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's day dads! We love you and hope you all had a great day!

Father's Day Weekend

We had quite the eventful weekend! Along with Tassa and Tawny's visit, Toby's parents came for a quick trip as well. It was fun to see them again. They stayed at Tory's house and we went out to dinner on Friday at the Macaroni Grill and then did some shopping. For Tom's Father's day present, Toby took him golfing early on Saturday morning. They had a good time and Toby won by only one stroke. I made him a chocolate cake with strawberries and got him a big bag of sweedish fish (he likes to fish--so that was my "fishing" present!). Then we headed over to Tory's house for a yummy bbq dinner. Michelle was happy to see everyone and it was fun to get to hold and play with her. She is getting so big and is getting healthier everyday.

Saturday night, we did a photo shoot with Tawny and I even got Toby and Tassa to jump in and smile in a few photos as well. It was quite a fun family filled weekend! Enjoy the photos.

Tawny's Photo Shoot

I talked Tawny into doing a photo shoot with me. She did a great job and I got some awesome shots. Click here to see the photos.

Playing Tennis with Tassa and Tawny

Tawny and Tassa came to visit us this weekend and we spent yesterday and today playing tennis and swimming in the pool. I took some awesome shots of Tawny and Toby playing their game and posted them on the family website and then the best photos on my professional site. I thought it would be fun to show some sports photos. We got some sun and had fun swimming in the pool. It wasn't as cold as I thought it was going to be and the sun warmed you right up!

It's Laundry Day....

I have no shame! Or pride! I decided (which wasn't very smart) to wait until the very last moment to do my laundry (we were having family come that day) and so I spent all day doing it. Well that night, we had two softball games and by the time I got home, I was too tired to fold and put things away. So, I Put everything on my dresser! Ha ha ha! I'm lame but that's okay. :)

Briten Grandkids Photo Shoot

I had another photo shoot this week of some grandkids of a woman that Toby works with. We went to Albertson's park again because of how pretty it is. There were two boys who were brothers and then one girl who was a cousin. It was hard to make them all smile all at the same time. They were all under the age of 10 and didn't have that long of an attention span. It was still fun and I managed to get a couple of cute ones. Good thing for a digital camera! I took over 225 photos and deleted more than half! I added some to my portfolio. Hope to be doing more photo shoots--it's what I love! Know of anyone needing great photos? Send them my way!

Hochhalter Family Photo Shoot

I took the Hochhalter's family photos today. They are in the married ward and our good friends. I had such a blast. It was so easy to take photos of them and they were willing to do anything. We went to the Albertson's Park downtown. The weather was great, and their baby Vince was so happy. I posted the pictures on my flickr site, so take a look. They turned out great!

Melanie comes to visit! :)

Many of you will remember Melanie, she was my best friend in college and my roommate. Well, her sister has moved to Boise for the summer and she came to visit this weekend. I got to see her! I was soooooo excited because I haven't seen her in 3 years and she has a beautiful little boy named Tyson. It was so fun to talk and catch up on the good ole days. I was able to see her mom and her sister as well. We all went out for ice-cream later on that night and vowed to keep in touch.

Tyson-a little over one year old

Tyson and his grandma

Melanie and Lisa

Spokane Fun

Toby and I went up to Spokane this past weekend for both my sister and Toby's birthday. We had such a great time. We went out to dinner at the Spaghetti Factory and walked through the Davenport Hotel downtown. It's such a pretty hotel, very grand and elegant. We went shopping and roasted marshmallows and made s'mores and peach cobbler in the fire pit. We also had a bbq and celebrated Uncle Chet's, Melissa's and Toby's birthday at the Walkers. Toby and Andrew went to a Spokane Shock game (indoor football) where Andrew caught a shirt during half time. We also went to Katie's band concert where they played music from the Pirates movies. It was wonderful! We took photos of Addy and Calvin at the park and it was quite the job to get them to smile together.

It was a short trip, but we had a lot of fun. Our next trip will be in a few weeks where we are going to go to Seattle and Whidbey Island. We'll get to go to a Mariner's game! Here are some photos from this weekend.

Photo shoot of Calvin and Addy Smith

While up in Spokane, I took photos of Addy and Calvin. Addy is adorable. Calvin is cute too, but it was so hard to have him sit still and smile. Both Mom, Toby and Jessica had to help me get him to smile. We bribed him with M&M's. We were able to get a few photos of them and they turned out so cute. My absolute favorite picture is the one where Jessica is holding Addy and she is crying because Annie is sitting next to them. Calvin (who is smiling) is being held by Toby and he is trying to pat Annie. It's a great photo. I posted them on my Flickr site. Enjoy!

Melissa

Melissa is hilarious. She makes me laugh and she is willing to do anything. I was playing around with my camera and I used her as my model. These pictures are great and you can see how happy she is and how active. She has a great personality!

Melissa's Baby Birthday Party

Melissa turned 9 on Saturday and we had a birthday party for her. She decided to have a "Baby Party" and all the games were things that babies did. We had the kids find pacifiers in bowls of cool whip and they had to fill up diapers with juice. They also did a baby race where they had to crawl around the yard. We even played "pin the tail on the donkey" but instead we pinned the bottle on a photo of baby melissa. We colored pudding and the kids got to finger paint. They loved getting their hands dirty and most of them ate the pudding as well. We even had a baby food eating contest. Lots of the girls thought it was pretty gross, but some ate the whole jar. It was pretty funny to watch them eat it.

We decorated a cake with a crib and baby toys and they all watched a baby movie and drank pop out of a bottle and ate popcorn. Click here to see the photos. It was such a fun party!

Happy Birthday Toby!

Toby turned 27 on Tuesday the 5th. We had a family birthday party when we were in Spokane. He opened presents and we ate yummy chocolate cake.

Katie made Toby cookie dough. He was very excited and we all ate it instead of making cookies.

He got a Steelers football from my family and I got him an i-pod. He was sick of sharing mine so now he has his own to use! He also got some clothes and money and lots of candy. We went out to dinner when we got back to Boise. We went to PF Changs, it was very yummy.

Hope you had a great day Toby! We love you!