Deer in yard

This post is for the grand kids. This spring I was eating a sandwich at the island when I noticed a doe and a fawn in the backyard. These deer ate a lot of our flowers this summer!

First big snow storm for December 2009

There was no school Wednesday and Thursday this week do to heavy snow. We received close to 24 inches in two days.

Canada Trip

We made a quick trip to see our family in Canada. We were there for Halloween. It was fun seeing everyone. Unfortunately, all of the children became ill. Which kind of put a damper on our fun.

Alaska Trip Photo's

To finish my last update on our trip to Alaska, here are some more photo's of our quick trip. While there we were able to see an event for each of our grandchildren. Clayton's baptism, our previous blog, and Bradley's piano recital and Haley's blessing. Here are some more photo's, enjoy.

Alaska Trip:

We are on the downside of a great trip to Juneau to visit the Gilberts there. It was an eventful weekend starting with Clayton's baptism on Saturday. He is getting so big! As you can see in the picture lots of family made it up... April's mom and two April's sisters (Robin and Jody) were there as well as Bob and me. Ben had asked me to speak on the holy ghost. I had given it some thought but had not written anything down. Just before we were to start I looked at the program and I was down as speaking first and on baptism! Ya.. a little panic set in. Thank goodness that turned out to be a mistake! Two other children were baptised along with Clay. It was a special time and we are all proud of Clay.

Kristins wedding:

On April 30, we flew to Salt Lake for Kristin and Richards wedding. It was wonderful.

Hiking Michigan

We went on a hike on last Saturday. We hiked along the back water of the Brown Bridge Dam quit area. It is a beautiful place to hike. It takes us about 1 hr. and 45 min. to complete. There are 4 sets of stairs that add up to 627 stair steps to climb and descend. Its a great workout to say the least. The following are some photos from our hike.

Back home in Michigan

We arrived home on April, 5th. These photo's we taken the next day in our front yard. Not exactly what we hoped to come home to.

Last day in Hawaii

The photo above and the following are of a historic site that we visited after breakfast on the last day of our vacation. The natives truly did live in paradise! We only had 1 1/2 days on the big island and would like to go back again.

The photo above is of the view taken from the restaurant we had breakfast at. This tiny restaurant is only open for breakfast and lunch and the seating area is open to the outside covered only by a roof. You felt like you were eating in the top of the trees. The photo ,below is my breakfast. It consisted of a cheese omelet, 1/2 mango filled with fresh pineapple, apple, banana, yogurt, topped with fresh toasted coconut and bread pudding with chocolate sauce.

Everywhere you turn on the big island you will see flowering plants. The flower above grew out of a crack in a lava field.

This was the last photo taken on our trip. It was taken at 9 pm. in the outside waiting area at the Kona airport on the big island of Hawaii. Our trip home worked out awesome. We departed at 9:30 pm and was in our home 15 hours later. During this time we flew from Hawaii to LA, La to Chicago, Chicago to Grand Rapids Michigan, took a van to the hotel where left our van, stopped and had a great meal, shopped for some food to take home and drove 2 1/2 hours to Traverse City. We were on the ground only 20 min. in LA and 20 min. in Chicago, not legal connections for most, but I know how to work the system (sometimes it works).

This is a photo of the glowing lava as it flows into the ocean. It was brighter than this photo shows, but still disappointing. I guess the eruption is to unstable to get closer on land. There is a boat tour that will take you very close, but we did not have time to do it on this trip.

We walked 1/2 mile at night across a lava field to get a look at the lava flowing into the ocean. This photo shows the flow of foot traffic coming back with their flashlights on. It was very rough walking conditions.

Walking on the cauldron in like being on a uninhabitable planet.

The fumes you see leaking out of the ground are actually warm to the touch and don't smell as bad as the ones at Yellow Stone.

This is a view of the cauldron 800 feet below. We are going to hike down to the cauldron, across the top and up the other side. It is going to be about 4 miles. The next several photo's will be of our hike.

This crack in the earth has fumes seeping out from volcano.

Photo #3

Photo # 2

Photo's 2 & 3 show the Kona airport terminal on Hawaii. It is really cool. Basically everything is out in the open with just a roof overhead to block the sun and rain.

Photo # 1

This photo was taken out the window of a 30 passenger Dash 8 turbo-prop. The island you see is Maui. Next stop Hawaii.

This is our post showing our trip from Maui to the big island of Hawaii.

On Thursday, April 2, we flew from Maui to the big island, Hawaii. The ticket price was only $96 and that was the price just walking up to the ticket counter. We loved the big island (as its called by the locals). We spent most of our time hiking on the volcano that has been erupting everyday for the last year. The lava is actually coming out a vent near the ocean and is pouring into the ocean. I hope enjoy the photos.