My oh My!!

The last four days I was able to take a trip to Oregon and see my family all the while Mat was off playing with Grandpa Haderlie, Tucker and our friend Adam catching lots of fish. Mat said he took some pictures, which I will post once I find them. :) I, on the other hand, had my sister take pictures for me, since I was camera-less in Oregon. :)

I was able to see my dad. This was the first time I saw him since his heart transplant. The transplant surgery was back in April so I was anxious to see the change. Here is a picture we took the week before the surgery.

This was from Easter. The following week, if daddy did not get the transplant, the doctor would have admitted him and raised the status for the transplant. I'm glad that we didn't have to experience the what if's.

Here is a picture from this last Saturday:

He was so happy! He smiled more than I can ever remember him smiling! He looked amazing!!!!!!

It was so great to see him look 10 years younger and with a little meat on his bones! We had a great visit just catching up. I wish I had more time to visit, it was such a short trip. This coming fall, we're hoping to go visit again, but we will see.

Also on this trip, I was able to catch up with my mom for an afternoon and did a little shopping. My niece wanted to have makeovers and my sister made such awesome food, I don't ever have to go to a five star restaurant!

I will try to get the pictures from Mat's trip up tonight! :)

Star Valley Weekend

Mat was really hoping to fly this weekend, but that just didn't work out. Again. Every time we've reserved a plane and plan to fly, Mother Nature has a different idea and dumps rain on us. :) So we drove....

We went into Idaho Falls on Friday so I could see Bethany and visit with Mom and Dad Haderlie. Then Saturday we slept in (much needed by the way) and took our time. We headed off to Star Valley, it's honestly a gorgeous drive! Lots to see!

We were going to Grandma & Grandpa Haderlie's first. The reason for this trip was to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. There was a huge surprise party planned for them, but part of the surprise was let out of the bag when an announcement went into the local paper. :) We were able to visit with friends and family, see all the new additions to the family! It was great!

The party was in Freedom. So for my family mainly who doesn't know much about Star Valley, I found a map! Their is the lower valley and the upper valley (Mat grew up in the lower), so I'm hoping this helps!

Grandma & Grandpa Park live in Etna, we stayed with them on Saturday night, in their "palace". It was definitely a palace! They let us stay in their new camp trailer! It's fancy!!!

And then Afton has the elk horn arch, which I also found pictures of :). It seems lately, Mat and I have been really bad about picture taking! We took the camera this last weekend, but forgot to actually take pictures.

We had a great time this weekend! It was nice to break away and get out into the country for a while. We haven't been back to Star Valley since August of last year and can't figure out why it took us so long!

The summer always seems to be the busiest time of year, but we're hoping to get another trip in to Star Valley before to long!

Mat's going fishing with the Haderlie boys a week from this weekend while I escape off to Oregon! I'm excited to see my family again! And I know Mat's overjoyed to go fishing, he's been talking about it for a while! :)

I'll try to get some pictures at least this next time!

Texas Pictures!

Here are some pictures from Texas!! :) We don't have many, but we have a few - there's a story to go along with that, I'll get to in a bit.

First off, Mat completely forgot about the "best ice cream on the planet" until well...we were all on our second helping. :) Mat took a nap and missed out on Grandpa Clarence's ice cream cone snacks! When he woke up though, he was told by us all how wonderful they were and then grandpa dove right in for a second helping! :)

Moving on...for most of the time the weather was really great! However, on our way to Lakey, Texas - where my grandparents have a ranch, population: 397 - we had some wild weather to go through.

My sister was taking pictures each step of the way (from the car). They turned out amazing! The only downfall was after these pictures were taken, we had a horrendous rain storm to drive through that made visibility impossible.

Once we got to the ranch, Mat was completely taken back. Mat lived in Houston and all the outskirts, he had never been to the San Antonio area or their outskirts. So he was pleasantly surprised showing up and seeing Grandma Doris & Grandpa Jim's 640 acre ranch. :) I hadn't been to the ranch since I was about 6 years old and a lot had been updated and remodeled, but overall it was still gorgeous! The morning time I think was my favorite, the sun coming through the trees in the front yard and just overall, breathtaking. My sister got a great shot of the morning time, I'm so thankful she took the camera!
Here are a few shots from the front of the driveway too:

The best part about being on the ranch besides being "out of sight and out of mind" of the busy cities and responsibilities of everyday life was we had so much area to roam! There were quads on the ranch so we were able to take those around and go explore. It's just gorgeous up there!

Mat and I also got to take our niece and nephew around, they had so much fun! Ash Lee, who's about 4, loved going fast! So for the most part she was steering and controlling the gas. :) I was just along for the ride. William also had a blast!

Our last night on the ranch, Grandma Doris took Mat & I, Mandy & Philip (Sister & bro-in-law) up and around the property to show us around. We had a great time and got to see a ton of amazing spots!

However, before we could really do much of anything, we had to reclaim our territory! My grandparents have cows, goats and lamas on the property, they are free to roam just about anywhere and well.....ride 4 wheelers apparently. :)

We are really grateful for our grandparents who paid for our trip down, we can't thank them enough for such a wonderful time! We did get one family shot, but Grandma Doris is our photographer for this picture, so she's missing:

These are all pictures taken by my sister, who was the only smart one to take a camera :). However, yesterday, her computer gave her the "screen of death". And her computer crashed. This is devastating in itself for her, but there were many many files that weren't backed up at all. The Texas pictures were among those that were lost, so these are the only ones we have. I still think they are great and honestly, show a range of the good times we had. (Thank you, Mandy!)

So that's our trip in a nutshell :). And this is my first time (ever) posting pictures to my blog, so I hope I did it right. :)