Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Idaho

Several weeks ago, Travis and I got back from visiting his friends and family in Idaho. I would have written about it during the summer, but we left soon after that to go to a conference that he had for work in St. Simons. Obviously, I chose to go on the trip with him, since I'm so supportive and all! Then, school started and I didn't want to spend any free time "working" - which this felt like at the time (since I had to type and plan what I would post). Anyway, back to Idaho:


We flew there on July 3rd, so we were there to hang out on the 4th. For the 4th, we went to a party with his parents, dropped by a party at his sister's house, then went to climb Best Hill with his friends Jason and Korrei to see the fireworks. Here is the view from Best Hill... it was really neat to be able to see all of the fireworks that everyone in the entire town was setting off.

We spent the next day hanging out with Jason and Korrei. We walked around Tubbs Hill, which is right on a lake... and I particularly enjoyed climbing around on the rocks.





We also played with their mini four-wheeler and learned how to play the drums on Rock Band.



Later that week, I learned how to wake board while out on the boat with his parents. I wasn't very good at it, but I was able to get up on the board for a little while (as long as I didn't hit a big wave or anything). Travis was much better at it than me! We also played on the jet skis and he went tubing.




My favorite activity on the water was when Travis and I took the rowboat out for a sunset row on the river - look at him being a good sport about having to row!

We also went on a bike ride with his parents down the Hiawatha Trail. This was a lot of fun (and easy) because you can ride down the mountain on a gentle slope (a 2% grade or less because it was once used for trains), then drive back up it to instead of pedaling if you take two cars. The views were amazing and we got to ride through really long tunnels and over trestles!




One of the most interesting parts of the trip was staying in a lookout tower that was once used to watch for fires. It was a long drive to get there (and back); and it took much longer than it should have because Google maps and my GPS kept sending us to roads that were actually trails. The upside was that during the drive, I saw two moose, two elk, several deer, and other smaller wildlife. Anyway, the tower that we stayed in was on top of Sex Peak. Yes, that's the real name - here's a website for it: Sex Peak Lookout



Even though there were a lot of rocks and it was difficult to walk around, it was neat to have them there because many of the people that had stayed in the past decorated a small rock and left it near the lookout. While we were there, Travis carved our names into a rock (we didn't have any markers or paint).



Here's Travis cooking dinner with the wood stove in the lookout tower. I'm glad we had the stove because it got cold at night, even in July. There's also a picture of me with a snow ball (there was a little bit of snow left).



The best part about the lookout was the view, particularly the sunrise... even though it was really early.





As we were leaving, I went to take a picture of the outhouse and I got more than I bargained for... there was a big deer nearby!



There were so many other things that we did while there, but I just can't blog about all of them... so here's a list of some of them: the tassel (from a pillow) attacking me in my sleep, riding in David's boat, Travis' cousin's birthday, attempting to sing karaoke, and brunch at the casino.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Viva Las Vegas

Heather and I went to Vegas last week and had a blast – but our feet and calves were killing us from all of the walking. They really make it hard to get in and out of a casino without walking a lot… and we wanted to see as many of them as possible. Then, Travis joined us for the weekend and I got to enjoy the walking tour with him all over again. Fortunately, I talked him into using the monorail… since it would save him some time (and me some walking). I don’t really have time to blog much about the trip now, since I am leaving for Idaho tomorrow and still need to unpack and repack my suitcase (I'm traveling a lot more than usual this summer)… but here are some of my favorite pictures of the trip:










Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Happy (late) Father’s Day!

My dad and I went to a Braves game for Father’s Day… It was nice to do something with him because my mom and I hang out all the time, but I don’t do much with my dad. Anyway, it was a cool night with a breeze (due to storms north of us) and we had good seats near first base. Here is the view from our seats - we could actually see much better than it looks like in the picture.


My favorite part of the night was when a ball was hit a few seats in front of us – it was pretty exciting.

Monday, June 23, 2008

AOC Picnic

Travis and I went to the Annual AOC Picnic (it was our first one) on Saturday. It was a lot of fun and reminded me of going to camp - and like kids, we all enjoyed putting on the fake tattoos that they had there. There were also a lot of games (volleyball, frisbee, ladder ball, assassin, tug of war, relay races, etc…) and it was on the lake, so a lot of people went swimming. There was even a band there made up of people that are in the AOC group. Here are some pictures from the event:





I'm glad we joined this club... we haven't gone to many events yet, but I've had fun at all of them that we have gone to and everyone is really nice.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Schools Out for Summer!

School has been out for several weeks now and I have been very lazy about bothering to blog. I guess it just hasn’t been on my mind because I haven’t been sitting at my computer at work. However, I am going to Vegas next week, so I have been on the computer a lot lately looking up stuff to do while there. I will write about the highlights of the Vegas trip and post pictures of that next week, but I guess I should catch up on the major events of the first part of the summer for now…

First, my brother had some friends over to his place at the lake. There were several dogs there for Bailey to play with and we all had a great time swimming.




Then, my parents went out of town for a week and I babysat Lucky while they were gone.


Since my parents live on Lake Lanier, Heather, Sarah, and Travis all spent some time hanging out there with me. I was happy that they both came up to enjoy the lake – we were able to hang out at the dock and take the boat out. Also, it made staying there more like a vacation than house sitting…




Here are some other events from the summer: I got Bailey a kiddie pool from Wal-Mart, pretended to exercise on the Wii Fit, went shopping with my mom, hung out with Heather, played poker, went on an AOC (Atlanta Outdoor Club) bike ride in Peachtree City, and went to a family reunion on Father's Day that was actually not until the next week.