Grelland Family Reunion Part 1

Since I have to work backwards to get the post to post the way I want it, I have learned a few things making this post - or perhaps re-learned them.

1. My brain is no good at working backwards.

2. I am incredibly impatient. I do not like waiting for the pictures to upload.

3. Kelsey always makes funny faces/body poses for pictures.

Here is a short blurb about our family reunion that we just had in July.

We decided that we had better adopt a child, since we only had one available and it is always more fun with two. Therefore we brought Kelsey along, and she did definitly add to the fun! Of course, Tara is always fun in her whimsical way. With the two, we just had double the whimsy.

We rented a small condo in Sudden Valley, WA, and the deer were everywhere. Cute!

Of course the most important thing we had to do while near Vancouver was to visit Lynn Canyon, aka The Enchanted Forest. Here we are ready to walk into enchantment.

Rain was the prevalent weather condition, but in Vancouver it is the norm, so we just did as the natives do and went everywhere in the rain. Fortunatly, it was not raining (just soggy) when we crossed the bridge of death. If you look closely in the middle of the bride you can see my cute little family looking my way.

Tara in the middle of the bridge looking at the falls. Ah, beautiful!
Tara, Mark and Kelsey all ran up the rock. It's tradition. They all made it the first try which made them feel . . .

So joyful!

I asked them to give me a manly pose. Kelsey - wow, good job! Very manly. Must be Harrison's influence. Mark - Manly of course. He said he sucked in his belly. Tara - well, maybe we will work on that. I guess I'm glad to say manly pose is not in you.

Tara and Mark being enchanted.

The mossy trees. Ah, I do love them!

I believe they would call this trudging.

Enchanting and whimsical faerie-like ladies near the pool.

Mark is helping me see the falls. I didn't get any falls pictures. Sad.

Jeny and Mark at the pool. It's really very beautiful! (and enchanted)

Here is the Faerie Throne. Tara has always wanted to be a Faerie or an elf. And Kelsey, well she's just special.

If you are a Grierson, you understand this picture. It's blurry, but oh, so Grierson-esque.

On our trip to White Rock Beach we saw these two Bald Eagles in the treetops. (way to spot them, Kelsey!) If you look in the middle of the picture near the top of the tree, you can see them. They look like two brown smudges.

And this is the beauties at Fairhaven, WA. It's right near the water, so after lunch I got to go catch wee crabs. Very fun! Rowen is the cutie in the background.

Grelland Family Reunion 2011 part 2

One day we took a ferry to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island. Tara and Kelsy took a plethora of pictures on the ferry ride - almost like they were having picture taking contests. Kelsey won. Nobody can take as many pictures as Kelsey.

Tara took loads of pictures of boats. I think she might like sailboats.


Here are the beauties at the harbor. Tara, Kelsey, Marissa.

Mark wanted to go to the Whale museum. We went into the gift shop and saw the building that housed the whale museum and decided that it might not be all that much fun. So we didn't acutally go into the whale museum.

Here is part of our family waiting for our ferry to take us home. Lively group, eh? We did wear the shorter ones out trying to find geocaches on the island. There was only one that stumped us. Someday I will have to go back and find it.

On reunion day I was a little bit busy doing reunion type things, so I didn't get many pictures. This is geocache team 1. They took their time trying to find the cache and did a thorough job of finding it. They found all sorts of other things as well - mostly stinging nettle.

Team 2, the team I got to run with. We had the fastest time. We also found the stinging nettle. Team 1 chose not to tell us about it until we returned from the hunt. Nice. But we were super fast!

Team 3 includes Aiden. He started with team 1, but they were too slow for him, so he joined team 3. He's pretty cute! This team came in second place, and avoided the nasty plants.

We also played volleyball and soccer in the rain, had a great luncheon and some even braved the lake - swimming and/or canoeing.

And Raef found this super awesome slug.

Afterward we went into the lodge to get out of the rain and enjoy dinner together. Tara enjoyed hanging out with all the boys.

Especially Elliot. I think she has a new boyfriend, n'est-ce pas?

Our 4th of July

On the 4th of July this year we partied with Kelsey most of the day. Tara, Kelsey and Mark did some awesome dancing for me, but Mark won't let me post him dancing. I'll have to put that on while he's not looking. Here are my dancing gals.

After dancing fun, we met Nickell and her family and Kristi for a little time at the lake. This is the only picture proof I have that Kristi is there, so here she is.

Mark took the kids out fishing. Kade loved it. I wonder what he will think of fishing if they ever actually catch a fish?

What a bunch of hotties! (Does that creep you out, Aaron?)

3 New Things Part 1

SPRING! or maybe summer, but either way, the rain finally stopped, and I have felt some small amount of heat. It's beautiful!

I love the hosta/bleeding heart combination. It's my favorite!

Mark got a firepit, and I got a new patio set with non-ripped seats that people of larger stature do not fall out the bottom of.

It really did stop raining. I just sprayed down the patio, and the pictures were taken in the evening, since that's when I'm here.

3 New Things Part 2

Here is what I found at Reams last Saturday.

Get ready to be super jealous!

And Yes, Amy, the Cream Soda is as good as I remember it! Mmmmmmm. Everyone, if you promise to come to my house for a visit, I will buy you some bottles of your favorite kind! Let me know when to expect you.

3 New Things Part 3

And the best of all - My New Car!

OK, it's not all that new, but it's new for me.

Yep, I finally got rid of the Exploder. It more or less exploded. Really it just made Mark's temper explode, which is a worse thing than the car actually exploding. Anyhow, this is the result.

It's a 2007, or maybe 2008 Saturn Outlook with a DVD player that has wireless headphones, which is a cool thing. It also does not make anything ping on Mark's car computer testing gizmo, and that made him happy. It has easy to use cruise control, and when I turn the key it turns on. Those are the important things to me. It also can tow the boat. That's the important thing to Mark. We tested that this weekend, and ate the fruits of that test for dinner last night.

PS, I was the only one that caught anything. Again. :)

Last Day - Back in Nurnburg

Shoot, I think this is still Rothenburg. I'm pretty sure it is, in fact. But we were able to go all the way to the top of this tower in Rothenburg.

Here is the tower from the back side.

And this is the view from the top of the tower. There was a guy up top that said something to me in german on our way down the stairs, but I didn't understand him, so I just nodded and smiled. I did a lot of nodding and smiling this past week. When we got to the bottom of the tower, there was a sign that said it cost 3 euro to go to the top. I think the guy was asking me to pay, and I just walked right away from him. Oops!

Stairs up a big tower at the back of the city.

The most picturesque street in Germany. That's what the guidebook says. Really.

Now we'll do Nurnberg. This is the hangman's bridge. The hangman lived here above the bridge for about 200 years from about 1500 to 1700.

And the bridges over the city are really neat. Here we are on the bridge facing the edge of the city, and the castle.

When we went back to Nurnberg we planned to go through the castle becasue it looked really neat. I didn't go while Mark was working because I knew he wanted to go. Darn it. The castle is closed on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Years day and Shrove Tuesday. Guess what day Tuesday was. So since it was Shrove Tuesday we didn't get to see the castle on the inside. I guess I will have to go with Mark next year when he goes so we can see the castle.

Instead of seeing the castle, we went through the toy museum, which was super fun. They have all the toys we had as kids, but in German. And just about the most awesome train set-up I have ever seen. We also went to Albrecht Durer's house. He was an artist so long ago, and apparently someone that Nurnberg is very proud of. I don't know that I have ever heard of him, except that I believe one if his paintings is inthe game "Masterpiece".

And then we walked to the Parade grounds and Zeppelin Field.

These people would not move off the podium. After about 30 minutes all the other tourists that were waiting for them to move finally just scrunched up on the podium with them. They were still there when we walked away.

And on our way back to the hotel, we saw this sign. I can't read it, but it looks to me like you are not allowed to swim or kill people in this park.

This was a great trip!