Vacation 2008

For our vacation this summer Charlie and I decided that we would drive all over God's creation. okay not really but we did drive a lot of miles.After 11 days traveling, 70 hrs driving and just over 4000 miles on our car, we made it to Bear Lake Idaho and back. We hit the road Wednesday morning the 2nd of July and headed to Estes Park Colorado. It was a lot of driving but we pulled into camp, at Rocky Mountian National Park, around 2 am Thursday morning. We were very sleepy and after watching Charlie blow up our air matress with his mouth, and almost passing out, we hit the sack. The next day we explored the area and spent some time with the family. Charlie and half the family went to the Rockies Baseball game. While they were at the game Jill, Laura, the girls and I went and ate dinner and shopped around in Estes Park. It was a lot of fun and I think I ate my weight in homemade candy. Friday was the 4th of July and Katie, Shawn, Charlie and I went to a car show to kill time before our big family lunch. It was really neat and what could be more American than a car show. We spent that evening watching fireworks with the family. After the family lunch we went to a adventure center. We rode bumper boats, go carts, bumper cars, and hit a few balls in the batting cages. I love fireworks!

One of my favorite things ever! Saturday we went to the Stanley hotel, this is the second most haunted hotel in America. You would know it as the hotel that Stephen King wrote The Shinning about! It is also the hotel in Dumb and Dumber. It was really neat, and we got to go in room 217! Then Saturday night Katie, Shawn, Charlie and I went to Fort Collins to hang out with some of Shawn's friends. This was a lot of fun, I'd never been there before and Fort Collins is a really neat area. Sunday rolled around it was time to part ways with the family, we dropped Shawn off at the airport and Charlie and I headed to Rock Springs Wyoming. We spent the night there and the next morning we dropped by Halliburton to say hi to all of our friends. Then we headed right over to Bear Lake. We couldn't wait to see my side of the family and see our friends! We spent Monday afternoon at Jensen Wood signing the paperwork for our house, and yes we closed! We own our house now! We caught up with everyone on tuesday and headed to Pocatello that night to eat dinner with my girlfriends. Two of my girlfriends got got married in the few weeks before we made it home so it was so good to see them and to catch up with all of them. We took wednesday morning to catch up with all the grandparents, then we went to the lake to go boating with some of my friends. Thursday morning came and we headed to Utah. We took two of my brothers to breakfast, it was great to see them. Then we headed to SLC. We went to lunch with AJ, Chelsee and their boys. It was great to see them, it'd been a while. We also got a chance to stop by and see my cousin Tiff, I hadn't seen her in almost two years! We then hit the road to head back to Texas. We almost made it home and we just had to get out of the car! So we spent the night in Amarillo Texas. We drove just East of town to the Cadillac Ranch. It was so neat, but kind of weird. Right on the side of the freeway there are ten Cadillacs buried nose first into the ground. We then ate dinner at The Big Texan. This place was so cool. They have a 72oz steak that if you can finish it in under an hour it is free! If not you have to dish out 72$ for it! They even had a shooting range in this place, and yes the Food was amazing. We did finally make it home. Vacation is great but it always great to come home, and even better when we own the home. We hope the everyone had as fun as getting to see us as we did getting to see them.