Happy 80th Birthday Mom!

Wow Mom - this "has been coming for a long time and this is it!" 80 years young! You have been so worried about how old 80 sounds - that you forget to ACT 80. You are so young at heart and mind that 80 seems like the new 40! Happy Birthday MOM! We love you so much. Thank you for being the best Mom in the world!

We all got together for a big party at our house to celebrate Mom turning 80 and Ryan turning 18. Thanks for flying up to join the celebration Linda! Surprise MOM!

Cakes, balloons, cookies, games, streamers - we had a great, old-fashioned birthday party!

Carol made a fun word search because Mom loves them! It was hard!

We played a "stuff the little balloons in your oversized clothes" game. Even Mom and Dad got into the fun. Somebody call Weight Watchers quick!

Another card with $100 in it. Dad has kept this tradition going for many years. Mom still has the $100 bill in most of the cards. She never spends it. Dad shops all over the country for the funniest and silliest "money" cards. Another good one Dad! The C note is coming out of the gorilla's mouth.

We got a picture of each of us with Mom and Dad.

Now all 4 girls are together. 2 blonds, 2 brunettes.

All the Spokane grandkids attending the party. Except Ryan had to leave earlier.... We'll photoshop him in!

We always have fun when Mom and Dad come to Spokane. I think they enjoy the busy life for a while but I'll bet they are glad to get back to the retired life in Utah.

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!

56 years! Congratulations Mom and Dad. We loved thinking of you, admiring you and celebrating with you on June 24! How do you get to 56 years together? One day at a time I guess!

Carol took this pic of Mom and Dad when they were at her house for church.

Dad bought this little cake to celebrate!

We all went to dinner to celebrate as well as taking the kids bowling. It has become a tradition to go bowling with Grandma and Grandpa when they come up here. It is so fun to see Dad doing something he likes - for fun. (That isn't work related!)

Father's Day with my Favorite Fathers!

How lucky am I to spend Father's Day with my own Dad and my husband and my son in law? All the great guys in my life! Happy Father's Day!

So grateful to have a good father for my kids! Mike truely is a good Dad. He brings a lot of fun to our family and takes good care of us all! Because of him we know about hunting and guns, we march in Military parades and go see air shows, we watch the history channel and listen to NPR, and watch the golf channel and have a golf cart. We take awesome vacations every year because he plans them and we have Annie the dog because of him. And...he puts the "fun" in Dysfunctional - that's for sure!
So grateful to have a good Dad too! Mom and Dad were in town so we got to spend Father's Day with them. Dad had 3 of his daughter's with him. Dad taught me to work hard, spend wisely, seek to learn about everything... He always makes me feel capable and smart and successful. He and Mom gave me a great start and a strong foundation! I love you Dad!

So grateful to have a good son in law too! Toby is so patient and good with Dallas. Tammy chose well! Toby is such a great addition to our family. We love him and love it when he can come and spend time with us. I trust him completely with some of my most favorite people - my daughter and grandson!

Love this little guy! Come to Grandma Love's house and you can have anything you want!How can I resist those big brown eyes???It is always so great when Mom and Dad come to visit in Spokane. We make the effort to get together for meals and activities. We keep on begging them to move here (but don't tell Steve and Linda...) But they like the Utah crowd so we just have to enjoy them while they are here.

Mom and her 3 SPOKANE girls.

Dad and his 3 SPOKANE girls.

I am blessed with some pretty terrific men in my life.

I love you guys - Happy Father's Day!

Alaska -The Last Frontier!

Mike and I had a wonderful vacation to Alaska! A cruise with Mom and Dad and Linda and Chris. Lucky us! It was Dad's "last state to get" on his lifetime travel list. Mike has always wanted to go to Alaska too so this was our chance. We saw the southern part of Alaska - Ketchican, Juneau and the Hubbard Glacier - all of it was amazing. The scenery was familiar because it was very much like the mountains around Seattle and Canada and even North Idaho by our house. The great Northwest! But the difference was that there were no people! It simply is not developed. No roads, no houses, no lights. We cruised the inside passage and went for hours and days without seeing any humans on the water front. How different from the crowded lakes and waterfront around here.

Mom and Dad and our ship.

Deb and Mike and the ship.

Linda had us book through her wonderful travel agents -the Gordon Group. They hosted a cocktail party and we enjoyed some strawberry daiquiris. They got us a dinner table by a window which made for some great scenery during dinner each night. A rainbow once and a whale and of course just the beauty of the trees and water and mountains.

Linda and Chris are easy traveling companions. It was so fun to have them right next door. We had a lot of fun shopping, eating, sightseeing, listening to music groups, hanging out on our balconies.

This was the first dress up night. Notice the beauty in the background. This was out our balcony. It is always fun to dress up - Linda has a million fancy outfits. Mom looked gorgeous too! We were a great team. Hey we are missing the blondes of the family - here are all the brunettes.

These guys were very patient to wait while the girls were shopping. They act like they are on vacation!

One of the fun things we did was go to a lumberjack show in Ketchican. It was entertaining and also amazing to see the things those boys could do with a chainsaw and a log. Dad and Mom were cracking up. It was great to see them have fun!

Then we went on a sight seeing plane ride. Took off and landed on the water! A pontoon plane! Very cool. Mike was lucky enough to sit in the front because of his co-pilot/navigator experience. He looked quite at home in the cockpit!

Out pilot was about Andrew's age - scary!

We flew out to a forest ranger's cabin on a beautiful, pristine mountain lake that is only accessible by air. It is only like $35.00 per night to rent for the cabin but the cab/plane fare to get there is about $800.00. Dad and Mom chickened out on this adventure. Too scared of a small plane.

One day for fun we played BINGO. And Dad won! That was hilarious because before we started he was all - "No! I'm not playing BINGO - that's dumb." Well, it's a dumb game until you start winning. "Clark from Dallas wins Bingo!" The girl could not get his name right...

Nothing like watching the scenery from the balcony. We had a great room. Mike brought his hunting binoculars.

Oh - the dressing up and eating wonderful food. I love cruises!

I was totally taken by surprise at the beauty of the Hubbard glacier. If you can imagine great big blocks of ice floating in the water in a huge bay leading up to a wall of ice 5 miles wide. And the colors of gray and blue! And then if you were watching at the right time, big chuncks of ice would break off and fall into the water. We watched from on deck as well as from our balconies.

This was my favorite part of the glacial wall. It actually changed as we looked at it. Part of it broke off and fell into the ocean. It was at the end of a water inlet and with the advancement of the glacier, they expected the inlet to be blocked off by ice within a few weeks.
Amazing to consider the force of nature!

Yes, we were wearing coats in June but we do that at home too!

When we got to Juneau, we took whale watching tour. Oh my gosh! We rode a 26 foot boat out into a bay that was full of whales. The guide called it whale soup. We watched for the humps to come out of the water and then the tales. So beautiful. They breached twice - but of course I was looking the other way! One whale came up within 8-10 feet of our boat. I got it on video. We had no idea he was so close. Those guys are BIG!
We also rode an arial tram up a mountain side in Juneau for a birds eye view of the town and our ship. I hate heights...that was a scary ride for me! Juneau was also fun because I saw more eagles in one day than I have my entire life. And that counts Whidbey Island where they nested by our house. We counted 18 in a few trees as we were riding the whale watching boat out to the bay. Their white heads really stood out from the green trees. And there were young ones too without the white head yet. So many eagles - like crows or robins here at home!

Shopping in Juneau.

Cream Brule` - my favorite dessert ever! This was a fun party they had one night with music, dancing and desserts.

Another fun part of the cruise were the demonstrations of ice carving and these fruit and vegetable carvings. I even learned how to fold napkins for my next fancy dinner.

In Victoria we took a sight seeing bus and had a quick tour of the city. It made us want to come back soon. Victoria has been on our list for awhile!

Our servers were so amazing. We loved them! Ali was from Turkey and Bonifaciao was from India. They were not your typical waiters. They joked with us and got to know us. I almost cried to say goodbye to them.

One of the funniest parts of the cruise was the newlywed game show on the last night. Mom and Dad were contestants! So funny to see them up on stage and hear their answers about their first dates and other funny information about them as a couple. They were laughing as hard as we were! They didn't win but we were cheering for them!

Sunset on the last night!When we docked in Seattle, we took a chance to tour Pike's Market with Linda and Chris. We also went up on the Space Needle for a great view of Seattle. We could see our cruise ship docked and taking on new passengers! How dare they give away our rooms?

We all had a great vacation! When can we go again?