Well now that I have the hang of this, I’m going to put up some of our pictures from our family vacation last summer in July 2006. We started our adventure in Scottsdale, Arizona at Cheryl and Tex’s house. Cheryl is Michael’s sister and Tex is our new Brother-in-law. Jeff, Cheryl’s son, and Kurt, Michael and Cheryl’s brother, joined us in Scottsdale and we all went adventuring to the Grand Canyon where we had a wonderful time!
We said goodbye to our Arizona family and made our way to Jackson Hole, Wyoming and the Grand Tetons.
And then on to Yellowstone National Park. You’ll see from our pictures that we really got a lot in while in Yellowstone. We can’t wait to go back! After Yellowstone we went to Hells Canyon and took a rip-roaring, high-speed boat trip down the Snake River. Unfortunately, I lost all my pics from Hells Canyon, but that’s OK, we’ll be going back one day and sure to get some more.
Finally, we ended our three week adventure in Portland, Oregon, where we spent time with our sweet Oregon family, my sister Gail’s children and grand-children. We spent part of one day at the Portland Rose Garden and unfortunately those pics were lost along with the Hells Canyon pics. We also spent one day at the Portland Zoo. We spent wonderful family time with nieces, nephews, cousins and second cousins…
Spencer was our navigator and marked our path through the West on a map that he was able to use for Boy Scouts toward one of his badges. Definitely the best of all worlds, great time with family at the bottom and top of the West and fun, family adventure in between at our Nation’s best-loved National Parks. What could be better than that!!?! So, things were accomplished and fun was had by all…we had the dream vacation of a lifetime!
OK, so here’s my first attempt at posting something to our website. I just really want to get the pictures uploaded from our Caribbean cruise on the Carnival Fun Ship Ecstasy in January. I don’t have anything witty to say, just want to join the family party…
OK, Barney finally helped me get this going…here’s some really great pictures from our cruise in early January. Yeah!!!
OK, bear with me here while I finish uploading the pictures from the cruise. Due to technical limitations and because I have so many pictures, I’m having to break it down. This first set of pictures is for the first part of the cruise and our introduction to the Worship Institute folks and then onto our first Port of Call in Cozumel, Mexico where we ventured over to the mainland to visit the Mayan ruins at their birth city of Tulum. Tulum was the Mayan outpost along the Caribbean coast and was naturally protected by miles of coral reefs at sea and high cliffs at the city location. It was their sacred and treasured city of “birth.” Only royalty lived there where their main purpose was to bear heirs to the throne as written by their laws of spiritual predictions and according to their complex, yet highly accurate calendar.
On this next leg of the journey our pictures finish up at Tulum and then onto Chichen Itza. We took a tour bus from Progreso, Yucatan, our second Port of Call, to Chichen Itza which is located about 60 or 70 miles south of Cancun in the interior of the Yucatan. Chichen Itza was the biggest Mayan city where they practiced human sacrifice. You will see the temple of sacrifice and the sacrificial pools. They say if you close your eyes and become still, you will see and hear the Mayan culture back through time. Michael and I did that a few times and were amazed at the powerful spiritual forces at work there even still. At one point, while standing in the middle of the grounds, I looked up and with the movement of the big, fluffy clouds overhead, it almost seemed as though you could see the rotation of the earth. Very mysterious indeed…
And finally, we say goodbye to Chichen Itza and finish up our cruise with more pictures of our Worship Institute friends. Please take note of the origami towel art. Every night when we came back to our stateroom, the stewardess had created a new animal in different locations in the room. We always looked forward to seeing what she’d do next. Oh yeah, and of course, the food was fabulous!!
