The Family We love!: June 2009

Friday, June 19, 2009

Merrill Vacation

The Mueller family happened to be "in town" and came over for dinner and games. FUN!

Near this sign is where Mark proposed to me, so EVERY year we stop and take a picture to see how our family keeps growing.

Yes, that is snow, with Hinkley doing his vigilant watch ...

Merrill May 2009

Wow, look at me go ... I have got us updated through May now!

On May 9, was the TaVasi Concert. This performing group is for children through sixth grade, so this was Jordan's final concert.

In the following picture Taylor's group is singing a song that says "I am a monster, and a moster says RRRRRROAR!" If you enlarge the picture you can see their adorable faces. Last fall Andrea was telling me about these cute hot chocolate mugs she found with names on them. She really wanted to get one for each person in the family to have at the cabin, but she felt bad that not all of our names were available or the name was not spelled correctly. This gave me the idea to custom make her the mugs. So with Mark's help I made 22 mugs, one for every member of the Merrill family that included the "name" of the cabin, Merrill's up the Creek, and each family member's name. I think she enjoyed our Mother's Day gift. :)... Mother's Day with the Williams fam.
We are family, I got all my sisters and me ... ohh, ohh, ohhh

Don't forget Memorial Day ... (get it, don't forget, memorial .... it's suppose to be funny)

And of course, the end of the year school programs. This is Taylor's kindergarten program/graduation.

Vacation with the Cruisin' Cousins

Summer is here! This year we decided to take our usual spring vacation in June so that Kylee and Shelby could go with us. We had such a great time! On June 6th we picked up Kylee in Spanish Fork (on her way home from Flaming Gorge with Grandma Teri) and drove to Mesquite, Nevada. The next day we drove to Long Beach, California, were we boarded the Carnival Splendor cruise ship. What a huge ship! We had a great view of the ocean from our stateroom balcony.

Shelby and Kylee practicing their survival skills.

We explored the ship from top to bottom (not a small feat!) and decided to stay. Every night we had a formal dining experience. It was fun picking our appetizer and entree every night! The girl's favorite was cold strawberry soup. Grandma's favorite was the Melting Chocolate Cake....so goooood! Grandpa, of course, went for the prime rib. Since the buffet was always open, we were always eating. The girls were were always running upstairs for another chocolate ice cream cone.

There were several swimming pools and a water slide that were popular with Shelby and Kylee.

Our first stop was at Auroa, Oregon, were we visited a maritime museum and an old Victorian house. We also drove to a high hill where we could see for many miles. Our next stop was Victoria. We took a shuttle into to the downtown harbor and visited the wax museum and the Parliament building. We found a game shop that provided a lot of fun and laughs. Then back to the ship for more food! The third stop was Vancouver. It is also a very pretty city. We took a taxi to an aquarium and saw the 3-day-old baby beluga whale, as well as all the other fishes. Back to the ship to...you guessed it...eat dinner!

Most evening we went to a show in the ship's showroom. We had a lot of photographs taken, both on and off ship, by professional (?) photographers. We took a few naps, watched some TV, read a few books and generally had a very relaxing and enjoyable time. The granddaughters were such fun to be with! They were always happy and smiling and turned everything into an adventure.
On Sunday, the 14th we arrived back in Long Beach and had to say good-bye to liberal eating habits and lazy days. We stayed that night in Long Beach and Shelby and Kylee spent the afternoon on the beach. The next day we drove to Las Vegas and stayed in the Stratophere. Tuesday we visited the Stratophere needle, visited awhile with Tracy and Jackie and then started the 8 hour trip home. It's always nice to get home, but sad, too, because our grand adventure was over.