We spent a wonderful 5 days near Phoenix, Arizona visiting with my family as we prepared for Rachel’s wedding day. Once again, we rented a large house so must of us could stay together. Honestly, it is an awesome way to get together. Much better than all of us having separate hotel rooms and trying to meet up and overwhelming the dear family members who actually live there. (We are a big family when we all get together!)

About 3 adults and 3 kids jumped in the pool.  It was cold, so there wasn’t a lot of swimming going on.  Oscar was one who was willing to jump in.  Shaelea and Abbie did as well.  But then Shaelea was sick for rest of the weekend. 

Me and my three beautiful sisters.

It was a wonderful trip to see family.  Thanks Rachel and Zac for providing us with an event for us to all attend!

Zac and Rachel’s wedding turned out beautiful.  We were worried while setting up that it might have to be held indoors because it was raining.  But luckily it cleared up for a few hours for their wedding pictures and the ceremony!

The little nieces were in love in with Rachel!  To see more pictures of the beautiful day and all the wonderful people who came to help celebrate, click here.

We spent about 10 days in Florida exploring the Everglades and The Keys.  Five days of our trip was spent taking a fire training course, which was a lot of fun.  When I get some photos from a crew mate I will post them.  But when we weren’t in training, we were out taking advantage of all the ranger-led programs, such as this canoe ride through a mangrove.

It was a great time of year to see lots of birds, as well as alligators, crocodiles, and manatees.  (We didn’t get a photo of the manatee, it was an unexpected sighting!)

Double Crested Cormorant

Anhinga (this bird is awesome, because it will dive under water to get fish and will stay under for quite awhile.)

Tri-Colored Heron

Night Heron (not seen very frequently)

Wood Stork (endangered species, luckily the Everglades has quite a few of them)

Baby Alligators (We saw them on a ranger-led night walk, there were about 10 of them.  So cute!)

Hanging out at the John Pennekampe State Park.  It was a bit chilly and choppy that day, so the snorkeling was not that great.  But it was beautiful to see the ocean.

Blue Heron with some dinner

We saw LOTS of alligators.

It was an amazing trip with lots of really cool sightings.  I’ve put a lot of pictures up here, but you can see more at http://www.flickr.com/photos/amie/sets/72157623323172097/.

We weren’t certain if the chosen day was going to work to move Gram into her new place since a winter storm came through western North Carolina on Friday evening.  But Sunday morning dawned clear and sunny and it turned out to be a beautiful moving day.

Mark moving boxes.  It took only a little over an hour to get Gram’s things all packed into the U-Haul.  She had packed everything in advance, which made it quite simple to move her.

We’ve arrived!

Out the front…not a spectacular picture.  We’ll take more as we go and visit!

Getting settled and unpacked in Gram’s new home.  Mark and Sara unpacking with Gram letting them know where things belong.

Cloudy, the cat.  Terrible picture, but it’s nice that they allow pets.  Cloudy roams the third floor and came in to hang out with Gram while we were moving her in.  As soon as we would come in, Cloudy would dart out of the room.

Gram had us join her for dinner in the dining hall.  They really fed us quite a feast…three courses!

We could hardly move from the table when it was time to leave.

We finally finished the ceiling work in our spare bedroom aka Maddy’s room.  She was pretty happy to have her futon back.  I love how she hangs out in there with her head on the pillow!  Isn’t she looking good?

A section of ice over the road.  A good reason the Parkway is closed to vehicles…everyone would just slide off into the guardrail or beyond.

A tulip poplar leaf outline was forever memorialized!  Must have been fall when they sprayed the lines.

This is to help us all remember that she’s not allowed on the bed.  Every so often, we find her crammed into a little spot and we have to tell her to get “Off” the bed.  And she just gives us a confused look (or what I interpret as a confused look) not understanding what she did wrong.  Hopefully, it will all make sense soon.

It doesn’t help that the room that has the futon she sleeps on at night is in repair mode.  We are taking the acoustic tile down in the back bedroom.  We did this is in our kitchen and living room last January and looking to complete the project now.

The fun begins…I’ve been priming for a day and it’s still not over.  There is lots of dry time between coats that I didn’t think of when I thought that this project would just take a day or two!

Finally, the project comes to an end 5 days later!  Not the greatest photo, but it shows the end product.  I am excited to have knobs on the doors and drawers.  Hopefully, that will help so we won’t have lots of dirt/grease smudges where we open the doors and drawers.  We are still recuperating from the project, but soon we will begin our ceiling project.