Montana Road Trip (part 3)

  This will be my last post about our MT road trip.  The next day after seeing Bannack, we headed over to Nevada City and Virginia City.  In Nevada City we panned for gold.  Nobody struck it rich, but we saw a few tiny flakes of gold.  They were so small you couldn't grab them with your fingers.  It was a fun experience, but not one I would want to do everyday for hours on end.  :)

  After we looked for gold, we stopped at this little bakery to have lunch.  When was the last time you had a meal under a roof like this?

 It was a fun little place.  Dessert was definitely the best part of it.  I had Scottish shortbread, which was really good!

Then we made the guys pose in front of the Saloon.  Haha! 

 Look how tough they look!  ;)

 

 Emma wanted to take a picture with my camera, so I posed for her.  I didn't see until I uploaded my pictures on the computer that my husband was being a goof in the background. 

One of the buildings we visited is said to be the oldest standing school in Montana.

 

After seeing most of Nevada City we headed back over to Virginia City to look around.  They have a small little train that will shuttle you back and forth between the 2 towns.  It takes about 15 minutes, but I think it's only a mile long.  

Here are a couple pictures inside one of the mercantile's.  It was really hard to just view it from far back and not be able to walk around and really look at the things on the shelves.  But I am a rule follower, so I stayed put!  ;)

We wrapped up our visit here by taking a stage coach ride.  Very fun!

 We did make our way towards Butte the next day and then we headed back home.  Four days on the road was perfect.  We had a lot of fun, but we were ready to head home.  We saw and experienced a lot, and really wore our kids out.  :)

Spring Break Part 2

I think it was Saturday that the boys went out to hit some balls off of the driving range for a bit.

For some reason, I've never taken a 3 generation picture of them before, so I made them stand still for one before they could leave.  Someday they will be glad that they did. 

Jesse wasn't too impressed to be sitting for a picture. 

That night we went out to eat at one of the golf courses.  Here is a picture of Dan's parents.

Gracie and Jesse weren't as interested in getting their picture taken, so I guess we just got Emma in, as she snuck in the picture with us.  :)

Easter morning, I was setting the camera up to take our family picture and I had asked Dan to stand there so I had something to focus on and it worked out that both girls wondered into the couple of test shots that I took.  Score!  :)

This is our Easter picture.  It is NEVER perfect, but... it's a picture.  This was our 3rd and final attempt at getting a decent one.  Roger wasn't feeling good that morning so he didn't make it in the picture.  As for Jesse and Emma, I don't know what kind of family picture they had in mind.  Oh well.

Roger was feeling better just after the picture, (wonder if that was a coincident) hmm?!  ;)

Anyway, we went to their church for the morning service.  It was the first mega church that I've ever been to.  There were so many people that the parking lot was filled by the time we got there and they were directing people to park out in this grassy area.

When we got back from church, the kids found that there was a second egg hunt at the house.  Where better to search for eggs than in the swimming pool.  All the eggs sunk to the bottom and the kids had to dive for them.  They were so excited, I'm sure the neighbors heard their squeals and screams.

The kids swam almost non-stop the whole time we were down there.  But half way through our last day there, they did take a little break and hung out inside for a bit.

I think they were getting tired.

 

I took this picture of Emma the day after we got home.  She came home from school and was out.  I think we all feel this way.  :)

Spring Break

 The kids only got a 4 day weekend over Easter for spring break.  So we added on a couple days and headed down to Palm Springs, CA for a little getaway.  Dan's parents are down there for a few months during the winter so it's an awesome opportunity to go down to visit and soak up some sunshine.  On some of our previous trips down there we plan lots of little things to do.  But this time the only thing that we had on our agenda was to sit by the pool and relax.  Well that was my plan, I guess the kids didn't really plan to sit by the pool.  They fully intended to be in the pool swimming.  So it was a win win for everyone.  :)

 

  One afternoon, we did take the kids down the road to go miniature golfing.  It was a close game... Dan beat me by 4 strokes.  :(   

After we were done, we met Roger and Deane down in old town La Quinta for dinner.  I wish I would have remembered to take a picture.  It is so pretty and fun down there.  They've got the neatest little buildings and shopping area. 

This is the golf course that is right behind their house.  Isn't it gorgeous?!

 I think now I am ready for summer to arrive more than ever!  It's so hard putting my flip flops away and putting my boots back on.  I have a few more photos that I'll try and post soon.  There is just too many to put into one post.

  
 

New Orleans

Lindy, my Mom and I went down to New Orleans for a few days.  It was a lot of fun!  :)

The one day Lindy and I took a tour out to 2 different plantations which was fun.  One was an American and the other was Creole.  So much history... which I love! 

Here is the sunset from our hotel room.

This is the Oak Alley Plantation  

It was my favorite.  It was just like out of the books I read.  The only thing I was surprised by was that there weren't as many bedrooms as I'd always imagined.  I think it only had 3 or 4 bedrooms.  It was beautiful though as well as all of the grounds.

 

This was one of the slave quarters.  So sad, but again it was neat to see the history.  It was amazing how small these were.  The whole time, we kept saying how we couldn't imagine fitting our families in one of these.

Lindy

and this is the Laura plantation, which was a creole plantation.  

It was also really neat, because they have a different kind of history.  They used the plantation homes differently than the American ones did.  In this tour, we learned that the family that had once lived here, supposedly had sent their teenage daughter overseas to try and have her acne cured, unfortunately whatever they did to her, ended up killing her.   I can't imagine, all because of acne.  :(

One night we stopped at this restaurant and of course we had to try a "Hurricane."  We only tried the category 1, but I don't know what all the fuss is about... I think it tasted like kool-aid chlorine.  Yuck!!!

Mom, me and Lindy

We were only brave enough to venture out onto Bourbon Street during the day and even at that I think we were on it for a block or two and headed else where.  

This was the view from a Mexican restaurant that we ate at.  They had a balcony for us to sit on which was fun because we got to sit up above everyone and people watch.  :)

As much fun as it was to get out of town and to experience a place that I'd never been to before, I was thankful to come home. 

~Jenny