Family Vacay to Wyoming

It has been a while since our last post, butI have good excuses! Rusty, Ellie, and I spent 8 nights in Wyoming with Lollie, Poppy, Uncle Thomas, Aunt She She, and Uncle Josh!! We had a wonderful trip and made lots of memories. This post is going to be long so I may lose you with all of the details, but I'd like to do this recap for myself to use as a journal from our trip. Read along if you feel up to it or just scan our fun pictures!!

We flew out of Birmingham on Sat, June 20th. Our plane was due to land in Jackson Hole around 1:30 in the afternoon, but we ended up not making it until around 8:30 that night. It was probably the longest day of our lives, but luckily Ellie did GREAT and was an absolute angel the entire day. I was SO worried about her flying, but she did great thank goodness! After we landed in Jackson Hole, we hopped in our rental cars and drove about an hour-and-a-half to Brooks Lake Lodge which is just outside of Dubois, Wy. The lodge accomodates up to 40 people so it is very small and intimate, and all of the guests really get to know one another which is really neat. It is all-inclusive and includes 3 meals a day plus free childcare!

Brooks Lake Lodge:

View from the lodge:We arrived at the lodge around 10:45 pm Sat night, had a fabulous meal, and all went straight to bed! We woke up Sunday morning to another wonderful meal and just relaxed around the lodge in the morning. After lunch we all headed out for a horseback ride (everyone but Ellie). Ellie stayed back at the lodge with the her babysitter, Janessa. The horseback ride was great until the dark clouds appeared and hail started pelting down on us!! It was also pretty chilly the first day with highs only in the lower 50's.

The girls having warm cookies and tea after our cold horseback ride!

We woke up Monday to a beautiful, sunny day. It was still in the 50's this day, but the sun helped to warm us up. Everyone headed out for a morning hike, and then we dropped the guys off along the way to do some fly fishing.

Stopping along the way on our hike:

One of the views along our hike:

The guys caught the first 3 trout of the season! Dad & Thomas with their fish:

Monday afternoon, Mom and I headed to the spa for some pampering! Then we were off to the hot tub!

After all of that we had even more excitement. Aunt She She and Josh got ENGAGED!!!!! He took her out on a canoe on Brooks Lake and proposed! She She said YES, and they are getting married May 15, 2010! We are SO thrilled for them and are glad we got to share in the excitement of the engagement!!!

The newly engaged couple:

On Tuesday, Lollie, Shelby, Josh, Thomas, and I went on an all-day horseback ride while Poppy and Rusty went fly fishing. Tuesday was a beautiful day with highs in the upper 60's. We had an awesome day!

Wednesday right before we left Brooks Lake Lodge:

We left the lodge around 11 am Wednesday morning and headed over to Jackson Hole. My parents good friends own a condo in Jackson Hole in Teton Village. On our way to the condo we drove on Moose Wilson Road and saw lots of wildlife along the way!

Little Baby Moose:

Beautiful muledeer...look at those antlers!

Part of me really wanted to see a grizzly/black bear and part of me really didn't want to see one! My parents have been out to Wyoming several times and have had bear sightings, but I have never seen one. Josh and Shelby actually saw a mama and baby bear when they were up in the gondola, but that's the only bear sighting we had on the trip!

While in Jackson Hole, little Ellie started feeling a bit warm, and I was afraid she was getting sick. The child has only had a fever one time in all of her 14 months on this earth, and of course she came down with something on our week-long vacation! She ended up having a fairly high fever for several days. So many days that Mom and I decided it was best to take her to the local pediatrician in Jackson Hole to find out a stomach virus w/ a high fever was going around.

Pitiful, sick baby:

We did make it into Jackson and walked around a little the day we took Ellie to the dr. The guys in the town square:We laid low for a couple of days since Ellie felt so crummy, and I actually had a pretty bad cold myself. We were able to get some good hot tub time in though (we are on the balcony at the condo and notice the gondola in the background...very convenient)...

Ellie bounced back by Friday so we were able to get some shopping in as well as an afternoon hike and delicious Italian dinner in Teton Village!! On Saturday we got the bright idea to rent bikes at a place called Dornan's and ride 9 miles to Jenny Lake. The ride was tough but totally worth it since the weather and scenery was GORGEOUS!! Poppy got the bright idea to keep going a little further past the lake which made our overall trip about 24 miles total!

Ellie loved her little buggy behind Daddy's bike! I can't say Daddy loved it so much after 24 miles though!

The group taking a break along the way...

The gorgeous Tetons along the bike trail...

We made it to Jenny Lake for a picnic lunch!

Feeling MUCH better and back to herself!!

Poppy made us make the extra trip on the bikes (an additional 6 miles) over to Jenny Lake Lodge and assured us the scenery would be worth it. I guess he was right!

Poppy showing Ellie how to blow the dandelions...

And this is how we all felt at the end of the 24-mile ride!!!!

Overall we had an incredible trip!! I think Ellie is glad to be back at home, in her own bed, on her normal schedule though. She has definitely been catching up on her sleep, taking 5 hours worth of naps every day since she's been home!!

Lake Trip

Just a few pics from our weekend w/ Jimmy, Kelly, and Mallory at the lake!

One weekend + 2 babies = a LOT of stuff!

Ellie trying to drink Daddy's beer!

The boys and dogs on the boat.

Breakfast time

Hilarious!

Relaxing in the hammock. We had a BLAST! Thanks Jimmy & Kelly!!

My Little Climber

This has been going on for about a week around here. I literally cannot let her out of my sight for longer than a couple of seconds, or else this will happen! I have no idea what to do about this. I called my mom today for help, and her response was, "You're going to need to call Rusty's mom because you girls were never climbers." She also laughed and kept going on and on about "how cute it was." Right! I feel an emergency room visit in Miss Ellie Prewett's future. It's inevitable I'm afraid. Not only is she climbing up in the bar area, she's also climbing onto our dining room table and standing up in the middle of the table.

I apologize for these horrible, blurry pictures. I, stupidly, dropped our good camera onto the slate floor a few weeks ago. That will also explain my lack of posts lately. I have a camera that desperately needs to be repaired!

On another note...we had a great weekend at the lake with our friends Jimmy, Kelly, and Mallory Moore. The girls had a great time together, and so did we! Hopefully Kelly will let me borrow some pics from the weekend to share since I have NONE! I miss my camera so much! Thank goodness it wasn't left in my car last night since someone broke into it and stole our portable DVD player!!! The idiot accidentally hit my horn which woke me up around 1:30 am to find my center console wide open with the DVD player missing! Argh! Luckily nothing else of any value was in my car. Well, at least to our perpetrator that is. I guess he didn't realize how much he could probably get for a Britax carseat! ha!

*As a side note...I guess the car wasn't officially "broken into" since I, stupidly again, left my doors unlocked! Argh again! I NEVER do that! See what 13 month olds will do to your brain!

Hopefully we'll get the camera fixed so I can be back soon.

What a Difference a Year Makes...

Last year on our girls beach trip (6 weeks)...

And look at her now (13 1/2 months)!!!

She actually loved her sunglasses!

Lollie, Ellie, and I took a 2 week beach trip last year about this time and had such a great time. So, we decided to do it again this year but only for 1 week. I will have to say we enjoyed ourselves a lot more this year since Ellie was able to enjoy herself a lot more! It helps when everyone is getting a full nights' sleep instead of waking up every hour w/ a 6 week old! Poppy, Uncle Thomas, and Rusty all joined us at the end of the week, and Aunt She She came for a couple of days in the middle. We had such a wonderful time and didn't want to come back to reality!!!

We spent the majority of our time at the little beachy area down from my parent's condo. We couldn't keep Ellie out of the water! She has NO FEAR apparently because we kept having to chase her out into the water. She kept walking straight out into the water and didn't seem to mind that it was getting deeper and deeper and almost over her head. It was hilarious to watch and a little scary! Unfortunately I failed to get a pic of her in the water.

We spent a little time at the pool. Since we were having unusually low temps and gail force winds at the beach it made for freezing water in the pool! Here's proof that I sucked it up one day and got in with her! See that float in the background? Yeah, we don't really care anything about that! I do have to remember that this is the child that is always on the go! We're not much for being confined or restrained in any way. I guess we'll have to opt for some floaties on the next trip.

I made Daddy get in with her this day!

You can't go to the beach without doing a photo shoot on the beach! I can't get over how big she looks in this picture!! That can't be my baby!

Wouldn't be a girls' trip without going shopping!This is a "Mama, please can we go home?" look!

One of Ellie's most favorite people in the world...her Poppy.

Very first boat ride ever, and she fell asleep within 5 minutes! (After screaming b/c she hated the life jacket)!She is asleep in this pic!

Helping Poppy drive the boat!

Lollie and I got her a new life jacket that she liked a little better...

Date night for Rusty and me. We decided we couldn't remember the last time we had dinner w/ just the 2 of us. Sept maybe... Time to head home and back to that reality I was talking about.

We stopped to see MeMe on the way back...and Aunt Vivi (Rusty's great aunt)... What a fun trip!!!

Fun Weekend with Friends

This silly girl had her 12 month check up last week, and everything went great. Dr. Hardwick assured us several times that she looked "very healthy" and seemed to be "growing just like she should be." He showed us where she fell on the growth chart which was not surprising at all. She weighed 24 lbs. 12 oz. and was 31.5 inches long. That's 91st percentile for weight and off the chart for length!! She's still following in her Mama's footsteps it seems.

She found this headband in my bathroom drawer and decided she wanted to wear it. It's really one of those "you had to be there" things, but she was so funny wanting to wear it on her head. Every time it came off she'd get really frustrated and bring it to me to put back on her head! She and I were both rolling laughing the entire time.

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We also had some fun visitors for the weekend!! Ryan, Scott, Daniel and Davis Cochran came into town from Nashville to visit. Ellie had a great time playing with both of the boys, and Rusty and I had a great visit with Ryan and Scott! We are SO glad they came down for a visit!

Aunt She She was nice enough to babysit Sat night while the adults went out for a fun dinner!

Little Davis is always like this! Happy as can be!

Rusty with Ellie (12 1/2 months) & Davis (8 months)
Sweet kisses!

Ellie's new thing..."giving hugs."

Ellie & Daniel (3 1/2 years) in her wagon