Glacier Nat'l Park with 3 of our favorite people.




I love this picture as it show 3 generations of Tom McCarty's with this beautiful scenery. Oddly enough I snapped it with my cell phone.

 



Heart shaped snow just for us.



Throwing snowballs.

Will you tie my shoes?

Group Shot

Looking for heart shaped rocks.



As we were leaving the park we saw this beauty taking an afternoon swim with his big old paws doing the dog paddle.



THURS~



We started off our morning meeting Leasa & her son Caleb at a little coffee shop in downtown Couer d'Alene. We then hiked Tubbs Hill by the lake. It was beautiful.

While in the coffee shop, a hippy guy sitting next to us and apparently eavesdropping, suggested we stop at Quinns Hot Springs Resort in Paradise, MT on our way to Kalispell. So we did and it was wonderful.

Our day ended with seeing this little guy and marching back to the room after swimming. He spent the night with us. The next morning when he woke up he asked for his musical thing. (I bought him a harmonica) He said he wanted to play a song for Papa.  Good Morning Papa, what a nice way to wake up.



WED ~ DOWNTOWN SPOKANE ~ RIVERFRONT PARK ~

When I showed Killian the picture of Mimi & Papa sliding down the slide in the giant wagon he said "Yee Haw!"

Tommy & the Joy of Running Sculptures.

We met my cousin Leasa in Coeur D Alene, ID. We shopped the cute little shops, walked on the worlds longest floating boardwalk by the lake, and went to dinner with her employers.  

Climbing the Rocky Mountain

I will be gone next week "climbing the Rocky Mountains" with Killian.  However I promise to return with hundreds of pictures.

Getting ready for Kindergarten

Not sure who was more nervous, Chelsea or Gavin for school.
 Friday night they got to go to a meet & greet to be introduced to his teacher & see where his desk was.  It helped so much & when he left he told Chels he wasn't afraid anymore & he loved his teacher. Hopefully his whole year will be this good.  I remember Chelsea's first day of kindergarten. She had the same teacher as Clay had the year before. When I dropped her off Miss Stokes said something about my babies were both in school now & I started crying & bawled all the way home. What was I thinking? ha

Brandi Carlile for the 3rd year in a row.

   Three yrs ago I went with my girlfriends & Chels to see the Indigo Girls. The opening act was Brandi Carlile and she stole the show. We bought her CD & Tom loved it so last year we took Tom & Gavin with us. This year we went again and she didn't disapoint us.
   Since Chelsea's accident I keep a mental note of anything positive that is happening because of it. Tonight we found one more thing.  The venue where the concerts are held are general seating. So you get there early, you rush in, put down your blankets & chair & claim your spot. There were people waiting in line since 7AM. We arrived right on time, pulled out our TEMP handicapped sticker, got rock star parking, put Chels & her friend in the handicapped line with our blanket & chair, we walked, and walked and walked up the hill and to the end of the line. Before our line was moving Chels called & said they were in~front & center.  Even tho I would rather be in the nose bleed section & park a mile away than her having an accident, we will take anything positive we can get.

After spending the day at the water park we thought Gavin would sleep all the way home & into the night. Wrong ~ the minute we got home he wanted to fish.

Gavins last Mimi Day before Kindergarten Starts.

Carole, Missy, Chelsea, Tom and I went with seven kids to Cowabunga Bay Water Park.
It was 93 degrees, so a perfect day to the end of summer activities.

Books~One of my favorite things.

Last night I finished reading: THE SHACK

The Shack tells the story of Mackenzie Philips and how he recovers his faith in God after the abduction and murder of his youngest daughter.  I normally don't like books about murders, because sometimes I dream about the characters when I read before bedtime. This was a little slow in the middle, but the end was very good. It was alot about forgiveness, which we all need to learn to do.

The book before that one was Heaven Is for Real and the true story of a four-year old son of a small town Nebraska pastor who during emergency surgery slips from consciousness and enters heaven. I mailed it to Mom and Dad  & the same day their friend Elaine mailed the exact same book. It was light hearted, in familiar area geographically, and it made me happy reading it.

The next book on my nightstand is called THE HELP. The movie came out this week and the reviews said to make sure you read the book before seeing the movie, so that's what I'm doing.

It is about African American maids working in white households in Jackson, Mississippi during the early 1960s.

I decided since this blog is my photo journal I needed to add things I love and things that make me happy. I can't imagine life without a good book beside my bed.

Boo's First Minor League Baseball Game.

Somedays are better than others but today was one of those days when being kind really does pay off. We pulled in the parking lot to go to the Bees game and parking was $6.00. One of Chelsea's friends was behind us & had sent home dinner the night before so Tom told the attendent he'd like to pay for the car behind us also, then added "Is today buy one get one free day?". The attendent said "Sounds good to me" and only charged us for one. Then we went to get tickets and Chelsea's friend recognized somone selling their tickets and we got tickets, 7 rows up for $10.00 each. Next Tom went to get us a water and the guy said here's a free one for you. And there's more. The groundskeeper grabbed a foul ball & threw it right to Boo. The game was tied until the last inning when our team hit  the first walk-off homerun of the season and we won. Yep it was one of those days when being kind really does pay off.

Papa and his buddy. I'm sure this converstaion consisted of "Papa will you take me frog hunting tonight?"



Frog Hunting is Boo's favorite thing to do.

Uncle Shawn and fishing.

If there is another person that loves living on the lake and fishing more than Boo it has to be Uncle Shawn. We love when he comes cruising over in his boat.

It all started with some lost car keys.....

Tom and I didn't have any big plans for this week-end, until we got the call from Chels that Coco had lost her car keys where they were camping with friends by Jackson Hole. So I decided we'd turn lemons into lemonaid and told him "This isn't a bad thing. W&C are at their cabin, lets drive 5.5 hours and take the keys to them". So now he is excited, we're trying to figure out how to get out of town, get packed, get off of work on a Fri afternoon and we get the call that someone else's brother is heading up and taking the extra keys to them. We were so fired up to get out of town that we went anyway. Why not?  We've done alot of that spur of moment stuff lately. Life is to short not to.    

The cabin down the road from Wendells was having a family reunion & this was out front. Not sure if it's Homer Simpson or  a monkey, but I liked it.



This is a bridge to a cabin for sale that we looked at. This is the only way in. We didn't buy it.



Carole & Wendell with their travelling companion Moose who they were babysitting for the week end.

On our way to Jackson Hole.

Killians Papa's.







I never get tired of the view of the Tetons from Wendells cabin.



Where are our keys????

Looks like he had fun camping. They claim this was after several feet washings.

www.killian.com

Gavin asked today if we could look up
http://www.killian.com/
He must be missing him. So we checked it out and it was a pretty cool website.
I told him to look up http://www.mccarty-party.blogspot.com/ if he wanted to see pictures of Killian.

Crinkles

Boo told me I looked beautiful in my dress today. I was thinking he was about the kindest little 5 yr old I ever met, then he asked me "But why do you have those crinkles in your skin?"  I explained to him they were laugh lines and you get them from smiling and being happy your whole life. Not sure if he bought that or not.

More Timpanoga Caves Day

Did I mention it started pouring on our hike down and we got drenched?  This made it even more memorable.

We also saw a little boy about Boo's age hiking with a prosthetic leg. Boo's first question was "How does he wear flip flops?"

Boo got sworn in as a Junior Park Ranger. He got a badge and took it very seriously. The Park Ranger told him to report to work tomorrow morning at 6:30am. As we were leaving he asked "Are you bringing me back in the morning for work?"  He wants to be a policeman but kind of liked that the Park Rangers could carry guns also and be outside.