Our new baby!

Introducing...

Sharaya! 

(sha-RAY-a)

She is an 8wk old german shepherd... and she is a sweetie!

We picked her up yesterday from TeMar Shepherd in Canby, OR. They breed them and show them and train them to do the obstacle courses called Schutzhund. They invited us to come to a show sometime as it's open to everybody, so we might just do that!

The green stuff on her right ear is tattoo ink. They "tattooed" her ear yesterday and then put this thick green clay-like ink on it to absorb into the tattoo. It gets everywhere. It dries but when it gets wet it's gooey again. They say it will take one or two weeks for it all to wear off (except for in the tattoo...that supposed to be there forever!) It's a number and letters indicating who she is by her records if she is ever lost or stolen.

Sharay has a sweet and mild temperament. The first day and night, she whined quite a bit. They call that separation anxiety. Poor thing. She misses her brothers and sisters. 

But today, she has played a lot and gone with us to Petsmart to pick out some new toys. 

She was fascinated with the fountain we have on our front patio. It has goldfish in them that she thought would make a tasty treat...

More pictures to come soon!

10th and 11th Days - Jackson to Boise to home!

We made it home! But one last stop in Idaho was Craters of the Moon National Monument. It is made up of lava that surfaced and cooled. Quite fascinating, but pretty much the ugly duckling of National Monuments. Nothing about it was attractive. Maybe we had just been spoiled. 

These little pink flowers were growing everywhere in the hard, dry surface. They were trying to dress the whole place up a little.

Well that's pretty much the best of Idaho. We are glad to be home now...but not looking forward to the piles of laundry that await us. :)

9th Day - Jackson Hole, Wyoming

We love Jackson Hole! It reminds me a little bit of Scottsdale...only more Mountain-y. :)  They say it's even prettier here in the winter when everything is covered in snow. But I for one am glad of the sunshine and the warmth...I don't think I would much care for a lot of snow.

Everytime McKenna had an apple in the van, she left the sticker somewhere...meaning to get it later and throw it away. But Chuck got in the backseat during one of our trips and saw all the stickers and put them on her or her things. Since that first trip, he has been taking stickers off apples and putting them on just about everything she owns, when she's not around. 

~ McKenna's in the shower; Chuck's up to his fun game ~

~ Wonder how long it will be 'till she finds it in her book? ~

~ HEHEHE clever...she won't see it on the pic of the author right away ~

~ Arch made of antlers ... you don't see that everyday ~

Is is just me or does everyone else wonder why someone would think that was attractive? But then, I don't get animal heads hung up on walls either.

~ Lunch at The Bunnery ~

~ Caught up in a conversation with people from Pennsylvania here for a wedding ~ Oops, 2 out of 3 of us forgot to pose.

Daredevil Cassidy decided to try "Bungee Jumping". They have a trampoline underneath and a motor that actually pulled her up higher.

~ You ready Cassi? ~ 

~ Her hair looks like feathers ~

~ Where'd she go? ~

We went on a gondola ride up to the top of the mountain. Well almost the top...the top of one of the smaller peaks...

~ Here, you take my picture, I'll take yours... ~

(At the top of the mountain)

Kenna just found another hidden sticker as I type this...the fun just never stops...

Today, we leave for Boise, Idaho. It's our last stop before we come home on Thursday. More of a place to rest than an attraction though. We'll see...

8th Day - The Grand Tetons then to Jackson Hole, Wyoming

Right after you leave Yellowstone Park, going south, an amazing mountain range appears. 

Here are The Grand Tetons...

~ The other side of the road ~

Today it's going to be a massage (for me), a wash for the van, and a trip up the ski lifts to see the city from above, then shopping! There are tons of little shops and galleries here for us to check out. :)

6th and 7th Days - Absaroka Lodge outside of Yellowstone

We are back in internet/cell range! We had two days of complete blackout from phones, TV's and computers. But what beauty surrounded us! We stayed at a lodge only 12 miles outside of Yellowstone. They had an old-fashioned barbecue when we arrived, with all the guests (only 17 cabins total) and the staff ate beef stew, biscuits and corn on the cob around a campfire. The sky was clear and the weather was perfect!

This was the view from the campfire area. If you look closely you can see a "man's face" in the side of the mountain.

~ Bug that came along on the ride with us on the outside of the van ~

~ McKenna and Cassidy in the early morning waiting to ride a horse ~

~ Horsey wants food ~

~ Cassidy and McKenna coming back from their 2.5 hour ride (which included a campfire breakfast) ~ 

No, Chuck and I didn't go on the ride...we ate breakfast in the lodge. We thought it would be something special for McKenna and Cassidy to do on their own. They loved it! And the other riders (one family) told me how sweet our girls were. Ahhhh. That was nice and so true don't you think? :) We made friends with them and found out they also met on the internet and were married six years ago. And they live in WA. The dad was the most talkative of the group and they ended up being our neighbors for a day. Very nice people...and they are going to send us a group pic of the horseback riders at breakfast. Cool huh?

~ Cassidy and Lady ~

~ McKenna and Toad (hehehe...TOAD) ~

~ The corral which was actually just outside our cabin, but across the creek ~

~ The view from our cabin porch ~

~ The other direction, looking north ~

~ Almost done with the ride ~

~ Our cabin, Chuck, and our neighbor guy, Dave, who was a different guy than the afore mentioned rider guy. ~

(We kept running into Dave and his family inside Yellowstone.)

~ On the bench on our cabin's porch ~

~ Almost inside... ~

~ The road inside Yellowstone had tons of waterfalls on the sides ~

~ See snow? Make snowballs. ~

~ This was the first animal we saw and he was right on the side of the road...just walking along...almost close enough to touch. Well...if it weren't for those horns. ~

~ Easy, big guy (We could hear him breathe!) ~

~ Bison enjoying the meadow...one's rolling in the dirt ~

~ One has a bird on his back ~

There were bison everywhere. At one point traffic was backed up for an hour while a "herd" (don't know if that's what you call a group of bison) crossed the road. We couldn't see them from the van, but that's what oncoming drivers told us. As we slowly crept down the road, Chuck rode in the back (I was driving this time) and had the back sliding door open. Our view was white water creek the whole time. Perfect place for a traffic jam!

~ Us city-folk think these were female elk (There's a baby in there too) ~

~ Moose! ~

~ Big Horn things ~

"Wouldn't it be cool if we saw a bear?" Whoa...wait that's a bear! (We got tons of pics of this guy) And we stayed within the minimum range of 100 yards away. :) 

~ Old Faithful ~ 

133 feet in the air this time. (The max is about 160 feet - average is 130 to 150)

~ A long day of animal and geyser watching calls for ice cream ~

~ Bummer, we have to leave this beautiful place. ~

We had an incredible time there. The people were so friendly and the surroundings were just amazing. 

Today we drove through the Grand Tetons (expect more pics!) and are staying in Jackson Hole until Wednesday morning. More pics to come tomorrow!

Thanks for your comments! We have loved every bit of this trip so far but it's been hard to answer your questions as we go...so I wanted to answer some of them here...

• We bought Cassidy two more books... and she's finished both of them. So three altogether. McKenna's is a much bigger book 619 pages, and she finished it today. Cassidy and I walked down to a bookstore today and we bought three more. They have been reading almost the entire drive time, except to look outside to see a pretty view or a creature. :)

• The pace of the trip has been perfect. Just enough proportion between driving, activities, eating and relaxing. 

• My camera has been great! I can't believe how easy it is to take pictures. I've been switching back and forth between the two lenses to try to get closeups of critters/animals and the other one for huge landscapes. Still a ton to learn though.

• The van has worked out great for us. I'm really happy to be able to ride in it with my wonderful family! We popped the top part up and hung out in it by the creek for a while with all the windows open, listening to the water and the breeze.

• We've eaten a lot of Subway sandwiches! They (Subways) turn up nearly everywhere we go! Even more than McDonalds! And we've eaten a ton of junk food and fruit in the van.