4th of July and other Celebrations

This 4th of July we stayed in Peachtree City and invited Greg's sister Beth, her husband Jay, and their two girls Kaitlyn and Natalie to join us. We'd heard great things about PTC's patriotic celebration, and we were not disappointed.

Here's the group on "Obama". You can see we joined the rest of the city in decorating our golf cart with American flags. While Natalie thoroughly enjoyed the ride, poor Kaitlyn had a stomach bug and threw up all the way to the parade.

Here is PTC in their pimped-out golfcarts lined up for the parade.

This "float" won a prize for best decorated golfcart.

And this one did as well.

Sitting on the sidelines watching the parade. Poor Kaitlyn!

Golfcarts lined up for the fireworks in the evening


To celebrate my music geekiness, I went to the International Double Reed Society Conference in Norman, OK the week before the 4th. Imagine a Star Trek convention, and replace the trekkies with oboists and bassoonists and you get the idea. This is my great friend Rebecca who I went to ASU with years ago.


To celebrate Father's Day, Greg and I hiked Blood Mountain, GA's highest mountain and the beginning of the Appalachian Trail. This is on the ascent up.

Beautiful view, but not quite at the top yet...

Eating our picnic lunch at the summit.

To celebrate Greg's 4th of July VACATION DAY, we went south to Warm Springs, GA, home of FDR's Little White House. FDR was attracted to this town because he found great relief from his polio in the warm springs, and he built a second presidential home here. It was in this Little White House that he suffered the stroke that killed him.

And we went hiking through FDR National Park. Check out the size of this tree!

Cascade Falls

So happy together!

Announcing our newest addition to the family!

It finally arrived - our new golf cart!

For those of you who don't know the story, this Low Speed Vehicle was free thanks to Pres. Obama's "going green" stimulus package. In tribute to the man, we have named our golf cart "Obama"!

Trip to Utah

Last week I took a trip to Utah, sadly without Greg. Most of my family now lives in UT, and we had a blast!

1st stop - Bridal Veil Falls

Cole and Ella playing in the stream

Using a timeshare available to Lea, we stayed in a condo in Midway. Here's the kids watching a movie - definitely the calmest they were all week!


Going swimming...Maiya is sporting her new INFLATABLE swimsuit!



Me and my twin Ella


Me and Lea, and a bunch of kids and a dog sitting on my head


My wonderful parents who returned from a 3-week trip to China in the middle of my visit.

Me and Alisa

Brian, Devri and Michael. Michael was all smiles for me, and was so cute!

Ella and Maiya sporting their new Chinese pajamas from my parents

Danny found his pockets and wouldn't take his hands out of them!

One of my favorite sights at my mom's house. Yes, that is a huge pile of quilts, and that is just one of MANY piles!

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary, What Does Your Garden Grow?

This is what my garden grows...

Red, yellow, and light pink roses which somehow to my amazement I haven't managed to kill yet.


Onions, potatoes, cucumbers, and squash...maybe. But this is a picture of what I have the most of....weeds.


This rabbit (left) seems to have set up residence recently, and this chipmunk (right) has always been a frequent visitor. I was surprised they actually came so close to each other -- they obviously feel our backyard belongs rightfully to them. I was expecting a rabbit/chipmunk fight but sadly was disappointed.

These strawberry planters were left behind by the previous owners, so this year I planted strawberries.

A dirty hot tub. It is now a little cleaner, but not clean enough that I want to get in it.

Concrete.

Yellow concrete.

Blue concrete.

Red concrete.

And the most prolific item that grows in my garden would be nails. This a pile of nails my sister and brother-in-law ran into while working on our backyard in March. That is a tiny-Lara's-hand-sized glove on the left to give you an idea of how many nails there are in our backyard.

Come garden with me anytime, but make sure you have your tetanus shot!

Camping Trip!

Last weekend we met up with my brother, his wife, and their son, and her brother, his wife, and their three kids at Cloudland Canyon State Park. This park is right by Look-Out Mountain, and Greg and I have actually been caving there but had no idea it was a state park.

Cloudland Canyon

View from the West Rim on our hike

Beautiful Waterfall

The Happy Couple!


Deer on the side of the road


Look closely - this is an L-shaped tree

Okay, so it wasn't completely primitive. Here's the group at the playground. (I won't mention how we also ate out at Taco Bell during a particularly bad rain storm.)

Jenny (SIL) pushing Tyler (nephew)

The only real group shot I had. You can see my brother in the far right hand corner, and Greg obviously wanted to talk to me.

Playing Ladderball - have you ever seen this game? I hadn't.

Greg got to try out his new birthday present (hiking backpack) because it was a walk-in campsite. I got to officially break in my birthday present - hiking shoes. I think they're especially cool because they blend in with the rocks.

I'm a little behind...

Now that school is over and I'm on summer vacation (hooray!) I have time to catch up on my blog. Flashback to March: the wekeend before the Lybberts left our home.

We took them to the North Georgia Mountains to see Amicalola Falls.

View from the top of the falls

Sisters: don't we look related?


We passed a kangaroo farm on the way. Who knew there were kangaroo farms in Georgia! Unfortunately it cost a small fortune to see them, so instead we stood at the fence and could just barely make out the kangaroos in the distance. That was enough for us cheapskates!


Amicalola Falls from the bottom


The Gang
And yes, the mystery man next to me is Greg...I promise.


Greg and his best friend Ella


And then the Lybberts left us. The house seems desolate and empty, and I cried for days.


Packing up.

The morning they left, Ella grabbed onto my leg and wouldn't let go. It was so hard for me to say goodbye!

So to make ourselves feel better, we went hiking with the Runnels a few days later. This is again in the North Georgia Mountains but up near Blairsville.

Beautiful view

Do we look happy? Well, yeah, I guess we are. We have quickly adjusted to it just being the two of us again. :)

Last weekend we went to TN for Greg's brother's graduation. David is marching in the ceremonial procession below. I wish this was a video, because it was to the Star Wars Imperial March theme. David is now officially done with medical school, and a 4th Dr. Dahl is added to the family!

And to the left is David's beautiful wife Heidi. She is a world-class runner, and is currently running professionally for New Balance. While at Eastern Tenn State Univ, she was named athlete of the year and currently has this 8-foot picture of her in the hallway of the stadium.

That's my dream, to have an 8-foot picture of me on the wall someday.

And here is a lot of the Dahl Family at the Oak Ridge Playhouse where we saw Matt (pictured blue shirt right side) perform in "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat". Matt, you were amazing!

Anybody notice something different about my hair?