Little House on Brush Prairie

I am so proud of JSM! After 30 (yes 30!) years off the ice he is playing hockey again on an adult league here in Vancouver. I attended his game this past weekend and he played so well!

On a separate note, today is our one year anniversary of living in the pacific northwest! I can't believe it's been a year already. I miss my family and friends on the east coast very much, but I am so happy that Vancouver feels like home. We were fortunate to be able to take a cross country road trip when we moved from Miami. We blamed it on Phil (the cat) because we didn't want him flying across country, but the trip was really an excuse for us to visit the Badlands National Park, Devils Tower, and Mount Rushmore. We honeymooned at Zion, Bryce and the Grand Canyon and have been fascinated by the national parks ever since so this was the perfect opportunity to add a few more to our list! One of my favorite things in the whole world is taking a road trip with my sweet Jeff so we hit the road and travelled 13 states in 8 days, saw 4 national parks, visited Mark Twain's home, stopped at the Corn Palace, ate the best food in Rapid City, SD, endured a Montana snow storm,and drove along WA's scenic Columbia River Gorge. A most amazing trip we will both never forget. In honor of our first anniversary in Vancouver here are a few highlights from our trip that I never got around to posting a year ago.....

Gateway to the West!

A rest stop in South Dakota - nice art!

The Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD. Wanted to see Laura Ingalls home in DeSmet, but this was my consolation prize! 



Phil was such a good boy!





Badlands National Park



Long Road, Big Sky in Wyoming

Devils Tower, Wyoming

Bozeman, Montana

We barely slid into town at 1 pm. after driving from Billings!

And the next day we woke up to this....beautiful!

Washington state along the Columbia River Scenic Gorge

Columbia River Gorge

Our first view of Mt. Hood!