Sky Zone Sports - JB's Birthday

To celebrate Jonathan's birthday, Lacey organized a surprise party at Sky Zone Sports.  She didn't tell him anything about it.  She blindfolded him and drove him to our house, then kept him blindfolded as we drove to the Sky Zone.
I think the last time I was on a trampoline was 2-3 years ago at Donald's house.  All these trampolines together in one place was awesome!

Gatlinburg - Roaring Fork Trail Part 2

After our picnic lunch, we drove to the Trillium Gap Trail that would take us to Grotto Falls.

Gatlinburg - Roaring Fork Trail Part 1

The next day in Gatlinburg, we explored the Roaring Fork trail.  It's right outside the city of Gatlinburg compared to the Cade's Cove trail the day before that is 20 miles outside the city.

Exploring Cade's Cove - Gatlinburg Tennessee

On our first day of exploring Gatlinburg, we drove 24 miles to Cade's Cove.

Driving to Gatlinburg

The second part of our visit to Michigan was to pick up Rich and Chi and grab my parents from the airport and all head down to Gatlinburg Tennessee and see the leaves changing colors.  
We all piled into Donald's raised Ford Excursion and headed out.

Erie Apple Orchard

Another tradition in Michigan is visiting the Erie Apple Orchard.

Normally we head back to the U-Pick apples and walk up and down the rows sampling different varieties. Unfortunately Michigan had a really warm March which caused the trees to bud, then a few weeks of below freezing temperatures.  Erie Orchards was one of the only places left that still had U-Pick apples because of how close they are to Lake Erie. 
Finding apples on the trees this year was difficult.  One of our group likened it to an Easter Egg hunt.

Pumpkin Carving in Michigan

It's tradition to carve pumpkins while we're up in Michigan.  The turnout was a little lighter this year.  Rita's running the Detroit Marathon the next day so her and Tyler are skipping it.  Rich and Chi also decided not to do one.  The good part of carving this year was that the kids can carve almost entirely on their own.

Aubrey's Basketball game

On Saturday, we all headed to the community center to watch Aubrey lead her team to victory in two basketball games.

Flowers & Bees Honey!

Earlier this year, my Dad started getting into bee keeping.  Summer is just about over and it's time to harvest the honey!  Not long after collecting it, Theresa and I got a fantastic package in the mail.  Mmm.

You can read more about setting up the hive and getting the bees on my Dad's site here.

http://flowersbeesva.blogspot.com/

Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta Day 2 afternoon

After an amazing morning seeing all the balloons lift off, we headed back to the hotel for a quick nap.

We met up just after noon and I guess that Schlotzsky's balloon marketing really worked on me, because I chose it for lunch.

Theresa's Balloon photos

And when Theresa takes photos, that means I get to be in some of the pictures!

Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta Day 2

Another bright and early start to get over to the balloon fiesta.  It's colder than yesterday (45F), but the skies are much clearer.  Yesterday the park and ride was pretty empty, but today we got the 2nd to last spot in the whole lot.  Lucky us!
Another bus ride to the balloon field.  After seeing all the cars backed up trying to park at the field itself, we're glad we took the bus since they were allowed to take a back route and drive right up.

Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta - More photos to come

At the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta with Jonathan and Lacey!  Here's some of my favorite photos!

Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta Day 1

Theresa and I have wanted to go to a hot air balloon festival for a while, but the one we were thinking of going to in Colorado Springs is always over Labor Day.  We're always running the Disneyland Half Marathon at that time.

Theresa saw that one of the biggest hot air balloon festivals in the world happens in Albuquerque in early October.  We're always ready to travel and it's always fun to travel with friends, so we invited the Bakers to join us.
We all got off work at noon and headed to the airport.

Pumpkin Carving at the Flowers' house

Even though it's a few weeks until Halloween we decided we had to get some pumpkins carved early.

Painting Day at the Flowers' House

Time for another painting day!  These are getting pretty popular.
We stocked up on lots of different colors for people to use for backgrounds.