Japan Trip 8/09

Here are just some of the pictures I took this last trip. I had a fabulous time, and it was fun to travel with my nephew, Sean. He was actually a lot of help with the little kids as well, and Clarkie really enjoyed playing with him.

Enjoying the aquarium and Sean and Grandma

[caption id="attachment_214" align="alignnone" width="450" caption="Playin in the water at the park (at the coast)"][/caption]

Enjoying the aquarium and Grandma (and sometimes the dolphins when the audience made oooooh sounds).

[caption id="attachment_216" align="alignnone" width="450" caption="Company picnic at the park/beach"][/caption]

Kids fishing at Kawaguchiko. One of 5 lakes below Mt. Fuji

[caption id="attachment_218" align="alignnone" width="450" caption="Mt. Fuji on a reasonably clear day! Yea!!!"][/caption]

Sean and Fuji-san

[caption id="attachment_220" align="alignnone" width="450" caption="Hiroshima Castle. Destroyed by the A-bomb. Rebuilt in the 1950\'s"][/caption]

Hiroshima Bomb-dome. Near ground zero. Left as a memorial.

[caption id="attachment_222" align="alignnone" width="450" caption="Hiroshima memorial and in background the bomb dome."][/caption]

In front of Nagasaki Peace Park

[caption id="attachment_224" align="alignnone" width="450" caption="Nagasaki City from atop Mt. Inasa"][/caption]

On the Path of Philosophy in Kyoto

It’s been a while!

I’m going to try to post again and see if I can figure this out.  In the meantime, I’ll just put all the pictures I took from Flaming Gorge on.  Jay took me for my birthday.  I’ve been wanting to go for a while now!  It was a BEAUTIFUL day and we really enjoyed our day.  I’m sure I enjoyed the scenery a little more, since Jay was keeping the boat out of the ‘wakes’.

Our boat trip down the lake

Boating along the red cliffs

Notice the Osprey nest on the rock and the mate in the tree…

Notice the nest on the rock

In the tree

That should make a big SPLASH when it goes!

Heading up another leg of the Reservoir. It was beautiful!

One last photo of the scenery

Easter Fun

I still haven’t been able to figure out how to post to this blog yet, so it will still probably looks wierd, with words wrapping around the wrong pictures…. Oh well….

Here are our Easter photos. 

And we decided we needed to get a few things at the store, but it’s a little bit of a process getting dressed.

And finally, THANKS Grandpa D for the lovely TV (look overhead)!!!

Finally, an Update

I have been doing most of my posting on Facebook since I can more easily figure out how to post pictures, but I’m going to give this another shot and see what happens!

First I want to post one of my favorite pictures of Pam and Andi.  They’re acting.  Andi likes to be a fairy princess.  She say’s her lines then taps Pam on the head and Pam responds with her lines, concluding with a ‘thank you, thank you thank you!’ 

In February we went to Jay’s Convention in Las Vegas.  On our way down we stopped in St. George, Utah (Jay had business and we did some riding).  Here are some pictures from Snow Canyon in St. George…

One of the cool things about Snow Canyon is the view you can get of an old lava flow.

And in this one you can see a lava layer in the sediment. 

Here’s my ridin’ guy : > 

The next day we went on a different ride.  We think it was called Black Hill.  We went out to some petroglyphs and back.  It was really cool to see.

And lastly me…   In the above photo, we have NO idea who Zeno is… sheeeeesh. 

We continued our journey to Las Vegas for Jay’s work conference.  I got to do a little site seeing.  The first full day there I took a tour of Hoover Dam.  Here’s Lake Mead.

Then next few days I did some bike riding.   I just checked out bootleg canyon.  It was a little more technical than I was prepared to ride that day.  I did go out on some of the easy trails.

After this ride I went out to check out a trail that goes from Henderson to Lake Mead.  Unfortunately it’s not complete yet and the demarkations on the trail don’t clearly indicate the alternative travel paths, so I got lost and ended up just back tracking.  It was a nice long ride, but not as overall picturesque as I was imagining. 

That is the Vegas ‘Strip’ from the bike trail.

Our room view from Vegas. 

After our week in Vegas, I headed off to Arizona to go to Sedona for 2 weeks.  Jay came down and met me on the last day and from there we headed to Colorado.  On our way out, we stopped at ‘Meteor Crater’ in Arizona.  Neither one of us had ever been there, though I have driven passed it several times.  And the thing that made it really fun and special, it was our ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY!  So this is our 1st anniversary picture : >

And finally… in the meantime, Silver has decided he loves Jay! 

So that’s it for this post.  I’ll do my Easter post in a day or two : >

Day 5 Daddy’s home!

Today was Connors 5 day.  Clark and I went to the hospital after naptime as usual.  Then about 6:30 Daddy showed up and it was exciting!!!

Days 2 and 3

I forgot to bring the camera today (day 4), but that’s OK.  This will quickly get boring for everyone besides myself and perhaps the great grandparents : >.   He’s doing great.  Came in at 6.98 lbs and just under 20 inches.  He’s already gained weight which is pretty amazing.  They usually lose weight in the first few days.  Way to go Nicole!!!  Here are the day 2 and one day 3 picture(s).  Masaki gets home tomorrow.  That will be a very happy reunion for everyone!!!  Clark and I are having a really good time.  I have to admit, I forget how very little one gets accomplished around the house with a two year old occupying your time.  Even this posting takes time.  So I’m doing this just before I brush my teeth and head to bed…  Enjoy!

Connor Arrives!!!

Well gang, the big day finally came.  I’m just going to download a group of photos and if I can edit this to show the pictures in a sane fashion, I will.  Otherwise I’ll let them speak for themselves.  By the way, Clark is singing Happy Birthday to Connor (for his daddy) when he’s on the iphone…   Enjoy!

Been Tagged

Nicole Tagged me with something she received from a friend.  I’m supposed to post pictures of what my house/family are like right now.  So here we go!!!

1)My Kitchen sink Jay was just finishing up washing a few glasses we had.  I had made smoothies for post dinner snack.

And here is the sink as it looked. Just the scrubber was all that was left!

2)  Favorite Room. This is GOING to be my favorite room : >.  We have contractors working on the basement for the next several weeks to finish this off!  Then we’ll get to start on the remodeling upstairs!

3)  Me. Pam got me started reading the ‘Twilight’ series… I’ve been reading the last book off and on, in between football games today.  Man I LOVE Saturdays!!!

4)  My closet. This is what happens when you combine a bachelor pad with a girl.  This will be the next part of the home renovation as soon as the basement it done.

5)  My fridge. Nough said!

6)  Laundry. I was in the middle of doing laundry when I got the email with the ‘tag’.

7)  Shoes. These are oldies but goodies.  They need a little polishing, but I’ll do that before January : >

Kids? This is my only ‘kid’ at home at the moment.  Jay is looking reading his fising email.  Deven is off doing errands and going to hang out with his new girlfriend (he’s smitten).

9)  Bathroom. Man did I luck out!  My housekeeper came just hours before.  There’s a lot of bottles on the sink.  I had taken a box of Nicole’s toiletries from the storage shed, so I tossed a lot of the old stuff and kept some of the better stuff.

10) Dream vacation. I want to go back to Yellowstone!  There are so many beautiful sites that I want to explore a little more.

Halloween 08

I think I’m doing better with the pictures, but still can’t figure out how to make the text go where I want to.  Time I send an email to the ‘help desk’!  Anyway here we go with Halloween…

Halloween is a big event in the Miller household.  Jennifer especially enjoys this holiday which was kicked off with a pumpkin carving contetst at Jen’s on Wednesday.  Jay got a picture of the group with his phone.  I don’t have a copy of it, yet.  When I do I’ll pass it along.  For now you’ll have to settle for a picture of the pumpkin Jay and I did : >

Jen went to a Halloween party given by some gay friends of her’s.  She decided she wanted to be the tough guy of the group and went as a dominatrix.    It’s amazing what you can do with ‘pleather’.  She said it took her almost an hour to lace up the ’stupid boots’.  But she looked great!  The collar was ducktape : >

Now for Halloween Day.  I met Pam and the girls at the Discover Museum in Gateway.  They have a lot of amazing things for kids to do there.  We only did the first of two floors, but that seemed to be more than enough to keep them occupied for quite a while.

Andi especially likes the water attraction and Tenna got a kick out of the plastic trout.

And at the end of the day it was time to go trick or treating.  We went to the mall near my house….

Andi wanted to eat every piece she was given (as she was given them) and had a hard time grasping the concept of putting candy in her backpack and saving it for later (while still being allowed to eat one at a time).  After about 6 suckers we decided it was time to go back to Grandma and Grandpa J’s house where they go peanut butter sandwiches before heading back home.  It was a blast!

MoAbin’ it

I went to Moab two weekends ago, while the boys were fishin’ up in Idaho! I took several pictures at Arches National Park the evening before biking. There were no pictures of the ride. I didn’t know how the ride would be, nor did I realize how picturesque the midway point was at Klondike bluffs, but with these photos, you’ll get the jist of the visit. The first two are of ‘Park Avenue’

This the final bend before getting to Delicate Arch. I tried to make it before the sunset… but no cigar!

And finally, the Delicate Arch. Pretty amazing… I love the way it just stands there all alone. It was a beautiful evening, warm but not hot. Perfect.

The next day I did the ride which was a terrific place to ride (minus the fall I took… DOH!). I’m healing nicely and would definitely do the ride again, while, perhaps, walking over one spot instead of trying to ride it…