When I picked up the girls at the airport, Eleri couldn’t wait to show me her new smile. A smile with a big hole! She was so proud. My first thought was that she lost her other big tooth without me…did the Tooth Fairy make a visit?? And yes, Emersyn took care of it. She wrote a letter – “to sound just like the way I would write it” is what Emersyn told me. They had a neighbor write it on purple paper so Eleri wouldn’t recognize the hand writing. I was so proud of Emersyn for taking care of her little sister and keeping the spirit alive.

This is Emersyn’s letter:

Dear Eleri,

My wings have been tingling for a very long time. I am surprised because your tooth came out earlier than I expected in Nebraska! I am waiting in California for you to return. When I felt your tooth had come out, I caught up with my fairy friend who was making another stop in Nebraska. I ask her if she could deliver this to you and she said yes. I have not given you your full money. I have enclosed a 5 dollar bill for you to spend. You will get the rest of your surprise in California.

I can’t wait till my wings are tingling again.

Love,
The Tooth Fairy
July 11, 2011

Around 5pm, I began to unpack the girls. As I unpacking, I found the letter. My first thought was…no one told me about a surprise in California. I quickly ran to the bank before closing to get the special gold coin. I wanted Eleri to find the coin beside her bed when she went to sleep.

I love this smile with the big hole!

Average Rating: 4.4 out of 5 based on 169 user reviews.

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Karin & Stefan

I had just booked our tickets for Nebraska when I got an email from Karin that she would be in San Francisco with Stefan. Karin and Stefan are friends from Hong Kong. They moved back to Europe before we left HK. We haven’t seen them in over six years. Of course, their flight schedule would be to leave SF the day I arrive back from Nebraska. I decided I would leave the girls in Nebraska at Grandma/pa’s and Terri could fly back to California with them. I only had one plane ticket to change and Stefan and Karin were without their children, also. Karin did some SF shopping in Union Square while Stefan worked. Stefan finished up his work requirements on Friday.

Saturday: Napa Valley Wine Tour

We picked Karin and Stefan up in San Francisco on Saturday morning at 10am. The weather was frogged in with a temperature below 50F/10C. We drove out of the fog into a beautiful day in Napa Valley.

The first stop on our Napa Valley wine tour is lunch at Gott’s Hamburgers. We sat outside enjoying the food and the sunshine. Then, it was time to hit the wineries as the day slips away too fast.

Our first winery is my favorite place, Folio Winemakers’ Studio. We enjoyed the wine and the time to reconnecting with old friends. The staff working behind the counter were interested in how we meet. We had a good laugh about our German friends we met in Hong Kong that now live in Switzerland! After buying a few bottles plus a case due to a special we couldn’t pass, we were ready for the next winery.

We drove to the Artesa Winery. This winery has a beautiful view over the valley. We didn’t wine taste because it was crowded and loud inside.

Our next stop was downtown St Helena which took longer than normal to reach due to traffic on the two lane road of Napa. Stefan had said he loves olive oil so we needed to make a dash over to Olivier. We purchased olive oil, dipping oils and mustards before dashing off to our next winery.

It was already 4pm – the day is slipping away. We decided to hit a small winery on the main road, Sawyer Cellars. I had not been to this one, but Andy recommend it. It was a delightful small winery. Stefan bumped into Charles, who happen to be the owner of the winery. Charles was greeting guest and behind the counter pouring wine.

Many wineries close at 5pm, but we knew Peju Province Winery was open until 6pm. We enjoyed one last wine tasting before going to dinner at “The Farm”.

At The Farm, the restaurant was serving pee soup. Both Karin and Stefan laughed and comment no descent restaurant in Germany would serve pee soup. Apparently pee soup is served in the Army. All young men are required to serve in the army – so no one eats pee soup in Germany!

Sunday: Home Town Tour

Karin and Stefan are staying at our home. Terri and Andy have moved into our home while they remodel their house. Our house is a MESS – Terri and Andy have their stuff in every room in the house. However, it is fun to have our guest in our home.

We are spending the day on our Home Town Tour. We began with the Farmer’s Market which we do every Sunday when we are in town. From there, we ate lunch at Andale’s, one of our favorite Mexican restaurants. We were in no hurry and enjoyed a long lunch. We walked around downtown with a stop at the Apple store, of course. Stefan had said he was NOT going to buy the ipad, but once we shopped the store, he was ready to buy. However, this store only had white…we will come back tomorrow.

Karin and I did a grocery run to Whole Foods. Karin enjoyed seeing the supermarkets of America. We had a feast for dinner – steak and our farmer’s market buys of salad, corn and artichokes. Artichokes are a very California vegetable since they are home grown here. And, of course, we started the meal with our Napa Valley wines and dippings. When the night finished, we had drank four bottles of Napa Valley wines. Andy joined us for dinner so it was not a full bottle per person. Always nice that no one had to drive!

Monday: Carmel Tour

We drove down to the 17-mile drive. The 17-Mile Drive is widely recognized as one of the most scenic drives in the world. The famous coastal landmark runs through Pacific Grove to Pebble Beach, from the Pacific coastline to the Del Monte Forest. It has been years since Jim and I have done the “touristy” California. It was fun to be tourist with Karin and Stefan. We stopped to enjoy the views, the ocean and the flowers!

Point Joe – Early mariners often crashed upon these rocks after mistakenly setting their course for this point, believing that it was the entrance to Monterey Bay.

Spanish Bay – Don Gaspar de Portela, the Spanish explorer, and his crew camped here in 1769 while searching for Monterey Bay.

The Lone Cypress – As one of Californiaâ€™s most enduring landmarks, The Lone Cypress has prevailed on its rocky perch for over 250 years. This icon has inspired many and is revered as the eternal symbol of Pebble Beach Company.

The Lodge at Pebble Beach – Built in 1919, The Lodge is the heart and soul of Pebble Beach and home to the world-famous Pebble Beach Golf Links. Karin and Stefan are both golfers, therefore, Pebble Beach was on the “must stop” list. We were interested in finding the cost to golf Pebble Beach – for two people it was a mere $1, 500 for the day!

By the time we got to Carmel, it was 3:30pm. We were a hungry crew with no lunch. We called our meal “linner” for our combined lunch and dinner. We ate at one of my favorite places, “The Forge in the Forest”. We had the outside patio to ourselves since it was between meal time. After finishing our meal, it was dessert time. The Forge in the Forest has the best warm cookie in a pan. No one wanted it…how can we come to the Forge and not have the cookie!?! It is too big for one person. Karin said she would have some with me. After it came, everyone had some!!

After enjoying our cookie, we walked down to the beach. Carmel has a beautiful beach with fine, white sand. We enjoyed a walk along the beach and dipping our toes in the ocean…it is cold!

We drove back to the Bay Area with a stop at the local mall. We wanted to get the ipad for Stefan with time to “set it up” before they left for Switzerland. It doesn’t take long to shop at the Apple store when you know what you want.

We went back to the house for wine, cheese and crackers for dinner. Stefan, Andy and Jim “set up” and played with Stefan’s ipad. We stayed up until midnight eating, drinking and laughing. It was so nice to having them stay in our home to enjoy the late night fun.

Tuesday: Hike Tour and Travel

Since Karin and Stefan were leaving in the evening, we had time to enjoy a hike. We went on a hike along the coast. It was a bit fogged in to see the view, but the fog was pretty!

We drove up Skyline Road to Alice’s Restaurant. Alice’s is a bit famous, but Jim and I have not been there. This particular restaurant was named after both the original owner, Alice, and Arlo Guthrie made up a song entitled “Alice’s Restaurant”. Alice’s guest crowd ranges from guest in expensive, fast sport cars to Harley Davidson bikers to bicyclists all enjoying the Skyline curves and scenes. It is generally very crowded, but again when you have a late lunch, there is room on the deck.

We drove back to our house for our guest to pack for their journey home. We enjoyed sharing our California area with our friends. We cherished the time to reconnect with good friends. We had fun as adults without kids (but we won’t tell them). Emersyn and Johannes played together in Hong Kong. Next time, it will be fun to get together with our children.

Average Rating: 4.6 out of 5 based on 248 user reviews.

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Emersyn did her big study of the Westward Expansion at the end of 5th grade. See Westward Expansion. As I was reading her paper about traveling West past Chimney Rock, I realized I haven’t taken my kids to Chimney Rock. It is about 30 minutes from Grandma/pa’s house and it has just always been there – something you drive by. I didn’t even know there was a museum (not there when I was a kid).

Eleri’s favorite exhibit was the interactive wagon. Bags of rice, salt, coffee and other items were available to load a wagon. The wagon scale would let you know when it was overloaded.

Having done the Westward Expansion game at school, Emersyn was very practical about her packing – no dresser, food was more important. No coffee as rice would be needed on the trail. Jim did not agree with that one!

We walked around the various exhibits, watch a short video and purchased some books in the gift shop.

On the way home, we decided to stop at the Scottsbluff Monument. Again, something we drive by when we take the back road home. We drove to the top to see the view over the valley – first time with the girls. Jim and I had walked up the trail one winter, but had to turn around due to too much snow.

We walked out to the covered wagons. Both girls were surprised how tall the wagon stood. Eleri wasn’t even as tall as the wheel. To look in, both girls had to be picked up.

We did a quick tour of the museum. It was 4th of July and Grandpa had to get home to get his homemade ice cream started for tonight’s celebration. We did stop for a quick look and photo at the entry signs. Grandpa did these walls and signs during his working days.

Average Rating: 4.4 out of 5 based on 235 user reviews.

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We always have 4th of July celebrations at my cousin’s home, Russ and Gaylene. Russ loves to cook and serves up a feast for the family. This year at Russ’s, the girls had fun with the new toys Russ purchased for his grandchildren. Russ purchased these bumper boats from an amusement park. Russ and Gaylene live just outside of town with a pound – perfect!

We enjoyed fireworks while the kids played. Russ and Gaylene’s grandchildren are closer in age to Eleri. Jim enjoyed seeing all the relatives he had not seen in ten years. After the fireworks, we drove to Rena’s house to see more cousins. Eleri was enjoying the fireworks with Avery.

Average Rating: 5 out of 5 based on 200 user reviews.

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Every year we get out Grandpa’s truck for photos for the calendar and for a spin around town. This was the first time Jim had seen Grandpa’s truck. Jim has not been to Nebraska in 10 years. Since he was going through Denver on a business trip, he took a detour to see us.

This is Emersyn ready to drive Grandpa’s truck when she turns 16.

This is Eleri ready to drive Grandpa’s truck – I am a little worried!

Jim took the girls out for a spin.

Average Rating: 4.7 out of 5 based on 299 user reviews.

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Fort Robinson is a former U.S. Army fort and a present-day state park. Every year we drive to Ft. Robinson to enjoy the buffalo burgers, see a play at the Post House and to ride horses. A play did not work in the schedule this year, so we just ate and rode! Eleri isn’t old enough for the long ride, therefore, we do the short ride of 45 minutes. The cost of riding a horse at Ft. Robinson is $15 – can’t beat that price!

After our lunch of buffalo burgers, we went to change our shoes and get ready for our 1:00pm ride. When we left the house this morning, the girls were wearing flip flops. I grabbed tennis shoes for everyone…except I accidently grabbed my tennis shoes for Emersyn. She had no tennis shoes, just flip flops. At Grandma’s house, we all dump our shoes in the laundry room coming in from the back door. There is a pile of shoes with all of us there. Lucky for us, Terri is driving on to South Dakota after our day of fun to see Andy and his dad, Ray. She had her hiking boots packed for hiking the hills of South Dakota. Terri gave Emmy her tennis shoes and put on her hiking boots. Terri has a very small foot of a size 6. The shoes were just a bit large for Emmy.

The stables at Ft. Robins are the original riding stables for the army.

Emersyn was riding Bonnie on this adventure.

Eleri’s horse was named Buck. She does look small on the big horse.

Terri had Pedro, a horse we had last year.

And, I don’t remember the name of my horse.

After we finished our ride, Eleri wanted to ride the stage coach. We all climbed into the stage coach including Grandma and Grandpa. I don’t have a good photo of the ride as it was very bumpy. It cost us $10 for one ride – can’t beat that!!

To finish off our fun at Ft. Robinson, we went back to the cafe for homemade cinnamon rolls. We always enjoy the day at Ft. Robinson.

Average Rating: 4.4 out of 5 based on 192 user reviews.

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Fireworks are illegal in California due to the dry grass in the summer time. However, fireworks are available and fun in Nebraska. Fireworks can be purchased all year in Wyoming, which is not the law in Nebraska. On the way home from Estes Park, we stopped at a big outlet in Cheyenne for fireworks. Grandpa bought the girls $100 of fun! The girls mostly like smoke bombs, snakes and sparklers. We purchased a few big fountains to enjoy, but the fountains are the expensive part of fireworks.

Elle drove the truck out with all the fountains in the back…with a big smile.

Grandpa uses a blow torch to light the smoke bombs and snakes. The girls know Grandpa’s safety rules.

Average Rating: 4.7 out of 5 based on 230 user reviews.

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Duct tape is cloth-or scrim-backed pressure sensitive tape often sealed with polyethylene. It is very similar to gaffer tape but differs in that gaffer tape was designed to be cleanly removed, while duct tape was not. Permacel, formerly a division of Johnson & Johnson, originally developed duct tape in 1942 during World War II as a rubber-based adhesive tape with a durable fabric backing that resisted water for use as sealing tape on ammunition cases. Because of these properties, it was also used to repair military equipment quickly, including jeeps, firearms, and aircraft. Today, duct tape is commonly used in every situation that require a strong, flexible, very sticky tape.

That is wikipedia’s definition of duct tape. Did you know duct tape now comes in fun colors and patterns? This is what two creative kids can make with duct tape.

Tape people which are better than paper people as they are more durable.

Bracelets

Coasters

Remote holder

Mobile phone case

A hand bag

One of the creators modeling the duct fashion!

Average Rating: 4.8 out of 5 based on 207 user reviews.

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We had so much fun in Estes Park last year that we decided on another adventure to Colorado this summer. We were able to get the same cabin on the river, Idlewilde. The cabin is located just off the Thompson River. Grandpa packed his fishing gear and was ready to go. Our road trip adventure includes the Lyon Three, Grandpa and Grandma, Aunt Terri and Uncle Andy.

Day One: Driving and Poppy’s
It takes about 3.5 hours to reach Estes Park. We arrived as scheduled at 12:30 for lunch at Poppy’s. Poppy’s is owned by one of my classmates and it is the best pizza in town. We were meeting Rob, (Poppy’s owner), Brenda (another classmate), Vern and Cathie (teachers from our high school) for lunch. I told the girls they didn’t need their entertainment – not sure what I was thinking. Uncle Andy did go back to the car to get Emmy her book. Eleri played games on Aunt Terri’s iphone. We were there for 3 hours!

After lunch, we went to check into our cabin. We didn’t have much time to rest as we were meeting the Litt family for dinner at Poppy’s. The Litts have about a 45 minute drive from Boulder. It will be good to see them as we left Shanghai before they finished their China adventure. We promised the girls we would not be there for 3 hours this time…we kept that promise because were there for 4 hours. They were troopers as we have spent over 7 hours in Poppy’s talking with friends on this day.

Day two: Fishing

Since the girls spent the day inside at a restaurant yesterday, today was sunshine and fishing. It was a nice, relaxing day enjoying the river.

Grandpa enjoys fishing with the girls. It was something we did as a family when I was growing up.

Emersyn was busy reading while waiting for the fish. She was reading the birthday present book from Aunt Nancy.

Emersyn caught the first and only fish of the day. She was thrilled as last summer it was Elle who was always catching the fish.

Day Three: Rocky Mountain National Park

The Rocky Mountains (or the Rockies) are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than 3, 000 miles (4, 830 km) from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States.

Colorado had record amounts of snow this year. The mountains are covered white with late snow fall in the Rocky Mountains. It was a winter wonderland in June.

The snow plowed drift along the side of the road was more than double the size of the girls.

The girls had funning craving their names in the snow.

The signs for the paths were buried deep in the snow.

Since the path was covered in snow, we had fun walking across the top of the snow…without sinking in too far.

We saw many Marmots climbing around the rocks at the look out point.

The yellow-bellied marmot (Marmota flaviventris), also known as the rock chuck, is a ground squirrel in the marmot genus. Those most often referred to as marmots tend to live in mountainous areas such the Rocky Mountains, Black Hills, Cascades, and Sierra Nevada in North America. Marmots typically live in burrows (often within rockpiles, particularly in the case of the Yellow-bellied marmot), and hibernate there through the winter. Marmots are highly social, and use loud whistles to communicate with one another, especially when alarmed.

At the top, we stopped at the gift shop to see what special item the girls could find to take home. Grandpa gave each girl $10 to spend. They both picked out a dream catcher, handmade by native American Indians. As Legend goes, the Dream Catcher is hung in the lodge near the sleeping area. Its purpose is to catch all dreams, good or bad. The bad dreams caught in the webbing would be burned off by the first morning light. The good dreams caught know their way to the hole in the center and filter down into the feathers. They are held there to be dreamed another night. The girls hung their dream catchers above their beds.

Eleri found this adorable bear hat. She is a cute bear cub. She will wear this hat all winter in Shanghai. Emersyn did not want one – she it too cool or too old or too something!!

We drove to the very top to the Continental Divide. The Continental Divide is located in the Rocky Mountains and designates the line at which waters flow either to the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans.

We drove down the other side of The Divide for about a mile to find a picnic place or some rocks. Amazing how driving five minutes down the mountain we were able to find less wind and the warm sun to enjoy our sandwiches.

Day Three: Poppy’s, Shop and Drive

Our last day in Estes Park, we enjoyed a lazy morning by the river, Poppy’s on the river and a shop in town before we drove home.

We sat outside on the deck to enjoy our last Poppy’s pizza for the summer.

We shopped longer than planned, as always. Grandpa has always been a patient shopper waiting for us on a nearby bench. Lately, he sits outside of Poppy’s and Rob brings him coffee! Emersyn did some birthday shopping. Aunt Terri spoiled her with an owl purse and matching phone case. Both are very practical with long straps for field trips and carry just the phone. Grandma treated Emersyn to two necklaces. Eleri found a photo holder that said “good dog” that she wanted Grandma to get her for her birthday. It was another fun trip to Estes Park.

Average Rating: 4.7 out of 5 based on 285 user reviews.

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Every summer we meet my cousins and their children at the Scottsbluff pool. They have “the slide of envy” – the name I have given the slide. Emersyn was not tall enough until she was 8. My cousins’ children are tall, therefore, have an advantage to reach the “slide of envy” early.

Eleri is still too short this summer – maybe next summer?!?

We didn’t make it to the pool as much this summer. The first time we arrived, paid (not cheap), changed and jumped into the pool. Within five minutes, a storm blew in from nowhere and our pool time was over. We only made it to the pool one other time during this summer trip to Nebraska.

Average Rating: 4.4 out of 5 based on 269 user reviews.

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