Illinois trip 5/2014

Me & Mom

Sammy striking a happy pose.

Brock getting some help his Grandpa.

Derek, Brock & Erin.

My beautiful Mom.

My Visit with Jennifer and her boys.

I had a great time on a recent trip to Texas to visit my niece Jennifer, her husband John, and the 3 boys Luke, James, and Paul. We had lots of fun playing games, drawing, going to the Marble Slab for ice-cream and swimming in their blowup pool.  I sure wish they lived closer so I could see them more often.

Playing with the boys in their fun bedroom.

 Luke and James

Me with Luke, Paul and James

 Steve gave the boys his old BC vest from scuba diving. They loved it.

 John with his 3 boys. Not sure why the water in the fountain is such a strange color.

 Jennifer and me

 Out for lunch

Happy 1st birthday to Stella Bella!!

Young Bull Moose

We had a young Bull Moose visit our condo last night.  He stayed for almost 2 hours!  He was fascinating to watch.  All of these photos were taken with our phones, as we forgot to bring our cameras to the condo.  You can bet that won't happen again!

He liked eating the bark off of the aspen trees.

The National Forest right behind our condo.

Our neighbor Colleen took this shot.

He rested after he ate.

Steve and our neighbor got up on our neighbor's deck to get a closer look.

Behind our condo. That's Keystone in the background.

I am standing to the far left in the background, Colleen is braver than I am and is in the middle ready to take a photo. 

Cozumel, June 2012

I am still catching up on 2012 photos from our trips, slowly but surely.  Here are some photos from a scuba trip we took last June with 3 couple friends of ours.  We stayed at the Scuba Club, where we stayed once before.  I was the only non-diver but I enjoyed the snorkeling and pool.  We had a great time with our friends, who we have taken other scuba trips with before.

The main entrance. We were within walking distance of the city center.

This was our view from our room.

These hammocks were so comfy and relaxing.

The pool area.

The courtyard.

The bouganvillas were so pretty.  Wish we could grow these in Colorado.

Happy hour with our friends.

Helen, Steve, Deb, Bill, Val, Tom, me and Jim.

Val and Tom.

Helen and Jim.

Deb and Bill.

Beautiful sunset from the dining room.

Some photo highlights of 2012 - Hawaii

I think I'm finally getting the hang of I-Photos.  Switching from a PC to a Mac has been quite a challenge, as far as photo management is concerned, it's so different.  Since I am so far behind on posting photos, I'm going to post some photo highlights from 2012.  We traveled a lot last year as we wanted to get in as much travel before bringing home a new puppy in August.  Here are some photos from our trip to Hawaii last April.  We spent 2 weeks on the Big Island and 2 weeks at our time share on Kaanapali Beach, on Maui.  We had never spent more than a day on the Big Island before.  We found a condo on the VRBO web site, just south of downtown Kona.  It was a corner unit with a wrap around deck and great views.  We loved it there and would go back in a heartbeat.  The 2 major highlights were swimming with dolphins in the open sea and snorkeling/scuba diving at night with 32 giant manta rays.  When we were with the dolphins, the tour operator said that the dolphins had not been out or playful in several weeks.  We were soooo lucky.  We saw more dolphins than we could count.  There were only 3 other people on our boat, which was nice.  I swam an hour with and started to get tired.  Steve and another guy, along with the guide, stayed in the ocean another hour.  Steve got some great shots as you can see.

When we were viewing the giant mantas, Steve scuba dived and I was on top watching all these magnificent, gigantic creatures swim below me.  Manta rays do not have stingers like sting rays.  So unless you get in their way and the bump into you, they are harmless - but they don't look like it! Steve also took some cool videos of them and you can view them on his YouTube site:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFOs6cfRxYg
It was a surreal, mind blowing experience.  That month in Hawaii was one of our top 5 vacations we've ever taken.

Several dolphins swimming below us.

Some swam very close to us as you can see.

Nudi Branch, about 3/4" long.

Sea Urchin, very poisonous if you get pricked by one.

  

Lizard Fish

Moray Eel

Trumpet Fish

On a sunset catamaran ride in Maui.