Spokane reunion, fun on the lake

Jay and Brandon go for a fly!
Nancy glides through the waves!
Austin goes for a ride -- and then flies
Jay shows his macho.

Spokane reunion, river runs through it

Nancy gets a good shot of river and the skyline.

Rough ride down the wagon handle in Spokane riverwalk park.
Westwood siblings relive a happy childhood!

Spokane reunion, Westwoods ride 1907 carousel

Spokane reunion, mermaid JoAnn

During a break, JoAnn does some mermaid posing during Spokane reunion at Humbolt Lake.

Nancy ends a great ride

Nancy had a great ride behind Jay's boat! JoAnn did the filming. Humbolt Lake is beautiful -- and just done the road and no climb.

Spokane reunion, Jay to the Rescue

Our last reunion roadtrip stop was in Coure D'Lane Lake. It's huge -- maybe close to Flaming Gorge, but up in the pines and right next to the city! As we're walking down the "world's longest floating boardwalk," I asked Nancy to wrap the camera handle around her wrist so she wouldn't drop it into the lake. A couple of minutes later, she asked Jay to take a picture of the two of us. When she handed the camera to Jay and pulled her arm back, the strap was still around her wrist and the camer flipped out of Jay's hand and off Nancy's wrist and high into the air and landed about four feet out into the lake from the boardwalk. Everyone freaked out! We started arguing whether we should try to get it out. The water was maybe 10 feet deep at that point. Before we could come to an agreement, Jay had shed his shoes and wallet and dived in.
He came up with the camera in his first dive! What a man! Fortunately it was 95 degrees and not a lot of wind. They continued their walk around the boardwalk and we were able to recover the flash card out of the camera. All the pictures we've posted were from the camera lost in the lake! Yeah, Jay!
Jared has a camer just like ours, so we used his to download all the pictures into my computer when we got home.
Quite the adventure in Spokane! We headed back to Billings the next day and drove through Billings and saw the huge statue of Mary on top of the mountain overlooking Butte. But we didn't have a camera!
We arrived home Saturday, and JoAnn headed home the next morning!
Probably the most important part of the trip for me was getting to know Jay's three boys a little better. Brandon and I had some good times teasing and talking.
Hey, Brandon, what is DNA and E=MC2?

Spokane reunion, exploring hilltop homestead

After our visit with Michelle's sister and brother-in-law, we drove up the road to a hilltop homestead and a beautiful big red barn. What a beautiful view of the Core D' Lane Lake and city below. I would imagine a lot of deer and bear visit the area, not to mention the wild turkeys we spotted roaming among the homes down by Michelle's sisters home. She said the wild turkeys are always messing up and scratching her home's backyard deck. She also has chicken wire around all the trees because of the deer in the area. I don't know what they do about the deer -- unless that's how her husband sometimes gets his bear -- skin -- rugs!

Spokane reunion, Pioneer Sisters

We visited Michelle's sister in the hills above Core D' Lane. Michelle's sister was making a pioneer dress for Michelle and Jay's trek with the boys the following week.
The two of them looked like real Pioneers! We had a nice visit with the couple. Her husband is in the process of adding six feet onto the east side of their home to expand their kitchen and dining room.

On our last day with Jay, Michelle and family, we went north into the hills above Jay's home onto a plateau where it was all fields of grain. Then up another hill into an area of orchards. We stopped at two locations. At the first stop, I had a brownie ala mode and Brandon had an ice cream. We sat around on the patio and visited. Then we went to the next fruit store and bought some huckleberry jam and some lunch. We sat at the patio and visited. A nice little trip!

Spokane reunion, day at lake

Jay and Michelle took us to a lake less than hour away from his home in Spokane Valley. We stopped at a gas station to fill up, and I decided to get a drink because I thought we still had a drive ahead of us into the mountains. Instead, we drove through less than a mile through the housing and arrived at the lake -- like arriving at a park in the valley. It probably was as large as Jordanelle Reservoir in Utah. What a beautiful setting -- pine trees around the beach, a beatiful beach, and a beautiful pine-lined lake. There are lakes everywhere in the Spokane area. Everyone, except Austin and Lee, spent most of the day on the boat, as you can see in the pictures. It was a beautiful day on the lake and on the beach. I just relaxed and read several day's of newspapers, including stories about BYU football. We had a nice picnic inbetween the boat runs.

Spokane reunion, Radio Flyer

In our visit to the Spokane park Aug. 4, 2009, Brandon and Austin found a gruff friend. They were soon joined by JoAnn. Then everyone except the old gizzer enjoyed a visit back in time with a "ride" aboard a giant Radio Flyer. I was simply amazed by all the childish behavior by all the parents and grandparents in the group! You can tell by the typical Lee expressions, joined by Brandon's more sophisticated poses! Anyone notice the beautiful flowers!? They smelled incredible!

After our ride on the waterfalls gondola on Aug. 4th, 2009, in Downtown Spokane, we headed to the fountain in the park, which was the site of the 1974 World's Fair. It's a lot like the Salt Lake Gateway's fountain but even better. The Spokane fountain has water cannons and fountains that shoot out from the tall pillars around the ground fountains. Pretty cool! We then headed over to the restored 1907 Carousel, which included some great carousel music and magic.

In the late afternoon, Aug. 4th, everyone, including Jay's boys Sean, Austin and Brandon, went to Downtown Spokane and visited the riverwalk park area, which was the site of the 1974 World's Fair. The first event was the gandona ride over the waterfalls. The gandolas are enclosed and very hot -- about 100 degrees. Nancy said something that prompted me to pour a little water down her back. She tried to grab the water bottle away from me and we struggled over the bottle, smashing it to a twisted heap and spilling the contents all over Jay's lap! It was perfect, really! The waterfalls are really pretty and flow over lava rock. The whole area is built over lava rock.

On Tuesday morning, Aug. 4th, JoAnn, Nancy, Lee, Michelle and Jay all attended a session at the Spokane LDS Temple. We found out just two days before that we had to have all our white clothes for the temple because it's one of the new smaller ones that don't have clothes rentals. When we arrived at the temple, Jay still had to ask for a white long-sleeve shirt because he couldn't find his or something. It really could have been both Nancy and I who would have arrived and not had anything and would have had to go back to the hotel! The temple worker rounded one up a shirt for Jay -- I'm not sure how. We had a nice small session -- though it was so peaceful and calming that I did have times where I felt like I was dozing off. At least I didn't slow up the session! The temple isn't more than 15 minutes from Jay's. The gardens are beautiful around the front of the temple. Seemed like everything was on the main floor, except the baptistry. Even that you can watch from the main floor windows as the baptisms are done -- though none were being done while we were there.
After the session, we went to lunch at Olive Garden.

Spokane reunion, first night at Westwoods

We arrived Monday night in Spokane Valley. Jay and Michelle met us out our hotel and took us to their home three or four miles away in Spokane Valley. Nice split-level home, though a little warm for me. Spokane had been suffering a warm dry spell. It was 95 degrees that Monday. We had a great dinner, prepared by Michelle, and visited until late into the evening. Great fun!

Spokane reunion, Idaho Falls stop

Nancy's sister came up from St. George and we traveled to Butte, Montana, the first day. Dave, JoAnn's husband, was not able to come with us because of his health. We wish him well! We stopped and had lunch in Idaho Falls, taking time to visit the Idaho Falls LDS Temple, and the Idaho Falls themselves. It was a perfect afternoon for picture taking.