My mom and step dad Pat came for a visit!!!

My mom and my step dad Pat came to visit on weekend of July 17th. It was so great to have them here for the whole weekend. They got her on Friday and didn't leave until Monday morning!!! It was so nice to have them here for a longer visit then they usually are able to do. Thank you Mom and Pat for taking time to come and visit. On Friday when they got here we just hung out and barbaqued chicken. Then on Saturday we went and saw the new Harry Potter movie. It was so good!!!! Thank you Mom and Pat for taking us to that!!! That evening the adults went out for dinner together. We went to Smitty's. It was very yummy!!!! Sunday we just enjoyed each others company!!! I could just kick my self though because I didn't take any pictures!! How stupid is that!!!!???? Mom and Pat come back so I can get some pictures please!!!!!! :) :) I love it when my mom and Pat come visit!! They are amazing people and I love them very much. Thank you again Mom and Pat!!!!

Rine Family Reunion!!!!!!!

Well here we are sitting in an airport!!! Who knew that this would be the first of many hours stuck in airports!!! We had this family reunion to go to in Rhinelander Wisconsin. We thought we would save money by buying stand by tickets on US Airlines. My sister works for them and so she gave us passes to fly standby. At first we were supposed to fly into Milwaukee, but we missed our first flight we tried for. So we had to change our plans to Minneapolis. So we got up at 4:30 am on Thursday July 23, and got to the Salt Lake City airport. We did not get on the first flight we were trying for. We got on the second flight to Pheonix. Then we did not get on our first flight to Minneapolis, but got on the next one. We got to Minniapolis at 8:30pm. Got our rental car and off to Rhinelander we go. We got lost 3 times trying to get there because the map quest directions SUCKED!!!!!!!!! We finnally got to Rhinelander at 2:15am. My dad met us and took us to my cousins house that we were going to stay at. Finally to Rhinelander!!! YEAH!!!!! We slept until 9:00 am the next morning.

I wanted to go see Elco and Post lake. That is where my dad grew up and we spent our summers as a kid. So in order to do that we had to go bar hopping with everybody. That was very interesting. But we made it tons of fun!!!! I am so thankful for non smoking places. My family is a ton of fun though!!!!! This is a picture of the first bar we stopped at. Kids can go into the bars back there as long as they are with an adult!!

This is the Rhinelander Hodag!!! It is a mythical creature. Isn't he cute!!! I wanted a family picture in front of it. So here it is!!! Thank you family for doing this for me!!!!

This is my dad with his sisters. My Aunt Fern is on the left and my Aunt Edris is on the right. My dad is the youngest of 5 kids. He is also the only boy!!!

This is my family!!!! in order from left to right starting in the front and working back.
Crystal (my neice), Jr. (my nephew)
Cherri ( my sister), Nikki and her baby Brooke. (Nikki is my neice also) Judy (my siter in law)
My sister Terri, Doug, Me, My dad, Kris (my step mom), B.J.(my nephew), Jim(my brother).

Siblings-Jim, me, Cherri, and Terri
This was Saturday night around the fire at Cherri's house. What a great day of family reunioning!!! Thank you Cherri for putting it all together!!!!

This is the hotel we stayed in the 2nd night we were stranded in Minneapolis. That is right I said the 2nd night!!!!!! We got back to Minneapolis on Sunday morning and NO standby's got on any flights to Pheonix. It was a nightmere. So the first night we got a hotel at Hoiday Inn. Then we got up at 5:30am again and went to the airport and thought we were going home and no such luck. They had a mechanical problem on the 8:00am flight and so again no standbys!!!!!! So by now we are exhausted and going crazy so we called my sister and told her to book us tickets and we would just pay for them. :) :) So we got tickets from Minneapolis to Pheonix for the next day. So we got to go to a hotel for the night again. We stayed the second night at La Quinta. It was a great hotel and had free breakfast!!!!! We didn't have to be to the airport until 1pm the next day and so we could sleep in. So we decided we where there and the hotel had a free shuttle to the Mall of America. So we went!!!!!

This is Tasha and Doug looking up Spongebob Square Pants, pants!!! They are crazy. This was at the Nicolodean theme park in the middle of the Mall of America!!!!! We were at the mall for almost 3 hours and didn't even make a dent in it!!! It would be fun to go back to some day!!! An ammusement park in the airconditioning!!!!!

Here is our picture of the sign as we were leaving!!!! Good bye Mall of America. It was fun, would have been more fun had we had any money to spend. But since we spent so much money on tickets to get home and food in the airport for 2 days. We are BROOKE!!!!!!!!!! But it was fun and the family reunion was a blast!!!!!!