Hawaii!

               Yea! We went to Hawaii! It was Emily and I's first time and it was GREAT! We stayed in Maui. Here are some pictures of our amazing trip.

The hotel pool with the ocean in the background. The pool had a water slide and we went down a ton of times! We are wearing REAL flower leis! Soo pretty!

Emily and I loved playing at the beach. This was my first time ever boogie boarding, and it was so much fun!!! Emily like playing in the sand.

Dad in the Iao Valley

That's Lava rock behind us. We are red because the sun is going down.

We went to an aquarium one night for dinner. It was so cool! There was all kinds of different tropical fish surrounding us while we were eating.

                                                                                             

At the aquarium there was a scuba diver who dove in a shark tank and was able to talk to us and answer our questions. I'm glad I wasn't him!

Here we are with a plant called a silver sword. We are on top of a volcano. This is the only place in the WORLD where it grows, on top of this volcano. It lives for 50 years, only flowers once, and then it dies!

We are on a boat getting ready to go snorkeling with fish and then sea turtles! It was so cool, but a little scary getting into the water at first!

Our hotel is behind us!

Mom and Dad with the hotel behind them. The hotel was AMAZING! It was gigantic!

Emily and I after we had gotten "Feathers" in our hair. I had wanted one for a long time,  and Hawaii was an awesome place to get one!

We had such a good time in Hawaii, we can't wait to go back!

~Ashley~

Oklahoma Trip Part 2

After the Reunion we went to my Nana and Papa's house. We had a great time there too!

Cason is FULL of energy! Here he is trying to get untangled from the jumprope dad put on him. It was no problem for him!

In the pool with Taren, Emily, Me, and Daylee. Nana is in there too! 

Eating at Cheddars in Fort Smith.

In the pool again, we were out there every day! 100+  degree heat!

Emily and Gigi making homemade Ice Cream!

Emily and Gigi on the 4-Wheeler

Papa and me on the 4-Wheeler

Playing Golf, a tradition!

Mama, Emily, me, and our crazy socks!

Grandma Dorothy and her overweight chihuahua, Cash. :)

In the pool once again with Laura Beth.

Notice almost every picture my mouth is open :)
~Ashley~

Oklahoma Trip Part 1

We went to Oklahoma for the Barrett Family Reunion. Here are some pictures from our trip.

We loved playing in the pool, it was a great way to cool down in the 100+  degree heat!

We celebrated Hannah's second birthday with some cake!

Hannah enjoyed riding her tricycle and she was great at it!

Thats Emily with Jack, Andrea's newborn baby.

Emily, Uncle David, and I made some hilarious photos with his Apple laptop.

We went to Soda Steve's every day! The rootbeer floats are soo good! 

Rebekah and I giving Abby a bath after she had jumped in the lake!

                                                                      ~Ashley~

Bat Trip

Last week we were able to have an interesting experience of learning more about bats at the Yolo County Water Basin.  The trip started with a one hour talk about bats (I know it sounds creepy and not fun).  We were very impressed with the quality of the presentation and we learned a lot from it.  After the talk we followed the instructor out into the rice fields (20 minute drive by van) of Yolo County just before dark, so we could view the mass exodus of the bats.  The bats live under the freeway that you can see in the below pictures, and every night they predictably come out at the same place.  

We let the girls each bring a friend.   Behind the girls are rice fields.

Ashley and her friend Haven, the bats nest under the bridge behind them.

Emily and her friend Brielle

Those aren't black clouds, they are clouds of bats.

Tahoe Trip

We recently went to Squaw Valley (near Lake Tahoe) for a few days. We had a great time! Here are a few pictures from our trip.

The view from our hotel room was very pretty!

We went up in a gondola VERY high.

The gondola took us to the summit which was 8200 feet. The Winter Olympics were held here in 1960. If you look closely, in the background, you can see Lake Tahoe.

There was an roller skating rink on the top of the mountain. Emily and I (ashley)  tried it out  but we did not have a good experience because we are used to inline skates and there was only roller skates! I fell down on the first step onto the rink and I bruised my tailbone :)

Icing my tailbone, OUCH! It hurt for a couple of days!

Emily sliding down the water slide. It was sooo much fun!!!

I am in the pool in the hotel surrounded by beautiful scenery. If you were wondering, the pools WERE  kinda heated but there was a spa so we went in there if we were cold.

We went on a pretty hike with mountains, forests and waterfalls!

Our Out of the Ordinary Hailstorm!

Today after we came home from church it started hailing! Hailstorms are very uncommon here so it was a big deal! It hailed so hard and so much it looked liked snow!

The hail on our neighbor's car. It looked liked all the cars we drove past came from Lake Tahoe! (or St. Joe) :)

Big chunks of hail we picked up!

Watching the show from the trunk of the van!

The hail on the trampoline

~Ashley~