Better known as my water-aerobics class and my newest love. I have found that it is very difficult to take yourself too seriously while surrounded by ladies twice your age, wearing streatched-out nylon fabric and having a good time.
You can't help but grin right along with them.
The Storer family has officially had 3 family "reunions" in a row! They really aren't so much reunions because we all live in the same city except my folks who only live 3 hours away. But nonetheless, we all voluntarily gather in this teenisy town in Idaho, Lava Hot Springs for some camping and river tubing. 
This year was especially fun because my sis-in-law brought out some of her family from Texas. (Thank you, Shawna, for letting me steal some pictures.) Probably my favorite thing about camping is sitting around the campfire and making s'mores. It has to be about the most relaxing thing ever.
My nephew, Ethan was so freakin cute roasting marshmellows. And
I'm not sure what my fascination with the pseudo-phonetic spelling is but hey, I'm not forcing you to read my blog. You know me and should probably expect a certain amount of crazy. Anyhoo, 4th of July in Idaho.
Idaho Falls has about the best 4th of July celebration. It's the perfect mix of a small town parade with a big town fireworks budget. Some might call it a day of utter predictability but I like to call it tradition.
The day starts with a neighborhood breakfast, of course free. AND we are not talking a lame-o fruit and cold cereal, we are talking about cooked on the spot eggs and ham and pancakes with homemade rhubarb jam. Heaven!
After the hearty breakfast, we manage to roll ourselves over to the parade route to sit and watch the small town floats. I love it!
Thought that would catch your attention. And what a better way to come back to the blog world with a grabber of a title like that? (Yes, I do realize that I haven't posted since March. I get it.)
But I must tell you that this post is not what it appears to be. These three little words have nothing in common, other than I have decided to make it my cause to bring their use back into the mainstream. Let me attempt to garner your support:
smut [ smut ] noun (plural smuts)Peculiar little word, "smut" is. Considering the whatnot that we call news and entertainment, you'd think "smut" would be on the tips of our tongues.
Definition: obscene material: obscene jokes, stories, or pictures. indecent language or publications; obscenity
Rad [ rad ] a word not even found in dictionary.com but urbandictionary.com does not disappoint. (and might I just say that what an awful world we live in? To deprive future generations of the word "rad" by eradicating it from the dictionary? Come on!)See? An 80's tribute is in order.
rad (n.)a word used by people who find words like 'cool', 'awesome', and 'tight' to be tired and overused; 'rad' is generally considered to be a much higher praise than the aforementioned superlatives. Also used as a general expression of awe.
naugh·ty (nôt)
adj. naugh·ti·er, naugh·ti·est
1. Behaving disobediently or mischievously: a naughty child.
One month ago, we were in paradise: Maui. Still not sure why we came back unless it was to share all our fabulous pictures. I am ready to return, already. We took over 700, yes seven hundred, pictures. I will spare you and try to hit some highlights. 
This was our favorite snorkeling spot, Honolu'a Bay and Makulei'a Bay. They are in a marine life reserve and the snorkeling was amazing. The water was so blue, the pictures don't do it justice. My mostest favorite thing was an octupus! It was gi-normous and we followed it around for the better part of an hour, just watching it changes colors and textures. So very, very cool. 
We saw schools of fish and every tropical fish you could imagine, Parrot fish, butterfly fish, trumpet fish and on and on.Somehow this little spot gets the fish that you normally only see deep-sea diving but it's an amazing sheltered reef so we lucked out snorkeling. Oh, and we saw an eel. An 8 foot moray eel! Ewwwwh. Luckily it was swimming away from us.
I can't decide what was my next favorite thing. Perhaps the luau? Or maybe the beaches? Or Hana, the tropical rainforest. Let's start with the luau. Yummy food and great show. And just a really cool picture:
I had so much fun using the Digital SLR camera. I went "tourist" all the way. But I'll spare you most of the luau pictures.
I really loved driving through Hana. It's this rainforest on the backside of Hawaii. It has hundreds, thousands of waterfalls, huge bamboo and other vegetation and the road winds like you woldn't believe. The road trip is probably less than 100 miles and yet takes 6 hours to drive. Here is the first waterfall we hiked to: 
Many of the waterfalls you can see from the road but when you hiked back, you got to walk through all the cool trees. This is one of the newer bamboo forests, most were 20 times taller.
And here is another waterfall:
And as you drive higher up the moutains you could stop and look out over the ocean.
And every look out is prettier than the next.
Just a cool pic that Brad took:
I am having a hell of a time narrowing down the pictures, as you can tell. Only two more things on the road to Hana. The black sand beach was really cool and REALLY hot, as you can imagine black sand would be. I don't know what my fascination is with toes in the sand but I always take this same picture whenever at a beach. 
This is from the beach looking out back at the rocks and beach:
I had forgotten how lush and vivid everything was. 
And last, after the road to Hana, there was the seven sacred ponds, or in the off season, the seven sacred holes where water might have been but now there are exactly 2 ponds with a million tourists crammed in.
From all the pictures in the brochures, it could be really amazing.......if you go in the right season which is November - March. Guess we'll just have to take another trip here again soon!
Oh my hell. This post is getting super long and I've only covered 3 days! Ok, I'll try to do the rest in fast forward:
Sunsets; gorgeous every night
Fabulous beaches. An amazing one right across from our hotel in Kihei:
Super fun little seaside shopping district in Lahina. I mighta been not so keen on posing for pictures:
And right there in Lahina is one of the oldest bayan trees in the world. It spans an entire city block. One tree. It was very cool in person. The tree gets so big that it sends roots out from each branch to the ground to support itself. Again, a must see in person.
Here is one of the few pictures of Brad and I. We were eating at a yummy resturant right on the beach. There was just so many wonderful things to take pictures of, that we forgot to turn the cameras on ourselves!
There are about a million other things we did but I'm tired just remembering it all! It was the perfect trip with the perfect person. The last picture is me showing my love for the hubbie, writing in the sand. So very sappy.
Although you might find yourself in the middle of a June snowstorm, West Yellowstone Park is worth the 6 hour drive from Salty. We were not ready for the 20 degree temps and had to rush to the closest Wal-mart and get some warm clothes.
For years, our friends, the Williamsons', have been inviting us to come to their beautiful cabin in Island Park and we finally saw what we'd been missing. I've been to Yellowstone Park as a child and my memories were that of a hot, sweaty road trip in a 1985 Dodge Caravan. Not would you would call "fond" memories.
I had forgotten how cool it was to see the buffalo, deer and bears roaming through the park. Admittedly, it was also a wee fun to specualte which tourist was going to get too close and get chased. (Not mauled or anything. Just scare them a bit.)
And then on to the hot pots. How did I not remember how beautiful they were? I'm sure, as a kid, the only thing I could do was plug my nose. If you haven't been there, think of steamy rotten eggs, maybe served in a stinky gym shoe? Yeah, pretty bad but worth it.
Of course, we saw the "Old Faithful" gyser (which is either getting smaller or my memory is exaggerated). Still fun to photograph, I suppose.
Thank you Bill, Collen, Bart, Angi and Mia! Wonderful trip with wonderful company!
Somehow we managed to have 4 boys in our family, all with April birthdays. (Get it? April showers? Raining men? Oh, shut up.)
Forgive the excessive amount of pictures but clearly, my wit is lacking today. The birthday party itself was little more than candles, cake and ice cream but as always, plenty of laughter.
2 of the BDay boys, Brad and Tracy blow out their candles. Ethan is playing Fire Marshal, given the extraordinary number of candles required for both geezers.
Somehow, Josh, who was also a BDay boy, managed to escape the candle picture.
It was really fun to celebrate my nephew, Raine's first birthday. And he is so stinkin' cute that he needs a separate slide show.
