We flew into Portland, OR, rented a car (Chevy Malibu with leather seats and a Sirrus XM radio and Bose speaker system=NICE!). The first day we went to the Columbia River Gorge and seen some gorgeous waterfalls. Megan spent the whole day with her friend, Angie, who lives in Portland but spent her senior year of High School in Sauk-Prairie. The second day we went to the Japanese Gardens. So beautiful and peaceful, I would love to see it again in the Autumn sometime. We then drove on to the coast starting in Lincoln City and spending the night in Newport. The third day we went to the Oregon Aquarium. They had one of those see through glass tunnels where sharks and everything swim around you. We then went to the Sea Lion Cave. We spent that night in Coos Bay. The forth day we drove on to Crescent City, California. Stopping many times to play by the ocean. The next day we drove through the Redwood Forrest and on to Grant's Pass, Oregon. Scott and the kids did a Hellgate Jetboat Ride and loved it. We stayed the night there in Grant's Pass (great city on the Rogue River with AMAZING views!). The last day we drove through mountains we never really knew were in Oregon. At one point we were driving down a 6% grade for 9 miles! The views between Grant's Pass and Eugene were spectacular. We stopped in at one of our customers, The Gun Works, in Springfield, Oregon. Had a very nice visit with them. When we got back to Portland we had some nice views of Mt. Hood. I truly am sad that my photos are not as good as they should be with my camera. If only I had noticed it was set for VGA/websize pictures. Oh well... it was a AWESOME vacation! If you decide to take this trip, go to: http://visittheoregoncoast.com/ and request a Mile by Mile Guide. It helped so much!!

2005-2010 Family photo's

A album for pictures of Wisconsin and other interesting places to visit.

We took a nice Autumn tour up north to the Shawano area and drove up through the Menominee Indian Reservation hiking through areas around the Wolf River. Scott & I rafted the whitewater river twice many years ago!

Dixie Gun Works, Steve & Mincha's, Nashville, Smoky Mtns, Six Flags Chicago

Camping Trip to Door County and more.

My mother, Deanna, was my best friend. It's taken me so long to start this because I really can't believe she is gone from my life. I miss her every day!

When we got back from our trip at the end of June 2004, I visited her and we talked about the trip but it was too short of visit. The next day she was in the hospital and was very sick with Hodgkin Lymphoma. She spent all of July 2004 in the UW Hospital in Madison but she passed away in August 2004 from complications due to the lymphoma. She was an awesome mom and grandma.

She loved to bake cookies and get hugs from her grand kids!

Dan worked various jobs, mostly heavy equipment operator, all over the USA, including Alaska and Georgia. He always found time to be a tourist in the different places he worked. He also was in Hawaii for a short vacation. He was diagnosed with kidney cancer in January 1998 and passed away on June 9, 1998 after a courageous battle with the dreaded disease.

There was something very special that happened on the day of Dan's memorial service. It had rained all day long, as the service began, the sun came out and shined brightly through the stained glass windows of the church. When the service ended, the sun went away and it began storming again. Almost everyone there noticed, even the priest mentioned the gleaming sun light. We all like to believe that it was Danny, wanting us all to know he was happy now.
We will all miss him deeply and remember him always.

We rented an RV and went out to Yellowstone National Park the end of June 2004. The first and last day of the trip was lots of driving (12hrs each day), otherwise we drove from 2-6 hours the other days. To me, the highlight was the Grand Tetons, what a memorable site! I just wish my good camera worked, I got it working towards the end of the trip but in the beginning it would take 1 or 2 pictures and automatically rewind!

Our reasoning for this trip was, after we build our house, we will never be able to afford another major trip again for a long time. It was probably the vacation that i liked the best. So relaxing and inexpensive! Our hotel room at the InterContinental Presidente Ixtapa was on the 22nd floor overlooking the ocean. After we unpacked, we went out onto the balcony and enjoyed our first Mexican sunset! We flew down from Chicago, spent a wonderful time playing in the sun and sand, parasailing, snorkeling, and afternoon siestas! When we came back to Chicago, we had to drive home from there in a blizzard! What a shock after 80F degree weather.

I found a newspaper article in the Wisconsin State Journal, dated 05Jan03 in their travel section. It happened to be about Ixtapa and Zihuatanejo. "Lazing on the beach or around the pool is still the main activity in the Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo resort area, but dolphins are making a big splash. The family owned Delfiniti Company has opened a dolphinarium on the Ixtapa strip, where adults and children 8 and older can pay to enter a large pool and swim the dolphins.

A couple little known facts about Zihuatanejo:
Did you know the final escape place for the prison friends in the movie "Shawshank Redemption" was Zihuatenejo?
The word Zihuatenejo comes from a Indian word meaning "Place of beautiful women"

The morning we were supposed to fly out of Wisconsin, there was terrible fog and the flight was delayed. We would have made it to the ship on time, but the rental car place didn't have a car for us! They finally found a car (my husband was happy that it was a Chrysler Lebaron, convertable) for us, and we were off driving down the 'bee line' expressway. Just as we were pulling in the parking lot at Cape Canaviral, our ship was pulling away from the dock! We and another honeymoon couple ended up having to take a different ship to Nassau and transfering to the ship we were supposed to be on. We ended up spending most of our time with the other couple, they were from Brooklyn, New York. I have more pictures I'm going to add to this page as soon as I get a chance.