Sisters Trip '09--Michigan

I was lucky enough to have another sisters trip this year. I talked my sisters into coming to see Michigan for the trip this year. I don't know how I lucked out to have such great sisters, but I must have been in the right line in heaven when they were handing out sisters! I admire so much about each one of them--they are the best! I can't leave out my mom here either, because she raised all of us into the great people we are today and that is enough said about how great she is! :)

We started out the trip with a little beauty night at the U of M clinic. We all got microderm abrasion and other various things to make us beautiful. It was so much fun! This is a shot of us pre-beauty treatments.

Cuties!

We are pretty crazy and decided to leave for Mackinac Island right after our beauty stuff. Beauty stuff went until late and Mackinac is a 4 1/2 hour drive--even with me driving! We scared ourselves on the way because we almost ran out of gas. At 2:30 in the morning. In the middle of nowhere. SCARY! We finally found a remote gas station really in the middle of NOWHERE. There were two men, by themselves in separate cars--seemingly waiting for a car full of women to attack. One of them wouldn't look at us the whole time. The other one stared at us the whole time. It totally gave us the hibbie jibbies! Then we started driving and talking about movies where scary things happened on the freeway, after stopping at gas stations in the middle of nowhere. AAAAHHH!

However, we made it safe and sound to Mackinaw City at 3:30am. After a good nights sleep (minus seagull noises) the next morning found us exiting the ferry to Mackinac Island. It was the most beautiful day ever--so perfect.

Watch out Mackinac Island! I love this picture that Jill took of these two.

My sisters and mom LOVED Mackinac Island, which I knew they would but I was still kind of relieved that they liked it so much! We rented really cool cruiser bikes with cute little baskets and rode all the way around the island. Slowly riding and stopping very often for LOTS of photos. The water was so beautiful and blue. The weather was perfect. You can't say that very often in MI! My sisters don't believe me now when I say how awful the weather is here, it was so perfect all weekend for them.

This might be my favorite picture from the whole trip! My cute mom cruising on her bike!! I LOVE IT. We got her these new sun glasses and told her she looked sassy. When I see this picture I can totally just hear her doing her breathing out thing she does when she exercises.

Me and Julie at one of our many photo ops!

Downtown drag in Mackinac. We should have taken a picture in front of the fudge shop which we visited THREE times in our short time on the island. It's just off to the right. :)

Jill and Josie trying out the bikes before our big ride.

Julie looking cute on her cruiser!

This looks so fun, I want to go back and spend a month there and do this everyday--or twice a day!

After leaving Mackinac Island we drove over the 5 mile suspension bridge so my sisters and mom could say they have been to the UP (upper peninsula) of Michigan. I don't think they will ever be back, so good thing we did it!

I am sure the highlight for all of them was seeing "The Big House" (I am being sarcastic). But really could their be a better picture??

We all have on Michigan shirts. Just don't tell my sisters husband who is an Ohio State fan through and through. I'll never tell. The best is my mom's Michigan Gymnastics shirt.
Later in the day (see pic below) we went to the cupcake station and someone asked my mom if she was on the Michigan Gymnastics team! She is in her 70's!

The tailgating here is out of control. We walked all over the place and saw a lot of FANCY tailgating. Wine and ham dinners all spread out. Here we are checking out the tailgaters.

This picture is from Mackinac Island. Here we are at the cupcake station in AA. So delicious! We walked here after eating at Pizza House, one of my favorite Ann Arbor places.

We celebrated Julie's birthday with a caramel cake! YUM!

We also walked around campus a little and saw the law quad which was beautiful. The buildings are so amazing.

More campus shots. It was a perfect day in Ann Arbor and at the Ward house. Michigan won in a close, good game against Notre Dame. I had my sisters in town. Weather was perfect.

I had so much fun and the time went WAY to fast. Can't wait for next year!

Sister's Trip

I have the best sisters. I have so much fun with them and I love being around them. I am really lucky that I got to go on a fun four day trip with them. We started this fun tradition last year with a trip to the windy city. This year, we invited our mom and she picked the city. San Diego. We actually stayed out on Coronado Island and spent a lot of our time there. If you have seen how beautiful the views are--you know why we just hung out there the whole time.



First things first, when we got into our hotel room we had to take pictures! We ALL have really great husbands who really don't like taking pictures. So, we were like kids in a candy store and snapping away with all four camera's for way, way too long. Poor mom just kept taking them for us and going with the flow. She's so great.

After staying up way too late and having a great time chatting away we needed to get to our next priority--food. We of course wanted some ocean view seating, it's not everyday you have the chance for ocean view seating! After this it became a priority to see the ocean whenever we ate.





We all ordered lobster. This is this first time I have ordered lobster. It was good and looks really cool on the plate. We loved taking pictures of our food almost as much as ourselves :)


Next on our list was the Temple. The San Diego Temple is so amazingly, take your breath away beautiful. I love the many spires which are equally impressive both inside and out. It is one of the most inspiring places I have ever been. It is really spectacular. Lucky for us we got there when it was light and did a session then it was dusk and getting dark fast when we came out. So, we got to see it in the daylight and the beautiful glow the temple gives off at night. It really is striking, and we enjoyed it lots of times from the freeway because we kept getting just a little turned around and passing it again and again! No blonde jokes.

Me, my mom, and Julie.

It was so neat going to the temple with all my sisters and mom. All of us sisters look alike, and people kept asking if we were sister's and we would say yes and this is our mom. She was always just glowing with pride to be our mom! She is the greatest. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease almost a year ago and her short term memory is really fading fast. But, she kept remembering how neat it was to go to the temple! She kept forgetting how often she told us about Robert Harris. He is our ancestor who was in the Mormon Battalion. The Mormon Battalion visitors center in San Diego, this was a big reason my mom chose San Diego as our destination this year. She was sad to find out that the Mormon Battalion visitors center is closed for renovations. Anyway, she kept forgetting she had told us 45 times already and telling us literally EVERY chance she got that we needed to come back and go the the MB visitors center and that Robert Harris was our wonderful ancestor. None of us will ever forget Robert Harris, I am sure.

Next, we had to check out the Hotel Del Coronado. Man, oh, man what an amazing place. It was built in 1888 and has tons of character and historical charm. The grounds are meticulously cared for and expansive. And to top it all off, it all looks out onto the Pacific Ocean! Oh, and the restaurant is to die for! Yummy!

This is the lobby of the Hotel Del. This picture doesn't really give it justice. We were just heading out for a bike ride and wore scroungy clothes and no make-up so don't look too close!

I really loved this tree, I don't know what kind it is but isn't it cool. This is Josie and Julie. Josie is my sister who is 50, yeah 5-0. I know, she looks younger than me. In fact, it's really not fair because all my sister's look younger than me. I happen to be chatting it up with some guy while waiting around at the airport and told him that my sister's all look better than me AND I am the youngest and should look the best. He told me it just means I have good genes and will look great as I age! I think he's smart! That was totally what I wanted to hear.

Oh, the surrey bike!! We had so much fun on this big bike. My mom (who is taking the picture) sat in the middle on the back row and didn't have to pedal at all. It was so fun to ride all over the island talking and getting a little exercise all while enjoying amazing views. I don't know how I lucked out, but I had the privilege of driving the big-rig bike. We only had a few little mishaps along the way (it's harder than it looks!) No blonde jokes, please. Again, our husbands probably would never do this with us, but we all loved it!

The spectacular Hotel Del Coronado from the beach at dusk.

Julie and Jill with a gorgeous sunset behind them--aren't they beautiful. I LOVE this picture of them.

My mom looked like this a lot of the time! We kept handing her our FOUR different camera's. She was a great sport, as always, she is the most patient person I know.

As you can imagine with four girls plus one mom we gabbed the days and nights away and had lots of important updates from everyone. I can't wait for next year!

Thanks to a great hubby and friends for taking over my mom duties so I could enjoy this very memorable time with my sisters and mom.