One of our friends, Ryan, has his pilot's license, so he invited Lucas to go flying with him on one of his routine flights that he needs to do to keep his license current.

It was a beautiful day when they went up, and Lucas got several good pictures of Huntsville from the air.

Ryan and the plane that they were going to go up in.

Co-pilot Lucas!

The Rocket at the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville

Cool shot from the plane.

Sunset over the Tennessee River.

We decided to head to the beach for our anniversary trip this year! We ended up going to Navarre Beach in Florida which is only about 6 hours from Huntsville. We had a great time just getting away and relaxing for a nice long weekend, especially since it was sunny every day! (It has been raining almost constantly in Huntsville for the last month... blah!)

We rented a condo right on the beach and were thrilled to be so close to the ocean! It was definitely one of our best trips yet, and nice to return to Navarre. We stayed in Navarre one night when we were coming back from our Honeymoon, but it was right after the big hurricane had come through. Happy 4 years! :-)

Relaxing on the beach (a view of our condo behind me)

Beautiful Navarre Beach

If you look really closely, you can see the dolphins. There were LOTS - probaly 10-15.

Lucas on the beach

View from our porch (In the picture of the condo when we rented it, the beach seemed must closer, but they added the sand dune after the hurricane, but we could definitely still hear the ocean)

Lucas grilled us steaks one night. Yummy!

Hailey REALLY liked the sand! Ha! Unfortunately we couldn't take her on the actual beach (no pets allowed), but she definitely had a blast digging in the sand that was in our small little "back yard."

Me with the moon over the ocean. It was much cooler in real life!

Lucas and I before we went out for dinner one night.

Cute Hailey on the way home. She had a great time! I know that she was happier than if we would have left her at home!

All in all, it was a fabulous trip! Can't wait to make it back to the beach some time soon!

Thanks to Annie, we all decided to run the Music Moves Me 10K here in Huntsville. It was surprisingly fun, although none of us trained as much as we should have for this race! My training ran out about Mile 4.5 (of 6.2)! But they had different kinds of bands every 1/2 mile so it made it pretty enjoyable! We ran through downtown Huntsville, so it was nice to run in a place that I had not been to very often and it turned out to be excellent running weather!

My dad decided to run with us, and of course beat all of us without any training at all!

Well at least now we can all say that we survived and finished. We'll borrow the motto from the Sprint Triathlon that we like to run, "To Finish is to WIN!"

Lucas and Dad before the big race!


Me and Dad with our "prison" anklets! Haha. I had never seen timing chips that wrap around your leg...


Rob and Annie are getting serious...


Ok, maybe not :-) We all had a great time though!

My parents came to visit us for Easter weekend, then took a side trip to Asheville, NC, then came back for the next weekend.

It was great to have them here and we had a lot of time to just relax! We definitely needed it and I know that they needed a break from all of their projects that they had been working on!


One day (when it finally decided to stop raining) we went to check out one of the Land Trust trail systems here in town that we had not been to yet. It was not a very difficult hike, but we had a good time just being outside and enjoying the nice day!


Me and Dad climbing on the rocks


We're all looking at something, except for Hailey...


Hailey decided to crawl through the hole, or more like we "made" her crawl through the hole!


Walking along the trail


Yes, that is a rock that Hailey is so excited about getting! I love this action shot. Look how high off the ground she is, for a rock that is almost as big as her! After this picture my dad threw the rock and she of course went and got it. She'll play fetch with anything... haha!

Our friends Matt and Danielle had their little girl, Sarina, on Wednesday, April 15.

Lucas and I went up to the hospital to see them. She was so sweet! And I even convinced Lucas to hold her! Awww :-) I borrowed this one from the proud parents! She has such long Toes and fingers! So sweet!

We made it through our first backpacking adventure! We had a great time and I think that I would do it again... maybe I'll just try to make my backpack a little lighter next time! Now I have a better idea of what I need... maybe! We went to the Sipsey River about an hour from Huntsville and hiked in about an hour to get to our campsight. We took tons of pictures the first day, but the camera was on the wrong setting, so most of them are blurry, but the second day pictures are much better, so here are a few pictures from our fun trip!

Lucas and I with our packs standing in front of the first waterfall we saw. It had rained a lot the few days before we went, so all of the water falls were really big!

No one believed that Hailey was going to be the "adventure" dog that we had said she would be, but here she is the first time she saw the water! David thought it was funny!

Me with my GIANT, heavy backpack... glad we didn't have to go much further! Lucas was sweet and put more of the heavy things in his pack on the way back, plus all of the food was gone.

Annie setting up her tent. She realized that the eggs she had brought were leaking into her backpack... yucky....

Hailey was not so sure about the campfire... either that or she was unhappy because the other dogs were trying to steal her food!

Cute Gino!

Hailey Rock Climbing! Haha!

David taking the leap from one rock to the other. It doesn't seem near as scary in the picture as it actually was, but all of us jumped across! Glad none of us missed. The river current was REALLY strong!

The whole group after we jumped across... minus Levi who was taking the picture.

Me and Lucas :-)

Hailey is of course... in the water... I just kept hoping that she wasn't going to jump into the river because I wasn't sure she could get back to the shore with the strong currents. She was definitely happy about getting to be outside for so long. She is such a funny dog!

Another beautiful waterfall!

I like this picture. I was standing in the cave behind the waterfall.

Rob and Annie

The morning when we woke up was so beautiful! It was cold, but the sun came out and warmed things up. This was a creek close to where we camped.

The girls! Too bad there was something on the camera, or this would have been a really great picture!

The guys

Walking along the trail with all the trees!

Another cool waterfall. Rob is standing underneath. Can you see him?

Beautiful place!

We had such a great time, and this was a really neat place with lots of places to explore! I'm sure that we will be going back there sometime soon!

Lucas and I finally got both of our closets built out and painted! Now it's just time to get our stuff organized!!

Lucas' Closet!

My Closet! Yay!

Our Pear trees are blooming!

I am so excited that it is finally Spring!