Adventure, Day 2

This is part of the Oregon Trail going through Wyoming. You can see the wagon wheel trail going along the fence line.




No gunfights on Sunday in Jackson, Wyoming!

This park has four corners of elk horn arches that were found by boyscouts in the elk preserve in Jackson, WY.

This is a lake in the Grand Teton National Park.

The Teton range

We finally made it!!!

Kepler Cascades in Yellowstone

Lewis Falls in Yellowstone

Old Faithful

We got to Old Faithful tonight about 45 minutes before it errupted. It was worth the wait. We can'twait to get back to the park tomorrow so we can look around some more. It was really amazing looking at all the steam coming up from different places around the park.

Adventure Day 1

We decided to give the girls a pretty big hint the night before the big day, and let them in on the fact that we are flying to reach our destination. We gave them a copy of their boarding passes, but that only told them the airline and that we were flying into Atlanta. We woke up around 3A.M. today to get to the airport and get checked in. Daddy and Mama were nice enough to chauffeur us into Jacksonville.

Leah needed a nap after waking up at 3am :)

When we arrived in Atlanta, we got some breakfast and broke the news with a National Geographic that Mimi got for us with the picture of Yellowstone on the front of it. (It doesn’t matter that the article basically says the National Park is a ticking time bomb and will one day erupt and kill us all since it is located on top of a volcano.) We’re excited to get on the ground and on the road for some new adventures. The only mishap so far involved Ashlyn getting on the train to take us to our connecting flight in Atlanta without the rest of the family. I wish I were fast enough to catch the look on her face as the train doors shut and it immediately pulled off. The rest of us had quite the laugh at her expense.

The girls looking for the flight number we were getting on next.

We traveled from Atlanta to Milwaukee (which was a surprise) landed to let some off and accrue more passengers, and then took off again for Denver. I personally am over flying. I felt carsick (jetsick?) and was ready to be behind the wheel. We hit quite a bit of turbulence on the flight from Atlanta, but the last flight was much smoother. After we landed in Denver, we got the rental and took off. We decided to take a detour through the Rocky Mountain National Park, and what a detour that was.

So cold!!

Elk right by the road

This was scary! Too close!

A lake in Colorado

Colorado sunset


It took hours to get through the park, which put us much later getting into Wyoming (around midnight, which was like 2A.M. to us). Thankfully we managed to make it to Rock Springs without running out of gas, and were able to find a non-smoking room in enough time to fall into the bed and ready to meet the next days adventures.

Surprise!!

The big trip is almost here! I've been planning and scheming for about a month (I know it's really last minute) to get a "surprise family vacation" in order, so tomorrow we leave on our big adventure. We've managed to keep the destination a surprise for the girls, and now I'm nervous about how receptive they are going to be to the idea when they discover where we are headed. This is the first time I've attempted to keep a secret like this. I'm praying for safe travels first, but second is just a good time making wonderful memories as a family. Stay tuned for more details of The Kerce Family Adventure...

Summer Fun

I am so thankful for our family and the fun times we get to share with each other. Growing up we would always spend a week at the lake and those are some of some of the best memories I have. We spent the days in the water swimming, skiing, knee boarding and tubing, and the evenings or early mornings were spent fishing. Now that we are grown it is nice to take the time to slow down and catch up by spending time together when we can. This past Monday we were able to spend the day with cousins having fun at the lake.



Dalton's catch

Hayden's catch

Kiley, Lexi and Ashley playing in the water

Leah having fun flipping off the dock. Last year the water wasn't deep enough for jumping off the dock. Thank you God for the rain!!

It took a bit for Leah to warm up to the daring flip off the dock, but once she started she didn't stop. We saw this particular trick over and over. "Mama, watch this!" :)

Hayden and Leah relaxing

Molly (I mean Leah) :) and Lexi (Lexi calls Molly and Leah "Molly")

Kiley early in the day with her bathing suit on and her "pee pee baby" as she called it. Sonya was taking advantage of the time off this week to start potty training Kiley. We all saw her use the bathroom all day long. She ended up without a bathing suit or any clothes on at all. This baby doll would pee pee after being put in the water. I guess it was her inspiration.

Leah, Lexi, Molly and Hayden on the paddle boat.

Dalton, Leah, and Molly getting ready to ride the tube (Dalton didn't think it was fun!)

The fastest turtle ever seen!! We were in the water and Kiley spotted the turtle coming across the yard. When we caught up to it I guess it had the water in sight and also a downhill slope to help.

The gang with the turtle

Jonathan throwing Dalton across the lake

Hayden and Dalton in the boat

Lexi eating Doritos

Jonathan and Leah on the hydroslides


The coppertone tan :)

Everyone was worn out after a day at the lake.

Leah was wiped out too, so she spent the ride home getting a nap.

Hayden was out quickly after a day of fun in the sun and water. I think we made it about 5 minutes down the road before I turned around and saw this.

Thanks so much Chad and Sonya for having us!

Sweet Sixteen

Ashlyn turned 16 yesterday. It's hard to believe that our oldest baby has reached this major milestone. I keep reminding myself that we aren't the first parents to have a child turn 16 and get their driver's license, but it sure is hard to let go and watch her drive off without an adult.

She has been looking at the calendar since last year to make sure she would actually get her license on the big day. So, she went to 1st period and took her math test, then I checked her and Brooklyn out to go pick up her license.

She took the driver's ed course last summer and passed the driving test then, so all we had to do was go to the DMV and pay $5.25 for the beginning of her "freedom" and the end of mine. My mom reminded me yesterday when I called her almost in tears, that God loves her way more than I do, so I'll cling to that... Hopefully this will be easier the next time we go through it.

Yay Ash!! Congratulations!!!

My view from the BACK seat.

The proud 16 year old with her license.

Ashlyn and Brooklyn headed back to school.

Kerce Family Fun Day

Al has been working out of town a lot lately (we're thankful he has a job) so we haven't had a lot of time for "family fun". This past Saturday we decided we would take the girls to the Okefenokee Swamp to fish, look at alligators and just spend time together. So, as always, there's a story...

This is at the entrance of the swamp in Fargo, GA. It's probably about 45 min from our house.

We got to the swamp around 2:00p.m. and were legal with fishing licenses and had the boat rented and ready to go by about 3:00p.m. These are our fearless navigators, even though it took Leah a bit to warm up to the idea because her Pa had her scared to death from his "swamp stories" from when he was younger. She just knew an alligator was going to try to tip our boat over.


Ashlyn and Molly were busy trying to soak up some sunshine (with sunscreen of course).

Leah driving with her sugar daddy in hand. What's fishing without snacks???

Down one of the swamp paths on our way to explore and fish before we broke down...

Being towed back in by a nice couple from Jacksonville. The story goes, we had been on the water for about 30min when the motor just stopped without any warning. Luckily we were in the shade, so we sat and fished for a while with no luck and Al worked on the motor without success. Al said it was the Kerce curse. Several people passed by and offered to help, but we thought if we sat long enough the motor would start back up. Not so...What you can't see in the pictures are all the fishing poles that Al brought along. I think I counted 16 (there were 5 of us), and the rope we used to haul us in several miles was made up of our lifejackets that broke once on the trip back, and I didn't catch how narrow some of the spots were we had to get through cypress trees being pulled behind another boat. I didn't have all of Al's poles tucked in the boat either, so they almost broke one time when we hit a tree. Also, the couple pulling us in were there with their family and when we came around a corner too quickly they rammed their family with their boat for a small pile up. Luckily no one ended up going overboard and we made it back to the dock safely.

This alligator was hanging out at the docks. It really wasn't afraid when you got close to it.

All in all we had a good time. We got our money back for the boat rental, and the lady at the counter told us they needed a new mechanic because he had been working on our boat all morning and said it worked fine....

One day soon we'll go back and try again. Hopefully we can get a little farther and we know what questions to ask before we head out again. The one bright spot after all this time was on the way home. We went a little out of the way to St. George to the Shack by the Track for some yummy barbeque. The ribs were AMAZING!! We'll have to enjoy that more often too.

To offset the bad day fishing, Al took us out to our pond that is only 5 minutes from our house. Here's an example of one of the biggest fish we caught. We were trying to use up the crickets and worms we bought for the trip.

Al decided he was tired of always baiting hooks, so he gave each girl a complimentary bait, then they had to do it themselves. Here's Molly with a cricket.

And Leah attempting to catch a cricket. Needless to say, she didn't fish long and no sympathy from dad.

Lucy and Dade got in on the fun to. They were more than willing to check everything out.

Princess Tattletale

If you have more than one child you understand how you love all your kids the same, but they each have such different personalities and quirks making them unique. Around our house our kids end up with nicknames that Al gives them. They change from time to time according to what's going on. For example, Ashlyn tends to be our outgoing and busy child, so Al named her "Road dog" because she stays on the go all the time. (who knows what that means) Molly is quiet and tends to be nosy, so he named her "Sneaky Pete" (which she HATES!) I have to admit, I came up with that name one night and Al loved it so much she's been stuck with it. She probably got that trait from me. We tend to hang back and take it all in, but we know what's going on with everyone. Leah was tagged with "Sharkbait" when Nemo came out and she watched it all the time, but she wasn't crazy about that name so she requested she be called "Princess" so her dad willingly complied. From time to time we change the "Princess" title to include other names. Like when Leah spent the night with a friend and I later found out that she called someone a choice word, then her friend repeated it. This helped her get the name "Princess Potty Mouth" (between Al and I of course). So, this past weekend Al and I both had to work. The girls stayed with my mom, and I always give strict instructions about how they should be on their best behavior while they are there, and they ARE NOT to call me at work to tell on each other. Everything seemed to have gone great, until I was getting ready for bed Sunday night and Leah brought me the following list of things Molly did, earning her the name "Princess Tattletale" for at least this week....





I especially like #6. (Click on the list to see it better) She couldn't decide how to spell snatched, so she opted for 'grabbed the channler' (her word for remote). Obviously she knows how to get around the rules for 'no tattling'. I guess I'll have to add to my list of instructions the rule of 'no tattletale lists'. I could always opt for the punishment my mom used to give out when we were little. If you tattled, you got a yellow 'tail' pinned to your back with a diaper pin that said, "I'm a tattletale." Then, if you dared to tattle again, she had another one that she pinned on the end of that saying, "again and again." Funny how it all comes back around, isn't it?