Yellowstone and Grand Tetons National Parks

On the way to PGI we got to stop and camp at Yellowstone right on the lake. It was absolutely beautiful!!!

Dave and Leo having a blast in the river. It was sooo warm!Mama moose and her baby

I woke hoping I would get to see a buffalo and voila! He was just cruising down the street leading cars across the bridge.

Geysers are fun and exciting, and they smell funny! ;)

These were copper pools, thats why they are that blue color. Apparently copper makes blue fireworks also. Learning is everywhere! :)

The Geyser

The Paint Pots, bubbling clay.

The stunning Grand Tetons

My artist old fence picNeedless to say we had a wonderful road trip and we saw some amazing and beautiful landscape. I feel so blessed and thankful to have such experiences!

Pyrotechnics Guilded International 2008

Wow! I knew I was going to have fun at PGI, but boy did I have F-U-N!!! I am completely converted to pyro and I promise I'll be back to PGI every year I can. It was amazing!! Here's some of the highlights.

1st Day of class

The outer casing

Filling my the outer case with effects.

Once you fill the case with stars and black powder you have to "strike" it by wrapping cord around it evenly to create an even break when it explodes.After that you "schlapp" it with paper mache.
End of day 1
Now it's time for match stick and time fuse.
My very proud self!My almost finished product, complete with warning label!Out on the B line loading my shells for competition.

My shells - 2 3.5" Italian shells, aqua to orange stars with 1 silver star
I finished tied for 14th out of 38 people in my class, but I definetly got the loudest cheer!

Leo and Dave building much larger shells for the AllStars show.

12" Shell

Rena and Dave working on shells.

A 14 foot Girandola (It's basically a wheel with lots of rockets)

This is the launching of the Girandola above.

The Super String being carried out by enthusiastic pyro volunteers.

The Super String was over 4 million firecrackers.

Here it is burning. It was so unbelievably loud!! and burned for like 5 minutes!

My favorite pic of fireworks I took!

I made so many new friends! It was wonderful!!! This is Connie, Rena and me.Me and Devin, who is famous for building a 36" shell. WOW!

This is our new really wonderful friend Phil.
Little did we know that we would being living is such luxury. Thanks to Phil we had gourmet meals and fine champagne for dinner every night. I'm talking lobster and prawns, bacon wrapped filet mignon, lots of fresh corn, garlic mash potatoes, cheesecake, the list goes on and on. It was fantastic, I felt really spoiled!! Smokin' on the cubans to celebrate the All Star show!! Phil saved the best champagne for the night, something like $200 a bottle! WOW! The fireworks business must being going really well!!!
I've never seen Dave and Leo have so much fun!!!!

This was my favorite finale of the week.

Wyoming has amazing sunset . . .
after amazing sunset.Leo packed the truck amazingly well, in fact he got asked if he had an engineering degree. :)
Needless to say this was amazing and I can't wait till next year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here I go . . .

to PGI this week, that's Pyrotechnics Guilded International. WHooooo! I can't believe I'm going to learn how to make fireworks! Who would have thought anyone would ever let ME do that! We're leaving in just a few hours, we're driving to Ontario OR today, Yellowstone Nat'l Park tomorrow and then Gillette WY on Friday. The convention starts Saturday and goes through Friday. Should be super fun!! Dave reserved us a 5th wheel for when we get there, so we'll be real comfy! :) Well, I'm sure I'll have lots of pics and stories when I get back.

P.S. I wanna give a big shout out to "The Crawler"!! You go little Lincoln!!! Can't wait to go see him when we get back!