Planes, Cruise ships, and Automobiles

This would accurately describe the last 10 days for Darel and I. When my roommates' little sister came up with the idea to go to Greece, we selflessly volunteered to chaperone. Not wanting to be without a sister, I decided to invite Darel, my only sister with nothing to do and (the ‘rents) money to burn. We decided a Mediterranean cruise would be the perfect setting for our own “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants”. We started in Italy and headed to Croatia, Turkey, the Greek Isles, and back to Italy.

While on our adventure we used a lot of different forms of transportation everything from cable cars to donkeys.

Here are some pics of us utilizing the various kinds of transportation.

The Splendour of the Seas--our home for 7 days

We climbed 600 stairs....Well actually it was more like 20 stairs--we rode the donkeys most of the way to the top of Santorini Island!

We danced...if you could call it that.



We took water taxis


We took gondolas which just happened to have an attractive gondolier:)

Meet Clementine, the best little rented car in Corfu, Greece. As usual, I drove and Meliss navigated.



We took ski boats

We swam in the Adriatic Sea and the Mediterranean Sea

We rode camels

We drove ATVs. One may have broken down and caused us to almost miss our cruise ship. Luckily, we had a minor with us and they won't leave a minor behind. I am so glad Darel came with us!

While we weren't gallivanting in port cities, we also spent time getting dressed up for amazing dinners and drinking pina colodas by the pool!



Basically it was one of the greatest vacations full of all my favorite things: sun, stamps in my passport, and my favorite girls. I only wish the other sistas and Shelly could have been with us! Darel will be sharing more deats of our adventures soon!

Any worth doing, is worth overdoing!

Mt. Hood right after our climb.

Me wishing someone would carry me to the top.

This team was rappeling off the summit. The ice was crappy about 100' from the summit and we couldn't cut steps. We used permanent anchors (the yellow stakes in the previous picture) to protect our climb.

Our route

Nick on the summit, with Mt. Rainier in the background. We were on the summit of Mt. Rainier 3 days later.

Nick looking down at our route.

Yes that's a rock under my head, and yes I really was that tired. This was from my climb with Lil D on Mt. Adams.

Tent City on Mt. Rainier

Brent and Nick cooking dinner at base camp on Mt. Rainier

Big crevasse on the Ingraham glacier on Mt. Rainier

Nick belaying Brent across a very deep crevasse

Brent negotiating a big crevasse on Mt. Rainier

Anyone who knows the Super Smarts are keenly aware that we believe in mottos, or family mantras. This is something akin to Tony Robbins' "Unleash the Power Within" or Mao Tse Tung's "Communism is a hammer we use to crush the enemy." The Smart family has enjoyed a number of memorable family mottos over the years. The following is a partial list of some of sayings that have made us who we collectively are today:

1. Make it happen
2. Shut up and work (my personal favorite)

3. Scratch and Claw

4. Elbows and Fannies ( as in, that's all I want to see out of you kids!)

5. Big dogs to the top

6. High speed, low drag
7. You are nature's greatest miracle

8. You gotta believe

9. Pray hard, work harder

10. Do the right thing

There are many others, of course, which can and should be shared, but this is the fodder of future posts on my personal blog--Darrell's Yakimania. As patriarch of the Smart family, I felt it my God-given responsibility to inspire and be inspirational. How these sayings would come about is that I would get an excellent idea in my brain, feel that it needed to be communicated to my children, and then I would continue to repeat the motto over and over until all of the kids absolutely loved the motto and had made it part of their personal lives. It was really quite simple. And, as it turned out, totally inspirational. (I am not sure why I have not written a book on parenting. I think I would entitle it: Dr. Phil is a Chump! Smarter Parenting Ideas from the Trenches.)

FYI: our family motto while at Lake Cocollala was, "In Search of Glass."

Unfortunately, I cannot recall every gem of a motto that has inspired our family over the years, but trust me when I say, each and every one of them was necessary, special and uplifting.

Okay, now to the point of this post. Our most recent motto has been "Any worth doing, is worth over doing." This motto says a lot about who we are, and how we should live. In July I climbed a lot with family members. We repeated this motto frequently because it seemed so right. In particular, the week that Nick and I attempted to climb Mt. Hood, complete Dynamited Cave, climb Mt. Rainier and then bike the 100 miles back from Mt. Rainier to Yakima. Okay, okay, it was a bit ambitious. What we ended up doing was climbing Mt. Hood and Mt. Rainier, back to back. It was awesome. This is something that I have always wanted to do. Now if I can just figure out how to fit Mt. Adams into that week, I would feel that I had accomplished something.
Above are some pics from our climbs on Mt. Hood and Mt. Rainier.