We Reached the Destination!

We got on the road at about 9 AM this morning, a little later than we expected but it worked out well. We got to Charleston about 11:30 and waited for Sarah to come and get us to follow her to the base and get signed in so we could get on base.

Stella has grown so much in the last 2.5 months!!

We went to their house and got settled in and then Mom, Sarah and I headed to Wendy’s to grab some lunch and then ended up at Wal-Mart for a few things.

We went back to the house and waited for Heith to get home from work.

I started making the chocolate pies and then we moved on to getting the shrimp ready for dinner. YUCK! I guess I should be happy I guess when he had them they had heads on them….ICK!!!

The neighbors and their kids came over and stayed until like 9….it was a BUSY place with lots of kids running everywhere and noisy!

I am ready for bed!!!

One Day Down

My Mom and Dad picked me up at 9 AM this morning to start our Adventure to South Carolina. The day started with my mom calling to say they had gotten lost already. My apartment is NOT that hard to find. But they quickly got back in track and got me.

I went to put my three bags in the car and wasn’t sure if they would even fit in the trunk! My mom had SO much stuff to take down with us. Food for Thanksgiving, clothes people had given her to give to Stella, a trash can Sarah liked and left in Ohio, and a chainsaw….YES a chainsaw! I guess Sarah has a bush out front that she wants out. Everything did fit though!

There really isn’t a good way to get out of Ohio to 77. It is either rather out of the way or roads that at times are 2 lanes. This time we took 33 down to 77. Let’s just say Dad did NOT like this route. A lot of stopping and going slow in small towns.

About 3 o’clock Dad decides our goal is to drive THROUGH Charlotte and stop of the night. I pointed out to him that we would be hitting Charlotte at rush hour….but he was driving so we went ahead and did it. Let’s just say the last hour was HORRIBLE!!!! My Dad is NOT used to driving places and especially not in heavy traffic!

We are staying in a Holiday Inn for the night and just got back from a yummy dinner at Longhorn. My is getting ready to watch the season finale of Dancing with the Stars and I am going to get some sleep for the rest of our drive in the morning!

Holiday In Hand

I signed up for Holiday In Hand class on-line this year and MUST follow through! Even though it was free I have to prove to myself that I can keep up and DO it!

Day 1 is about value and goals for the holiday season. This works well with the thoughts I have been having this year and conversations I have been having with friends and family members so I am excited!!

Assignment 1: Write your Values & Goals

Values -
Family, giving, gratitude, traditions, memories, friends

Goals -
* Focus on my family and spending more quality time with them
* Connect with friends and spend more quality time with them
* Complete Holiday in Hand class
* Make treats to give to family and friends
* Spend and evening having fun and going to see a lights display
* Find a way to give to those less fortunate
* Start the tradition of Dave and I exchanging stockings
* Get my Christmas cards out by December 1st so I don’t have to worry about them!

Today is Day 2 and I am just doing Day 1...so off to look at Day 2!!

Welcome Home!

My Sunday morning started BRIGHT and early at 4:30 this morning! I know, I surprised myself with this insanity too!! I had said yes to helping with selling merchandise at the Columbus Making Strides Against Breast Cancer event, after saying there was no way I was going to help since it was the morning after we got back. Too bad people know I can’t say NO when asked to help out!

I needed to be downtown by COSI at 6:30 AM to start setting up. You forget how dark it is that early in the morning until you are trying to set up tables and items and can’t see anything! We got everything set up and participants started to come and buy things. YEAH! I think we had a good amount of sales but not sure how it compared to years past. It is amazing to see all the PINK out there!!!

I worked the event until about Noon and I headed off to Hilliard to have lunch with Stacy and Jimmy. They had walked the event and stopped by to see if I wanted to meet them when I was done. We met at Red Robin and had a nice lunch and got to catch up. We ended up being there for a few HOURS! It had been awhile, so it was nice to have that time.

Then I was off to Meijer to look for large cupcake pans and liners to make cupcakes for my Girl Scout meeting tomorrow night. I was so happy I quickly found the pans I was looking for and they only cost $5 each! At Wal-Mart they had been $10 each…and I really wanted to get 2 of them!! AND I also found the liners I could use there (I couldn’t find them at Wal-Mart) so I got some of those also.

By the time I got home it was close to 6 PM and I needed to make 2 cake mixes of large cupcakes!!! It didn’t take too long and they turned out yummy so all is good! Now I just need to get them packaged up to take to the meeting tomorrow.

So not much of a recover from vacation day! Glad all of our laundry was done on vacation!!

Random Day

Today was a rather random vacation day.

As most days we didn’t really have a plan when we left and ended up pulling off the road at a pull off by a bridge that I had seen multiple times and thought was neat and wanted to go get some pictures of. Dave decided that he was going to give some fishing a try in the area also. So he fished, I walked the trail and took some pictures. Then before we left I made him do a couple pictures of us on the bridge and down by the water.

We then started driving and looking for a place to pull over for some more fishing. I was going to leave him there and come back for him but I decided to just stay and sit in the car and read. Didn’t want to have to worry about turning around, coming back and finding him, etc.

We then came back to town to look for the Post Office and then back to the condo for spaghetti and meatballs for dinner.

After dinner we relaxed for about an hour and then we decided to go walking through Gatlinburg.

We found The Village which has a lot of really cute stores to walk through, and even made a few more purchases! We stopped for a coffee and a carmel apple cider.

On the way back we stopped and listened to a live Bluegrass band for a few before we came back to the room for the evening.

Only one more day…and it is supposed to be rainy L Oh well we did have good weather for most of the time!!

Cades Cove

This morning I got up bright and early at 7:30.WHAT is up with that. I am on vacation, I KNOW Dave will be sleeping in so WHY can't I? I watched some TV, made cinnamon rolls, realized I needed to shower, took a shower, watched some more TV and then Dave woke up. And I ended up taking a 30 minute nap!!

Yeah I know, me, nap, ODD! But it was nice!

We ended up leaving here around Noon, stopped by the Visitor Center, and decided that we wanted to head off to Cades Cove today. So off we went.

On the way we stopped at a pull off to take some pictures and check things out then we got back on the road.

We got to Cades Cove and before we started the loop we stopped to use the restroom and had our lunch. We took all of our stuff down and realized that all the picnic tables had been taken. So we sat on a log and had our lunch.

Dave wanted to head into the water to get some pictures, but found that the water was deeper than he thought so we left and started the loop.

It is a one way loop, that they said would take about 2-3 hours. There are a bunch of little pull off's on the way and we stopped at a few of those. We saw a few deer out in a field, I thought they

seemed a little on the small side from what we see in Ohio!

Towards the end of the loop we saw a rather large buck out in the field! We pulled off and took some pictures.and then Dave decided to head out into the field to the side of the deer to see if he could get a good picture. Well he did get some.and also got 2 Park Rangers coming out to visit him and another guy that had gone out to do the same time. The Rangers just asked them to get out of the field.

On the way back we stopped at The Sinks since we missed them on our way. And then headed back to the room.

We both just wanted to chill so we warmed up some BBQ pork sandwiches, saw the bear again and are just hanging out now.

A calm end to a calm day!

Out and About

Today was Dave's pick and he decided he wanted to go to Oconaluftee which is at the OTHER side of the park!

So off we went this morning down the Newfound Gap Road. It was a VERY slow start out of Gatlinburg, the traffic was very backed up, but once we got on our way it went pretty fast, well as fast as you can when the speed limit was only 25 and 35 MPH.

We stopped at a few different road side stops on the way to take some pictures.

We arrived at Oconaluftee and it was gorgeous outside. Warm, sunny, blue skies, it was great! First we hit the gift shop and picked up a book on waterfalls and also our Christmas ornament.

I don't think we ever ended up on the actual trail there because Dave was, of course, drawn to the stream. Which worked out good we got some great pictures and it wasn't very busy.

Before we left we decided to go ahead and eat some lunch. We sat the chairs up behind the car in the parking lot and made out sandwiches and watchedthe people go by. It was a good time!!

Next we headed toward Cherokee to go to Mingo Falls. Can't say much about Mingo Falls because we never made it there!

We ended up going to Harrah's Casino to check it out. Dave hadn't been to a casino in 15-ish years so he wanted to see what it was like.

We ended up not even gambling while there.Yeah I know, weird, but that is us!!

We walked back to our car instead of taking the bus back and it was a nice stroll next to and over a stream.

We needed to make a stop and fill up the tank for a few reasons - we would be in the middle of the part in the evening/after dark, I wasn't really even sure how much gas we had as the gauge had been bouncing around all day. So Dave filled up the car and I went in looking for something to drink. I saw a pop called Cheerwine and mentioned it to Dave, who decided to pick up a

bottle. It was SOOOO good, so now I will be on the lookout for it!!

Next stop was Clingman Dome for sunset, but we got there VERY early! We decided not to go all the way up to the top but stop at the overlook by the parking lot. We set up the tripod and waited, and waited, and waited. We got to talk to some of the other people waiting for the sunset also.

It was beautiful and I am glad we did it, even if we only got a few pictures out of it!

Now the drive back wasn't as nice. We left before most of the people, which meant they all caught up with us on the LONG and DARK drive back. To say the least it was rather stressful and I was glad to be back!

We ended up going to Bubba Gumps for dinner. Dinner was yummy and the service was good. But the waiter for the table behind us drove us crazy! He spent more than half of our meal sitting talking to the table behind us. Story after story going on and on!! Ahhhh well, what can you do!

We walked around a little and came back home for the night around 9:30 and then the FUN began. We have been bear watching/tracking for awhile now. We have now seen 2 bears up close and personal. They are walking around outside out porch area and also in the hall in front of our door! Dave had to wait in the stairs area waiting for one to go the other way when he was coming back to from the parking garage as the bear was between the elevator and our door. I went to check it out when he called and the darn bear was right outside our door! Talk about an exciting end to a fun day!!!