Weekend Wrap-up

I really am going to try to do better about posting on this blog! I was listening to a talk show on the radio the other day, and her guest said that she thought snapchat was the new blogging. She said, "who has time to sit down and write a blogpost?" Weeelll, apparently I haven't gotten the hang of the snapchat video, because it takes me a good 30 minutes to an hour to string together 10 second segments! I haven't gotten to the point to where I record it once and can sent it to "my story". 

Last week, I managed to do a snapchat story while I was baking a cake. A few days later, YS got the sour cream out of the refrigerator. I looked and asked him where he got it from. And then it hit me...I forgot to put the sour cream in the cake! It was still good, but I could tell it was missing something!

Now about the weekend:

OS called and asked if we could take care of Sultie for a few days since he had to go out of town for work. He is the best dog in the world; soooo laid back. He never whines; when you want to take him out, he'll go out. When you want to feed him, he'll eat. Mostly he just lays around and sleeps. Anyway, I left work on Friday & drove 2 hours to Asheville to pick up my grand-dog. OS & I had a nice dinner. After we parked, he took me through this lot (for lack of a better word). It was full of eclectic things. There were the old metal outdoor chairs in a circle that you could sit down and chill if you wanted, or you could just walk around and see what you could find.

Shovels

 Bird cages

 Red bottles

Blue bottles

Sultie made himself at home right away.

I spent Saturday catching up on paperwork & doing a bit of laundry, which was fine because CH had to go into work and catch up on some stuff. Sunday was Mass, grocery shopping, and a bit of cleaning. And, we're back to the old grind. We're already in our 4th week of school...we're almost halfway to Fall Break!

Are you on Snapchat? If so, find me at tnslp29!

Foto Friday {8}

I seem to have an obsession with skies lately. 
After Adoration 2 weeks ago (because I didn't post Foto Friday last week):

The morning skies have been spectacular lately:

 

 Even the afternoon skies have been amazing:

After having my car for 4 years, I have to thank whoever painted the lines on the school parking lot for this:

And, I can also thank whoever parked beside me with a red car who decided to leave a little piece of his vehicle on my car. Ugh. I've started parking at the end of the parking lot.
Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!

Vacation 2016: It's Over

After a fantastic 12 days, it was time to put this vacation in the books. We had a 2-3 day drive ahead of us. We drove south to Denver, and then started heading east.

I've been on steep roads before, but these were the steepest hills I've ever been on.

 I'm not sure what this was, but it reminded me of an old mine. 

 We saw this water wheel & I snapped a couple of pictures as we went rolling by.

 We weren't looking forward to driving through Kansas, just because we knew it would be flat with not a lot to see. It was weird, because it seems like as soon as we left Denver, it got very flat. Since Denver is the "mile high city", I assumed we'd have to go down more steep mountains to get to where it's flat.

What we saw were some magnificent clouds.

 And a lot of wind turbines.

We spent the night somewhere in the middle of the state, and looked forward to driving back through Mo. & Illinois to get through Kentucky (just because we were closer to Tn.!)

We ran through some rain in Ky., which meant that I had to pull my camera out because there were more amazing skies.

Our original plan was to spend another night on the road, but CH said he thought he could make it home. We ended up rolling into the house around 2:30 a.m. The dogs were well taken care of by one of YS' friends and the house was in excellent shape. 

Another vacation in the books...time to start planning for next summer!

Vacation 2016: Time for R&R

Originally, we were going to stay in the Black Hills until Tues., but we didn't think we'd have quite the time in Colorado that we wanted. We ended up leaving on Monday, driving to Steamboat Springs, and setting up camp. Getting there was quite the adventure. At first, the scenery was nice to look at.

But then, it got a little old...just about the time the wind kicked up. Seriously, I'll take the drive through Mississippi any day over the drive through SE Wyoming. When we stopped for lunch, I asked the girl if it was always that windy, and she said that it was much worse the night before. How do those people live there???

And what the heck is a "port of entry"? Oh, the things you see in different parts of the country! (I just googled it...it's something to do with permits for truckers.)

After getting out of the wind (finally!) and past the forest fire (sorry, no picture of the smoke!), we made it to Colorado.

It wasn't quite what I was expecting, but pretty just the same! 

CH reserved our campsite for us at a campground he stayed at when he rode the Continental Divide on his motorcycle. He couldn't have picked a prettier spot. We stayed at Steamboat Lake State Park, about 30 minutes from Steamboat Springs.

Our site was on the island section of the campground. During my first visit to the potty (it wasn't flushable!), I saw a lot of little holes. I asked CH what they were, and he said they're chipmunk holes. WHEW! My first thought was that they were snake holes! They provided us with a lot of entertainment! 

It was a very relaxing couple of days. The first morning, there was frost on the ground. In July.

We walked around and I got some amazing pictures...one side of the lake had incredible reflections in the water:

While the other side appeared to have "Smoke on the water":

We drove back into Steamboat Springs to grab some groceries to last us for a couple of days and get some lunch while we were in town. The town reminded me a lot of Asheville, NC. The place where we ate was okay, nothing to write home about.

Later that day, our friends from England met up with us to spend a couple of days. If you'll remember, we met up with them in Cades Cove a few weeks ago, but we forgot to get a picture. We didn't forget this time:

We had a good time relaxing, talking, and taking a hike. I didn't take my camera with me on the hike, but the main attraction was the fields of flowers around the lake. They were just gorgeous. And the flowers were everywhere.

We also got to see some of the most beautiful sunsets I've ever seen (The Keys included!):

There were a couple of bucks that visited every evening:

Hahn's Peak was always in sight. CH talked to someone whose daughter & son-in-law snowmobiled up as far as they could, hiked the rest of the way, then skied down one winter. We could tell there was something at the  top; we found out it's a fire tower.

After a couple of days in Colorado, it was time to head back to East Tennessee. Our friends, if you'll remember, are on their way to an adventure in Mexico and South America. They just happen to have a blog! John is quite the photographer, so you'll see some incredible pictures.

I have a few more pictures from the trip home; I hope to have them up in the next couple of days.