Vacation Post #3

Sunday morning (12th) we packed up our campsite just before the skies opened up and the downpour came. Luckily the rain didn't last too long- or we just drove through it.

Here's a view of Lake Michigan, taken from the car. As we traveled along the Upper Peninsula we lad Lake Michigan to our left, and later Lake Superior to our right.

So here's Lake Superior. Gorgeous lake. Wish I had taken the time to put on my bathing suit to jump in the water. Instead, while Chris took a potty break, I went down to the water and took a few pictures and waded into the water.



A little after mid-day we reached our next destination- Mt. Arvon, which is the highest point in Michigan. It's pretty much in the middle of nowhere and we had to take a number of logging roads to get to the top. Unfortunately the directions in our book were a little out of date as the logging roads had changed in the past 5 years.


When we finally got back to town we stopped at the Hilltop Restaurant for some lunch and a "world famous" sweet roll (to go). That sweet roll was huge! Unfortunately, by the time we ate it the following day it wasn't all that good. Check out the link to their restaurant and please explain to me why they think the baby is good advertising. Personally I think the baby is a little scary looking.

While on the way to our next stop, we drove through the town of Rhinelander, WI. While driving down the street we looked over and saw this. Aaaaagghhh! What is that thing?! Meet Happy the Hodag. WTF is a hodag?



Finally we reached Timm's Hill, the highest point in Wisconsin. We climbed the short distance to the high point, took our pictures, and headed back to the truck.

The Upper Peninsula had taken us much longer than we had anticipated (plus having hit some traffic the day before) and we were feeling a little behind schedule, so we did some extra driving and got a little bit south of Minneapolis before stopping at a motel for the night.

Vacation Post #2

Please scroll down for post number 1.

Welcome to Canada! Our next destination was Mt. Arvon, the highest point of Michigan. From Niagara, the easiest way to get there was to cut across Canada and then up through Michigan to the Upper Peninsula.

So Saturday morning we headed to the border. I don't think the border patrol knew what to make of us when asking what our destination was, what we were doing in Canada, etc.

When we entered Canada:
Q: What's your destination?
A: The Highest Point of Michigan
Q: So once you get there you'll be coming back this way?
A: No, then we head off towards Yellowstone....

When we entered back into the US:
Q: What were you doing in Canada?
A: Just passing through. We were at Niagara Falls this morning.

Pictured at left is Lake Ontario. We were to see 4 of the 5 Great Lakes on this trip.


After a full day of driving we reached Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The pictures here are of the 5 mile long Mackinac Bridge which connects the UP from the rest of the state. And because of this bridge we were able to "claim" seeing two more lakes- Lake Huron was to our right, and Lake Michigan to our left. This would be our only view of Huron, but we would see more of Michigan the next day.


After crossing over the bridge we immediately saw a sign for a State Park so we decided to see if they offered camping. Score! We set up, had dinner, and then walked down to the water. We didn't stay there long because the bugs were biting like crazy. Back at camp we made a fire and I had my stupid moment of the trip.

We had gotten a new lantern to use on this trip and we had just assembled it. After lighting the lantern, part of it seemed to be loose, so I reached up to tighten the screw. OWWW! Yeah- the metal screw was hot! I burned two of my fingers on the second day out. One of them has healed, but the other one still isn't back to normal.

Vacation Post #1

So I think trying to talk about my entire vacation (16 days) in one post would be a little too difficult, so I think I'll break it down over the next few days.

We left on Friday, August 10th. First destination was Niagara Falls. We got to the campground (a KOA) and were utterly shocked at how expensive it was. As a family we never stayed at KOAs but Chris' family had and he had fond memories and I remember Darlene saying that it was their campground brand of choice. However, since I'm a state/national park kind of gal, I was thoroughly disappointed in this campground.

Not only was it $50 a night (for a bare tent site with no hook-ups!) but the sites were so close together. If the site next to us had been full we practically would have been breathing down each others necks. We were to later learn on this trip that not all KOAs are created equal. They vary greatly in price and amenities.

But back to my story....

So we arrive at the campground in the early evening- set up the site, make dinner, etc. Then we headed off to the Falls. For photographic lighting purposes it might have been better for us to wait until the morning to go to the falls, but we were on a pretty tight schedule and since we could go at night we figured we should.

We decided to go on a tour of the Cave of the Winds. Perhaps "tour" isn't really the right word. You take an elevator down towards the bottom of the falls, and then follow some platforms and stairs and get right up at the bottom of the falls. The wind and the water power is amazing! However, since it was night our pictures aren't so great. Without the flash it's pretty dark, and with the flash all it picked up on was water droplets near the camera- not what we were trying to photograph 10 feet away. Oh well. It was still fun and we got a few pictures.

After we were back at the top of the falls we took a few more pictures and then settled in for fireworks, which they have most weekends during the summer. This was a nice treat and I got to test out how the new camera did with fireworks- much better than my old camera!

After fireworks we walked around the park a bit and took more pictures of the falls and then headed back to camp.

I was glad we took the opportunity to do the Cave of the Winds. I've been to Niagara twice before (this was Chris' first time) but both times before we had only viewed the falls from the top. Many people suggested that we should view them from the Canadian side, but we didn't do that. Maybe next time?

There's No Place Like Home

After 15 days and 6901.4 miles, we are back at home! It's so nice knowing that we don't have to set up the tent tonight. More about our trip later, but just wanted to say we're back.

Oh, and about this picture? This is a sign on the Mass Pike in the Western part of the state. A few days later we passed through Oacoma, SD. Unfortunately they don't have a similar sign. :(

Long time no post...

Wow, 2 weeks since my last blog post. So much for trying to blog at least once a week. I kept meaning to get these pictures up, but it just didn't happen.

All of the pictures here are from a trip to Vermont that we took last weekend. I took Friday off from work and we headed up in the morning, and then back later in the day on Sunday. I realized that it takes us longer than I would think to break camp- a good thing to know before our upcoming vacation as I consider our long days of driving and now I know we'll have to get up a little bit earlier so that we have enough time.

Our first stop (not counting a quick stop at King Arthur Flour) was Ben & Jerry's. We took a tour, checked out the "Flavor Graveyard" and had a sample of icecream. And of course took cheesy touristy pictures. Next was a stop at Cabot (mmm.... cheese) and then we headed to the campground.

One thing that my family "collects" are highpoints, or the highest elevation of each state. My Dad started collecting these and as a result I've done a number of them with him. Now I've started doing some others with Chris. In fact, on our upcoming vacation we hope to get 7 more states. So on Saturday we hiked Mt. Mansfield, the highest point in Vermont. It is a mountain that is owned by Stowe Mountain Resort (a ski resort) who has a road up to almost the top of the mountain. In order to get some extra summer income, they charge you to drive up the road. So, we drove as far as we could and then had about a 45 minute hike to the peak. It was pretty cloudy on the way up, and when we were at the top it started to sprinkle, but on the way down the clouds moved away and we got some nice views. When we got back to the parking lot the clouds moved back in. Perfect timing!

After the hike we went stopped by a craft fair and although we didn't make any purchases, I did see a few things that I really liked and am considering getting a custom-made piece as a gift for my brother. Hopefully he'll like it.

As we were heading back towards the campground we saw a sign for the floating bridge. Not knowing what a floating bridge was, we figured we should go check it out, so we followed the signs and here's what we found. Ok, now here's my thing- I can understand creating one floating bridge for the novelty of it. In a small town maybe it could become a tourist draw (hey, it drew us in). And maybe when that bridge disintegrates I can understand replacing it with another floating bridge. But this one was replaced SIX times! At what point do you think that maybe this isn't such a good idea and just create a normal bridge?

Sunday, we took yet another walk to the firetower in the campground (I think we climbed it every single day) and then headed towards home. We made a quick stop in Hanover, NH. The Appalachian Trail goes through town and we were kind of hoping to do some trail magic. However, way too many people and really no hikers. We saw one, but he looked like he was just out for a short hike, not someone we would want to give Magic to.

And in other news, I got just a tiny smidge of scrapping done- one card (didn't scan) and two layouts that you can see here and here. DH slightly complained about my choice of materials on the second layout as I used paper and embellishments of things that he hardly ever uses. Oh well. I still thought they were cute. And now only 6 layouts until I'm "caught up" before my trip. If I'm lucky I'll have a chance to do one of those before we leave on Friday.

Busy scrap weekend!

This may have been one of my busiest scrap weekends in recent history! I feel like I haven't been scrapping much lately, so it was nice to get into the groove a bit.
There's no place like home
Mt. Baldy
Chicago- The Bean
Chicago Skyline
Hogwarts Square

Our visit to Hogwarts Square

So on Friday night Chris and I went to Harvard Square which had been renamed "Hogwarts Square". There were a number of places that would be selling the book at midnight, contests, etc.


There also was a concert with the band Harry and the Potters. On the left is a picture of the concert crows during one of the opening acts (The Hungarian Horntails and Draco and the Malfoys both performed.)



Here's a clip from one of their shows, although not the one that we attended. In fact, we liked the show enough that we picked up two of their CDs.





I also present to you a number of my favorite costumes while we were there.


(The quidditch team seems to be short a keeper.)


I had thought about going in costume, but until about an hour before I wasn't sure that we would be going. However, I think that if I had dressed up I would have been Tonks. What was interesting, is that since this was Harvard Square it was a little difficult to tell who was dressed as Tonks and who just had colored hair. If I had gone in costume I probably would have put on a pink wig since my color is pretty subtle.

I also liked that people chose to dress as some of the less popular characters or as villains. (There actually were large numbers of Slytherins, but I don't think I saw any Hufflepuff.) We also saw people dressed as Umbridge, Luna, Padma and Parvati Patil, as well as other lesser known characters.



Other businesses in the area also got in on the fun. Harvard's Natural History Museum had a scavenger hunt for owls, sorcerers stones, etc and a number of the eateries had butterbeer and other "wizard" themed food. Here are some of the flavors offered by a local icecream shop. I love the name of the last one!

Playing with the new camera lens

My new lens arrived today for my camera, so naturally I had to go outside and play.

I tried taking a self-portrait and discovered that I can't do that with this lens. It kept chopping off half my head. Oh well. You may also see that my pink dye is fading. :( Good thing I have plenty of extra dye. One of these day's I'll get around to touching it up. I was thinking it would be this evening, but now I'm rethinking that. Maybe tomorrow?

The new camera has been giving me lots of excuses to get out and take pictures if the garden. Not sure why, but today I got down on a lower level and took my pictures at a different angle than I normally do. I love the results! It makes the garden look much more full and lush.

Check out all of those herbs! We've got chives, parsley, basil, lemon balm, and then some snow peas on the trellis and some other flowers in the front.



Here we've got my two tomato plants, my cucumbers, and my peppers. In the front is some iceberg lettuce that didn't do too well. Anyone know the secret to growing good heads of lettuce?


And finally here we have the tomatoes. two different kinds- Better Boy and Sweet 100's. Can't wait until they ripen!

On Wednesday, to celebrate the 4th, we went to Old Sturbridge Village- a recreation village set between 1790 and 1840. All of the pictures on this post are from our visit there. It was a great chance to play with the camera and try to learn the settings. Unfortunately I over-exposed one event. I thought I had fixed the settings halfway through, but apparently not. Nothing major, so I'm not too concerned. I'll just have to practice more so that don't mess things up on our upcoming vacations.

While we were there, we rediscovered badminton, although at the Village it was Battledore and Shuttlecock and was played with paddles (similar in size to ping pong paddles). On the way home we stopped at the store to pick up our own badminton set. And since Wednesday we have played almost every day- and twice on Saturday.

There was another game there called The Graces that we also enjoyed- and picked up a set to play at home (although we haven't played yet). However, my skills at badminton are far superior to my skills at the Graces.

It's weird to me to be so into a sport- I am not an athletic person at all. If we keep up with the badminton I may even get a better racket. I question the quality of the racket that came in the set for $12. The racket I want is pink and costs about $50.


This weekend I also got a new bikini. It's very cute- black with a skull and crossbones on the top front and another on the bottom back. And since I already had purchased pirate scrapbook paper with no use in sight, I now have a reason to use that paper. Right?

However, I am realizing that perhaps my time for wearing a bikini is coming to an end. It's hardly a skimpy one, yet I seem to have some rolls of fat hanging out. Aaargh! I'm not used to that at all!

So, any suggestions on ways to loose a few pounds- especially in the tummy, butt, or hips? I guess I knew this was happening as I've noticed my weight gaining and my old clothes no longer fitting, but it still comes as a shock to me.


And my final update for the weekend-I finally got some scrapping done! Christmas Album, Mom's birthday, and Easter. The Christmas Album had been dragging for weeks and weeks. Such a weight off my shoulders to have that done. The other two layouts- nothing spectacular about them, but I was able to use some new products on them and it was a nice way to get the creative juices flowing a bit. Next up on the scrapping front is my trip to Chicago in April. I think I have about 4 pages worth of photos. Just one problem- no room for journaling. Not so sure what I want to do about that. The journaling that was on my blog earlier this month is about 4 pages long. I may just print out the journaling and tuck it into the page protector behind the LO. Either that or LOTS of hidden journaling.

My month for Stampers 5

Any of you out there in blog-land interested in buying some rubber stamps? This is my month for "hosting" in my Stampin' Up group. (For 5 months we each agreed to spend a certain amount per month, and we each are assigned one month to be the "hostess" and get the benefits.)

If you're interested, please consider placing your order through Melissa Barlow. The catalog is available here. Just let her know to apply the order to my "party".

Thanks!!!!

New camera

Yay! We got a Canon Digital Rebel XTi today! I LOVE it almost as much as I LOVE my pink hair. :)

I love that I can finally take pictures like this one where the flower is in focus and the background is blurry. I had lots of fun out in my garden taking pictures of the flowers and veggies.

And then I came inside and took some self portraits. So much easier with an SLR than my old point and shoot. (Just look for your reflection in the lens in the mirror and you'll know it's lined up properly.)