Beautiful Tennessee

Tennessee Trip

Steve & Ruby in the mirror at the hotel in WV

"I often sit and ponder things beside Sunoco Stations."

Leaving the good ole state of WV.

Here we come TN!

"What are those things?" "I don't know, look at the name plate. It says 'Group of people standing.'"

I love my brother. :)

And my mommy and baby sister. <3

And of course we had to stop here!

"Of purple mountains majesty!"

Our cabin

Upper level porch/deck

Admiring the view

View of the next door house.

A view of our house from the road

Don't be fooled! These are no ordinary black eyed susans! They can only be found in Pigeon Forge TN

This little place was beautiful!

Ivy Ivy Everywhere

And then of course, we got to see a nuclear explosion

The sunset was pretty awesome

Beautiful pink skies!

ReachOut Christian Club Fundraiser

Last week I had the opportunity to volunteer for a fundraiser the ReachOut club at WCCC was having. The plan was to have a "summer refreshement" sale outside, but the rain thought otherwise. We had to move inside, and therefore the drinks were not as refreshingly needed. :) But I took some pictures, so here they are.

Because of the rain, we had to change the sign. Hence the "Don't."

The plan was, as you saw on the sign, to have Iced Tea, Lemonade and Orange Julius. We had to make the Orange Julius so that's why all the blenders were there. It's really simple. We just put 1 cup water, 1 cup milk, 1 cup orange juice, 1/4 cup sugar and like a tablespoon of vanilla. Added some ice and blended together. We found out rather quickly though about the reaction between orange juice and milk. We couldn't let it sit or it would turn into orange cottage cheese. (Don't worry, none of the customers received this, only the volunteers.)

Jordan, the former president of the club, bought everything and wanted to do a hawaiian theme. We had colorful straws, cups and decorations and we even had music from the Beach Boys playing in the background. It was very fun.

On the top of the cup of the Orange Julius's (or Julii as we called them) we put an orange slice. These were affectionately cut by Brian (the current president of the club.)

This is Brian, as mentioned above, the current president.

Around 10am, Jordan and Hannah, two of the volunteers, had to go to class, so Brian and I took over for a while till they got back. We profited about $50, which may not seem like that much, but we were able to cover the costs of the materials which was about $140..so we did very well in my opinion. Especially since there aren't many students at the college in the summer.

And of course, since we are the "Christian" club, we gave out Bibles. We had a really good response to them too. There wasn't any negative feedback but rather "Oh I already have one, can I have another?" Which to me is surprising..but I haven't officially started college life yet, so I really don't know how it would differ from public school.

So that was it, we had fun. I had fun. And I hope I get to do it again!

Derrick and Kara's Wedding Pictures

Kristen Leigh's blog was just posted with pictures from the wedding!!!

See them here: http://www.imkristensblog.com/

Graduation Flowers

I think that these pictures are winners. This last one is my favorite. The one from looking underneath is also a great one! It looks like it is outside..but nope. I took that one in the dining room.

What's been going on in my life

I haven't posted for a while, so here are some pictures from the past weeks. Enjoy!

This picture is from Easter weekend. We got to go to Deep Creek for the first time. :D It was such a beautiful weekend with temperatures in the 80's!! We opened up the cottage, and did a lot of raking. I swear there were over a billion leaves in our yard and in the flower beds. All day friday and all day saturday we raked..and went for canoe rides, had a great Good Friday service at PVBC and then a wonderful Resurrection Sunday! Then we had to head on home saturday night for dinner with the rest of the family.

Then it just gets better. We went on a field trip to Johnstown with our Tapestry of Grace Co-op. There we rode..well look at the picture.

It was such a beautiful day and not many people were there.

The view from the top

Another view

Then due to some unforseen circumstances, we were able to go to deep creek again this past weekend.

It wasn't nearly as warm, but still beautiful as ever. Here is my doggie, Susie.

I don't remember this from before, but there were bushes on the edge of our property with these yellow flowers. They were so cool looking I had to take a picture. And look what I cought..(this was not intentional)

They were in the perfect spot, so full of color. And you know how much I love to photograph flowers.

Then Steve decided he had to put the swings up. So he got the wheel barrel and did it. Such a boy.

And then last night, we had a bachelorette/going away party for Kara at Naomi's house. We all had a fun time. Here is all of the bridesmaids and of course the beautiful bride to be.

Geese and one lonely duck.

Spring is here

Even though I know that the Robins got confused during "The Big Storm" several weeks ago (they were building nests in the snow in the shrubs in front of our house), they are still alive and well. And they obviously don't mind the snow. But thankfully it is nearly gone now. (these pictures were taken a week ago)

The kids couldn't wait to set up their houses and play in the green grass.

Even the trees look beautiful after this horrid winter.

This is a "Find the hidden object" picture. So find the hidden object

OH MY GOODNESS!! IT'S A TURKEY!!

And a huge one at that. Sorry I couldn't get a better picture of it. It hopped away as soon as I got outside.