Isn't that cute!!!
I was just checking out Courtney's blog to look (once again!) at the picture of her, Lindsey and Shelby and happened to check our her counter! Holy Moses, girl!!!!!!!! You could pay for your wedding if you would just syndicate your blog. Dang...............I thought I was getting alot of hits!!! Here's Courtney's counter as of 10:54 pm on Friday night!:
It was close, but we made it to Graves Mountain! We were packing in the morning when we heard the "You've Got Mail" sound....yep...another foreclosure that Dennis needs to list! We didn't panic...just took care of everything and figured we'd get out of town by 2 or 3...plenty of time to make it for dinner! NOT.......an hour later another one came over and 20 minutes after that...yep, another! Three in one day!!! We rushed to get done what had to get done and got to Graves Mountain just after sunset.
Shugs was soooo excited to be going for a ride in the car and she loves it even more when her bed gets to go, too!
She used to hate going for a ride in the car, but once she figured out that the alternative was to stay behind without us, she started going along and now she just loves it!
I could hardly wait to get there....it's been 6 or 7 years (can't really remember!) since I've been and each year I've known when it was Graves Mountain weekend...if you weren't there this year, it smells the same...it looks the same....it feels the same! There was a great group this year......20 of us on Friday night, 15 on Saturday night and 6 of us on Sunday night! Of course, we all really missed some of the OSLers that couldn't make it this year....as a last thought before heading out the door, I ran off copies of Shelby and Justin, Courtney and Austin, and Lindsey and Darren....figured it was better than nothing! Y'know...I think they had a great time!!! They got to sit by the fire,
eat at the harvest table.
...sit on the porch....Shelby and Justin even helped make the Cabin Chicken Chili (recipe coming soon!)...yep, I think they had a great time!
On Saturday the guys had breakfast going before our feet hit the floor...it was delicious! Melinda started her Cabin Chicken Chili for our lunch, then headed out with Jess and Robin to a baby shower. Dennis and I went down the Apple Harvest Festival to check it out...great bluegrass music, crafts, food and I love watching them make apple butter. I thought I was taking a picture of the guys making it, but I guess I wasn't...check out the video! Sound like the festival????
Then we took a drive up to Skyline Drive.....it wasn't peak, but the colors were brilliant on one turn, then you'd make another and it was pure green.....it was a beautiful drive.
We gave up and got back on the main road....we got back to the cabin in time for dinner and some relaxing on the porch! Later Adam started a fire in front of the cabin, the OSL and Partners hangout! The adults sat on the porch with the puppies and drank wine, although I do remember a s'more or two! Yummm!
Melinda and I were the last to bed....we ran out of lime juice for our gimlets, but found some cranberry juice and made our version of "Decks Out of the City"....get it? I was a hurtin' fool the next day, but that night chatting was worth every pain that shot through my eyes into my brain!
On Sunday Dennis, Leslie, Karen and I headed to "town" (the apple shed, grocer and a couple of yard sales)...we found some interesting things at the yard sale. Check out what was inside of this tin when Leslie opened up! It must've driven that poor lady crazy when she couldn't find those teeth! In hindsight, I probably should have bought them....they might come in handy someday!
When we got back to the cabin and told Melinda, she HAD to see it! So she, Dennis and I headed out to check it out......then we decided to take a little drive over the hill to a winery! It was a cute little place and they had a house and log cabin on the property for rent....the log cabin was different, but nothing like Graves or Baby Graves!!!
After we left the winery, we took a back road we'd been told about by Mark, Everett's brother (they're from up in that neck of the woods....). We were expecting dirt roads, but I guess progress has been made and it all now paved, but it was a beautiful drive!!!
Back at the cabin, all of the kids had left......there was only Melinda, Brad, Everett, Robin, Dennis and me left! The place looked kinda lonely......and it sounded kinda quiet.....the chairs were empty....and the bonfire was out!
Sooooo.....we heated up all of the leftovers and had a feast!
Then Dennis went off to try his hand at fishing and Everett decided to take the chill out of the cabin by starting a fire....only first he had to split wood! He was doing great until he got to this one piece....it looked like it was pretty hard, but that man refused to let that piece of wood get the better of him.....here's the picture story of how it went:
Now I would have given up long before that hatchet got embedded in that piece of wood, but it didn't deter Everett....he headed down to get his feet entrenched in the earth, then tried a piece of wood to hammer it through, but ended up using a huge rock to pound the thing. I didn't get a picture of that because we were all laughing so hard! But he DID IT! I'm impressed!
I sure am glad that we had plenty of leftovers to eat and weren't depending on Dennis' catch of the day..... he said it's hard to catch big fish in little bodies of water.....I guess that's why he loves the Chesapeake Bay so much! Oh well, back to the salt water fishing!
Monday was a sad day.....seemed that we'd done everything we could to fill the weekend and now it was time to pack and go. Shugs did get a little "dog watching" in.....there was a Golden Retriever swimming in the pond area of the creek....Shugs just sat there and watched, but I'm quite confident she wasn't thinking of jumping in!
After we left, Dennis and I headed back up to drive the rest of the Skyline Drive....we stopped at Loft Mountain for lunch, then headed home. I drove, while he napped....not long into the drive Melinda called shrieking that her niece had gotten engaged and they're hoping to get married next October during Graves Mountain Weekend!!! ARGHH!!!! Melin says that she told her brother that she'd drive to Graves on Friday, Philly on Saturday morning, and Graves on Saturday night..........it would take more than a wedding to keep that girl from that cabin.....she hasn't missed that weekend for 17 years....I'm sure next year won't be the first!
See you there!!!
PS - Sorry for the long blog, but it was a long weekend! I have lots more great pics that I'll post later....my hands are tired and this "Add Image" button really ticks me off!!!
We kept it small....just you, me, your dad, Granny Galvin and Jim Case. We had just gotten in the night before from taking my first cruise....a Carnival cruise to Nassau! It was fun, but it was the first time I had left you and that part was so hard!
My what a pretty baby you were....and what a lovely young lady you've become! I love you and miss you and hope you're having the best birthday ever!
Love, Mom
XOXOXO
I just spoke to her....they're having a great time at sea! I sure do miss her...but I'm so happy she's having a great birthday!
I used to doodle on scraps of paper when I was on hold with tech support or a teleconference.....now I "surf" blogs! I've seen some gorgeous blogs and really think that mind is boring, so I started "surfing" skins (which I originally called "templates"....taboo!) I've found one I love, but I can't figure out how to make it work right!
Don't you just love it!!!! It's called "Notepad Chaos"....how appropriate is that???
Now, I don't know who you are (well, I know who some of you are!), or how you got to my blog, but I'd love to hear from you! Heck, if no one looks at your blog and talks back to you, it's just a diary....been there, done that....it's more fun to share!A few years ago Shelby gave me Oprah's 20th Anniversary Collection for Christmas....I think we watched the entire set of DVDs on Christmas Day! Almost every time she came over, that's what we did.....watched Oprah! I especially love her "Favorite Things" show, but it inspired me to do the same thing for my friends.
The first year I gave them baskets filled with some of my favorite things: A Wusthof Santoku knife, Aromatique Cinnamon Cider scented oil, samples of Clinque moisturizer (courtesy of Clinique), Lindor truffles, among other things.
Last year I drove myself nuts trying to design a cookbook with my "favorite recipes" for my Christmas Favorite Things gift. I knew the kids would love it since they no longer lived at home. But designing a cookbook and figuring out how to print and bind it to look nice was getting quite difficult. I was watching the Today Show one morning and they were giving some great ideas for Christmas gifts......one of them was a cookbook! You just go to Tastebook.com and type in your recipes, add your pictures and they send a beautiful cookbook with the tabs for each section and the recipes.....they look gorgeous! You can add up to 100 recipes.....it was close to Christmas, so I only added 50 at the time, but you can go back in and complete the rest of them and they will send them to you to hand out to everyone. You even get to pick out your own cover! Here's what mine looks like:
I think this is such a great idea.........you could ask everyone in your family for their favorite recipes and put them all into one book! You don't have to buy the book to enjoy the recipes....you can "share" them with others.
I will be posting some of my favorite recipes from the book at my newest blog, Aprons Required. In fact, cooking on the stove right now is the next entry, Pasta e Fagioli!!!
Have a great day!
The first year I bought red because Dennis is just not fond of pink flowers, but the second year I just couldn't take my hands away from the flat of pink ones! That is one plant in the basket. If it were a larger basket, the plant would have gotten even bigger! Here's one in the pot on the deck.....yep, that's ONE plant, too!
Yep....they are tried and true and I'm confident that my search is over for the perfect plants for our deck. They love the sun (and we get quite a bit of it), unlike impatiens, which I also love. I don't have to "dead head" then like the petunias, which I also love. We tried all greenery one year, but that didn't quite get it for me!
These are just too easy to take care of and so beautiful to look at.........they fill up the deck! They require little care....just a little water and fertilizer now and then. And they don't get angry if you get busy and forget to water them......they are quite drought tolerant!
In previous years I've promised myself that I'm going to cut them back and put them in the garage and I'm making the same promise to myself this year. Then in the spring I won't have to by new ones! They can make it through the winter if they are kept in the garage!
So, it won't be long before the deck will be sparse again, so I'm heading to kitchen for a glass a wine and then to the deck to enjoy it while I can. Have a great weekend!
Aprons Required....let's tie one on!
