Happy Halloween!

Friday at work everyone dressed up in their costumes.  We trick-or-treated at our designated times and then had our runway show to show off our costumes.  We had the tacky tourists...

 Then we had the graduates...

We had the maternity ward...Seriously, how funny is this?  There was even a pee stick!  We have had a lot of babies in the last year so this fit right in.

 And the winners of the costume contest...the Barrel of Monkeys!

 We also had a pumpkin carving contest and the one on the right won.

We've got the house all decorated and we're ready for a ton of kids to show up tonight.  Happy Halloween!

 

North Carolina Trip - Part 2

Sunday morning we slept in a little bit.  We made biscuits and had homemade apple butter for breakfast.  Our first stop of the day was Grandfather Mountain.   

We had attempted to go the day before, but the traffic was insane so we opted out of that.  Sunday the traffic was much better and we got right in.  You drive up this mountain, then get out of your car, and walk to the peak.  As we got to the top of the mountain, we were greeted by this guy. 

JJ thought it would be funny to take his picture.  I guess they only allow a certain number of cars at the top so we had to wait for someone to come down.  He finally let us go and then we were greeted by this guy at the top.  Ha! 

There is a swinging bridge that you walk across and right in the middle of it you are exactly one mile above sea level.  The view was amazing.  We took several pictures along the rock at the top of the mountain.

 

 

 

 That's the swinging bridge behind us that we walked across to get to the edge.

 

After seeing the sights up there, we went to a little zoo they had further down the mountain.  We got to see bears, otters, cougars, deer, and more.

 

 

We had lunch at their little restaurant there then headed back to the house.  On the way back Mike pointed out a spot where a scene from Forrest Gump was shot.  Remember when he’s running across the country and he’s got a group of people following behind him?  That’s where part of that scene was filmed.  Pretty cool!  The guys went to do their hunting thing, and Beth and I went to the outlet mall. 

Beth and I each found some cute things at the mall.  I got a small wallet to match my new Coach purse and also a warm fleece vest.  She got another Coach purse and a few shirts.  When we got back to the house, the guys were out shooting.  We could hear them off in the distance.  Beth started cooking beef stroganoff for dinner which is Mike’s favorite meal.  While she did that, I went through her mom’s cookbook and found some great recipes I want to try.  The guys made it back just in time to eat.  The meal was great!  Once we finished up, Mike lit the fire, we watched a movie, roasted marshmallows and made s’mores again.

 

Monday morning was our last day there.  We woke up to a cloudy, drizzly day.  After a slow start, we got ready and headed to the Mast General Store.  It’s a store that’s been around since 1883 and still operates as a general store selling anything you can think of.  It’s still an operating post office too.  We had fun just walking around looking at all they had.  

 

One of the stores had tons of candy by the barrels, the kinds you grew up eating.

We took a few more pictures along a creek behind the store and then went back to the house. 

 

 I took a few pictures of the house as we were getting ready to leave.  Here is the bedroom we stayed in.

From our room, the view of the kitchen, dining room, and just a little bit of the living room.

 

 

 

 This was our view in the rear view mirror as we headed home.

We got all of our stuff packed up and hit the road about 3:30.  We took a different route home and ended up getting lost in the mountains which set us back about an hour and a half.  Then somewhere in Kentucky we stopped for gas and JJ started messing under the hood to try and figure out why his check engine light was one.  That killed about another hour.  And then once we passed St. Louis we heard a report on the radio that a bad storm was coming through.  We decided to be proactive and get off the highway before it hit.  By the time the storm arrived and we got back on the road, almost another hour had past.  We finally made it home about 9:00 the next morning.  We were both exhausted but the trip was totally worth it.  Mike and Beth were great hosts and showed us a really good time.  I can’t wait until we get to see them again!

North Carolina Trip - Part 1

Thursday after work, JJ and I left town to go on vacation with some friends at their mountain house in North Carolina.  Neither of us had ever been there before, it was JJ’s first time going to the mountains and my first time in quite a while.  We had planned to leave right at 4:00 when I got off work, but of course things didn’t go as planned.  We finally got on the road about 6:30.  We had hoped to get to Paducah, KY before calling it a night and getting a hotel room, but by the time we got to St. Louis, I was exhausted.  JJ took an Adderall and we did end up making it to Paducah, but it was almost 2:00 in the morning by the time we got there.  We set our alarms for 7:00 the next morning and got back on the road.  We actually didn’t leave KY until about 9:00 so that got us to the mountain house at 5:00 Friday night.  We did lose an hour due to time change though.

We met Mike at the bottom of the mountain so he could show us the way.  We came around the corner and he was sitting on the hood of his Hummer.  JJ started honking like crazy and you could tell both guys were so excited to see each other.  JJ and Mike grew up together and were best friends.  They didn’t see each other for many years, and then he was the best man in our wedding so we’ve tried to make it a point to see each other at least once a year since.  We got to the house and saw Beth and chatted for a bit.  We were pretty tired, so we just went out to grab some dinner and came back to the house.  They have an amazing fireplace that they keep lit the whole time they are down here so we just kept putting firewood in there, we were lounging on the couch in our PJ’s and the guys were messing around with their guns.  It was great to get to catch up with Beth.

Saturday morning rolls around and when we woke up, the power was out.  It messed up our plans to have breakfast at home, but Beth and I both needed to get on the internet so we went to a local coffee shop that has free wifi.  We bought our coffees and got all set up, then realized their internet wasn’t working.  So we packed up our stuff and headed to the local library.  We were there about an hour, then we came back to the house to meet the guys.  The plan was to go up to Grandfather Mountain which is a five minute drive from their house, but as we turned a corner about half way up, we just say brake lights.  The traffic was insane!  We sat in it for about 45 minutes and finally got to a place where we could turn around.  We attempted to go a few back roads, but it was still bumper to bumper traffic.  We decided to stop and get something to eat at this point.  This town is so cute because it’s all local restaurants and shops.  The place we ate at was called Tartan. 

We got back on the road and headed a back way to the Blue Ridge Parkway.  It was called the scenic highway because of the views and they were awesome.  We got several pictures along the way.  Here are several of them...JJ even had to get a picture of the five Ferarri’s that were driving ahead of us.

 

 

 

The shopping area that we were going to was called Blowing Rock.  They had lots of cute shops and people just walk up and down the streets, there’s a park, and restaurants too.  One of the shops made candles right there.  It was really cool to watch.

After shopping for a few hours, we had dinner at a nice little restaurant in Blowing Rock and then headed back to the house.

Mike and Beth

 Can you tell we had been in the car all night and were running off of 4 hours of sleep?...ha!  

  

 We stopped and took a few more pictures on the side of the road.

 

The guys messed with their guns some more and shot a few rounds off the back of the house, and Beth and I played a card game called Phase 10.  We roasted marshmallows and had s’mores by the fire.  It was a perfect evening.  We called it a night about midnight. 

RIP

C, who I posted about here, passed away this morning.  It was a roller coaster from the time he was admitted to the hospital with good days and bad days.  Unfortunately he couldn't continue fighting and passed on this morning at 9:53 a.m.  I feel like I've been saying this a lot lately with all the bad news I've heard about, but things like this make me so thankful for everything in my life.  Thanks for all the prayers!

boo

I stumbled upon this really creative blog and fell in love with one of her Halloween posts.  Tara over at Everything I Love and More came up with some really festive decorations for Halloween.  What I love about them is it's something I can use all year long for various holidays, not just Halloween.  So, without further ado...

I got all of my materials from Hobby Lobby.  Almost everything I bought was on sale so I ended up spending about $40 total.  Then I went to Wal-Mart and got candy for another $6.  I started by laying out all of the pieces on the table.  Then I painted all of the unfinished wood with two coats of black acrylic paint.  I had to paint the glass lids with three coats of paint since it was metal.  I ended up letting the paint dry overnight.

Tonight I started the assembly.  Rather than using Guerrilla Glue like she recommended, JJ thought epoxy would work really well so I used that instead.  I started to glue the bases together, then added the finials to the jar lids.  Once everything had set up for about 5 minutes, I hot glued the glass jars to the bases.

I added the finishing touches of a bow, the letters, and candy.  I'm not a huge candy corn fan, but I do like it with peanuts.  The sweet and salty of both is the perfect mix.  And wallah!  The finished product!

I think they turned out super cute and they were really easy to do.  I have thought of ideas for other holidays down the road.  I can do "Ho Ho Ho" for Christmas with red, green, and white M&M's and a festive ribbon, and "LUV" for Valentine's Day with red and pink M&M's.  I've got a sweet tooth though so I can see these jars being full all year round! :)