Happy 8th Anniversary to Us!

Jeff and I celebrated our 8th anniversary with a trip to Amelia Island, near Jacksonville, FL. It was sucha wonderful vacation! My parents and sister came and kept the girls and we enjoyed our time away - "just the two of us". It was so relaxing. We took a sunset boat cruise on a 1830's replica clipper ship. We ate out at a nice restaurant. We hunted for shark's teeth on the beach - we found 2! And Jeff gave me a beautiful ruby and white sapphire necklace and ring set. In the pictures below, you can see Jeff on the beach with our hotel in the background. We had a beach front room and it was a gorgeous view! There's also a picture of the view.

Happy Birthday to Maryella!

Maryella's 2nd birthday was this past Thursday and she was so excited about it! On her actual birthday, she opened her gifts from us and we had a small cake for her. She got so excited about blowing out the candles on the cake that she got too close and burnt her chin. She was fine, but it scared her and she wouldn't get anywhere near the candles on her cake at her birthday party on Saturday. Everything else at her party was great though. She had several friends over (along with their big siblings) and they all dressed as puppies (it was a puppy party). They mnade doggie collars and wore puppy ears. We played a game where they performed puppy tricks and I gave them Scooby snacks. They played outside awhile and then ate corndogs for dinner and had cake and ice cream in dog bowls! It was really cute and the kids all had a great time. Maryella was so excited about everyone being here and she ended up having a great time! Here's a few pictures from her big day! (The first two are from her actual birthday with gifts that we gave her, but the rest are from her party)

More Mountain Pictures

Here are a few more pictures from our mountain trip last week. The cabin we stayed at had a hot tub and a trampouline (we all had to try it out!) outside - pretty neat. We went shopping near Gatlinburg at the outlets and got some back to shcool clothes. The girls enjoyed the carousel ride while we were there. They also got some cute new pjs that they are showing off in one of the pictures in our cabin. Annlee and I climbed a 9 story lookout tower to catch a glimpse of the "most photographed view in all the Smokies".
We drove by an Amish craft shop that had a giant rocking chair out front and we couldn't resist a photo opportunity there! And we also celebrated my birthday while we were there. It was a really fun time!

Striking it Rich, (we wish!)

While we were in the mountains, we went mining for gems. I remembered doing this as a kid and loving it and was hoping for the same experience for our girls. The first place we went to was not really what we were looking for. It was a sapphire mine and it was $40 for a bicket of dirt. Did we find sapphires? Well, according to the folks who worked there, we found tons. They didn't look anything like any sapphires I've ever seen though. To have them cut and set, it would be another $35 and I wasn't too thrilled with that idea. The girls did fall in love with their dog though, so I guess it wasn't all for nothing.
On our way home, we passed a ruby mine and being a July baby myself, I couldn't resist stopping to check it out. For $5, the girls got 4 big bags of dirt and they found some of the prettiest gems! Were they worth anything? I doubt it. But they had tons of fun. And yes, we did 2 rubies but again, it would cost way more than we were willing to pay to have anything done with them.

4th of July in Maggie Valley, North Carolina

We just got back from our trip to the mountains and hopefully we are home for awhile. It's been a busy summer so far! Jeff had a continuing education class at Lake Junaluska and we tagged along with him. We got there on the 4th and found a festival where the girls played, got faces painted and watched fireworks. It was lots of fun. Kaylin enjoyed the fireworks very much although she did cover her ears from time to time. I was proud of my scaredy cat big girl. Annlee absolutely hated the whole thing. She buried her face in Jeff's lap and cried the whole time, I think. We would have left, but figured it would be over by the time we got to the car anyway. Maryella loved it but said it "scared her ears and her toes and her toenails". HA!

VBS

I just realized that in my rush to leave for the beach, I forgot to post about VBS. We had that the week before our beach trip. The theme was Jerusalem 30 AD, Holy Week. The kids learned about life in Jerusalem at that time. It was a great VBS. Here are a few pictures from the week. The kids really got into the "dress up" part of things!