Slip Sliding Away

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! And we set this up going down hill in our back yard that slopes. Unfortunately it broke within a day--so now we're on the hunt to find the original slip and slide, like from when I was a child!

Gingerbread House

I just love this place; it's called The Gingerbread House, and it was completed last year. It was built along a walking/ bike path, from a very old renovated farm house. For about three years we watched the renovations happening, wondering what was going on---and the big reveal was this beautiful place. Its original intent was a coffee house/ bakery (I have never had coffee in my entire life, but I still love the smell and atmosphere of coffee shops). Upstairs are little craft vendors. It's just so darned cute and cozy in here; and in the winter it's fun to come for a hot cocoa and sit by the fire; we did this once after our town Christmas Festival, where we went on a sleigh ride and stood out by a big bon fire--but it was cold, so we came here (I'd be there often with a book, if I didn't have kids:) Since it's just down the road from the golf center, and not far from my house, the girls and I stopped in for a quick cookie after Angel's golf lessons last week. Outside the girls enjoyed the ducks and chickens. I noticed there's now an outbuilding that is an ice cream shop (yeahhhh). There's plenty of seating on the front porch and on the back deck. And once inside, I was very surprised to smell garlic. I inquired and found out they now serve lunch (soups and sandwiches); and garlic bread and pizzas at dinner. And there was a nice breakfast menu as well. So the girls decided we're going to take daddy to The Gingerbread House for Father's Day:) (I have a thing for really cutsie places like this, and really cute towns that are Door Countyish:)

First Golf Lesson

Golf Center, close to our house, bordering a farm

Angel trying to golf right-handed, because bad mama forgot she's not!

definition of a rough

cute miniature golf course; fun place, not part of the class:)

ahhhhh, now she's golfing left-handed (thankfully they had one club, but two lefties had to share)

The class started with the kids doing some running and stretching, and then moved onto practicing their "elephant" arm swings; while teaching them to keep their feet in place. This was followed by the anatomy of a golf-club. Next the kids learned how to hold their clubs, showing proper hand positioning, teaching them where they should stand (they told the kids their belly buttons should be in front of the ball.) It was time for the kids to practice hitting their bucket of balls--this week they started with big wiffle balls; next week they'll try smaller ones, and by the last week, they'll get to try real golf balls. After they were all done hitting their balls, they took their buckets and were each responsible for collecting five balls so the next group of kids could practice.

After their driving lessons, the kids got to take a little "field trip" to learn a little bit about golf courses, including some proper etiquette. As the golf pro described to the kids, the pretty short grass is called the fairway, the really short grass is called the green; and then they walked over to this rock with a little bit of long grass around it--the really long grass is the rough. I thought his descriptions were cute and age appropriate.

All in all, his goal for the kids was that they just have fun! I should note that two little girls showed up with their Barbie golf bags and Barbie clubs, so you know who thinks she should have the same (yes, yours truly, me wants a Barbie bag now:) And finally, I will admit, I was in a hurry to get the girls off their bikes and into the car for the lessons, and when we got there I realized I still had her in her sandals---bad mama:)

She had a lot of fun and did a good job. It was really nice and peaceful for my little Fairy Girl and me to watch (who was a good sport about being too young to participate in class, although she's so well--coordinated, I think she'd have done really well).

Tennesee--Carolina Vaca Chronicles Part 7: Pool Day!

pretty landscaping view from our campsite

duck family walking around our campsite

crane hanging out in front of our campsite

mama duck helping her family find food on our site

sunshine and pool time!

Today was a our first full pool day!!! We had a lot of clouds and some rain this week. Part of the goal for this trip was to see the Carolinas for potential areas to live--but today we stayed put and hit the pool (and I finally got a nice base tan:). All in all we spent about 6 hours in the pool, and had it completely to ourselves!!!

After showers, the girls headed over to the park, where they met two new friends. One of them is a future entomologist, who helped my formerly squeamish girls move past their fear of bugs (for one day anyway). She gave my angel a bug collecting container and they were off to collect fireflies (no worries, no insects were harmed, let alone caught in their little adventure:).

After dinner and yet another ice cream cone, we built a campfire and were once again serenaded with the symphony of screeching frogs--it really was very pretty and soothing to listen to--I'd like to bottle that sound:)

Wildlife Report:
A mama and her baby ducks wandered around our campsite looking for hand outs.

My 3 y/o Fairy Girl found another frog.

The crane made her visit to the dock again ("sitting on the dock of the bay, watching the clouds float away"...:)

Tennessee/Carolinas Vaca Chronicles--Part 2 (Sunday): Drizzly Day

A little orange lizard by the pool

Daddy and Fairy Girl at the Pool

Fairy Girl Hugging Smoky Bear

The view from our breakfast table at the Apple Orchard

Muscle Car Museum, Newport, TN
(one of the few times J grabbed the camera:)

The Smokies

Smoky Mountain National Park

Smoky Mountain National Park

Smoky Bear Campground

Apple Barn Orchard and Cider Mill

Sunday, our first full day was rainy and drizzly in the low 70's. We decided it wouldn't be a whole lot of fun with a 3.5 and a 5 year old to hang out in the camper---so we hit the road to do some exploring. (As an aside, we found out it rained quite a bit all day at the campground, but it barely rained and was mostly sunny where we went:) The GPS is a nice tool for exploring, though we learned, it can easily get confused on those small mountain roads--but we sure hit some beautiful scenery as a result of its so called "short cuts:)"

We started off with having breakfast at an apple orchard restaurant. After breakfast we went into the shop to look around and pick up a few of those gourmet items you find in orchards--we picked up some apples (though my guess was since apples aren't really in season, they must have been last year's stock--and according to J, they were dry). We also picked up a jar of apple butter and vidalia onion relish. Outside we saw a beautiful cabin; then I sneaked into another cute building--in it was a candy shop and craft shop (I didn't want to tempt the girls in the candy store, I'm bad enough--though I honestly didn't buy anything:) It was very cute and rustic in there.

From there we headed to a town called Newport and another called Sieverville--I'm not sure what we were looking for, but the campground owners recommended those towns. Because we were following the GPS directions, we wound up on some backroads we normally wouldn't have chosen, and found a giant Bush's baked bean plant, with a giant can of baked beans. Given our previous day's gas issues, we got a kick out of the theme continued:) We enjoyed some more pretty scenery and decided to ask the Garmin for ideas on local attractions---and up came the Muscle Car Museum----boy did J's eyes light up (more than mine in the candy store, really:). So we headed over there---J and the girls went in. Since it's not my cup of tea I decided to take advantage of the quiet time, and stayed outside to read a book (I'm still working on the first book of the Mayfair Witch series, called The Witching Hour--it's an excellent book with wonderful details, though not as addicting as the Twilight series, so I'm taking my time and have no problem putting it down:)

Apparently J had bribed the girls to be really good in the museum with ice cream, so we found yet another beautiful and very popular apple orchard near Pigeon Forge called The Apple Barn. The girls had icecream and I chose hot apple cobbler (cobbler is one of my favorite words, it just sounds so yummy:)---with some icecream melted on top--and I even let J have a few bites:)

At this point we decided the weather looked decent, so we headed back to the campground. As a note, it was Memorial Weekend--though we were in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge (which has a ton to do)--the campground owners recommended not going there until at least Monday, or we'd spend our time fighting traffic--that's why we didn't hit those towns. Too bad, the aquarium in Gatlingburg, would have been an excellent choice--I'm sure it's not as great as Chicago's Shed Aqarium --but we heard it's really supposed to be very nice. Next time we're in the area, we will go there. http://www.ripleysaquariumofthesmokies.com/

It was now after 5:00 (somewhere, tee hee:) and the girls were begging to go swimming. It was slightly misty out, yet the sun was shining--it was actually a really fun time to be in the pool. J and the girls played in the pool, and I took my book to the hottub--the view was spectacular- I was sitting in the hottub and looked up to very tall trees and the beautiful Smoky Mountains--breathtaking!--I enjoyed talking at length with the campground owner (Chong O'Leary--I wasn't sure what to expect when I first saw the name--like a red-headed oriental guy:) It turns out she's a very nice Korean women, married to an Irishman. They used to own a resort in Myrtle Beach, but decided to retire. They got bored traveling and took over the campground, http://smokybearcampground.com/gallery.shtml .

That about sums up our second day.

Wildlife Report: the only report today is a small orange lizard in the pool area, pictured above.

Our Tennessee/ Carolinas Vacation Chronicles --part 1 (Saturday) WE HAVE GAS ISSUES:)

Smoky Mountain National Park

The Smokies

Our Campsite at Smoky Bear Campground

A pretty cabin at the Apple Orchard where we ate breakfast.

Piper at our Smoky Bear Campsite

Pretty flowers at our Smoky Bear campsite

The Smokies, Gatlinburg, TN

I've decided the blog would be a fun way to document our vacation, including daily wildlife occurrences and funny moments. I'm going to try to do a posting for each day of our trip. Here is day one--travel day. We got up at 3:30 am and left the house an hour later. This was pretty much a travel day. I was very excited to put my new Mother's Day gift to work--my Garmin GPS. It worked for and against us (we didn't take the time to get to know it before we left ). I now understand that when you choose alternate routes, it will continue to strive to get you to the most direct/ fastest route--which isn't always going to be your choice. I need to learn how to program in an alternate route--I think it may require some software to do that.

So, I was driving in the morning, and thankfully J woke up just in time to tell me I missed the exit for I 57, ooops:) So we backtracked and were right back on track. Then, the family (not me the driver:) was sleeping away again, and I was enjoying the peace and beauty of southern Illinois (I'm not kidding, Illinois actually does have some pretty parts, not many:)--when all of a sudden I looked at the odometer and realized I had 9 MILES left of gas! (note, that means almost nothing when you're towing a camper!)--I panicked and woke J, put the good old GPS to use to find the nearest town and station. Thankfully, Centralia, IL was one mile up. I got off the exit and the gas station was CLOSED! So then I saw the sign that the town was 7 miles away--we JUST MADE IT! We literally pulled in the gas station with the computer on our jeep telling us we had 0 miles left! phewwwwwwwwwwwww! We used to have a warning beep on the jeep that told us when we had 40 miles worth of gas left--well, all of a sudden it doesn't beep until 13 miles left. Oooops.

The tank was happily filled, and off we went. I was driving again when all of a sudden we came upon a little old lady driving around 40 mph--I had to slam on the brakes (with a camper attached to us)--I did fine and threw on my hazards for the people driving behind me (so we wouldn't get hit)--and then got the heck away from her. I'm sorry, but people who can't drive the speed limit on the interstate, should NOT BE DRIVING ON THE INTERSTATE! To me, that's a lot more dangerous than speeding!.

We then had a nice picnic at a beautiful rest area with a park in Metropolis, IL (yes, the home of Superman, and there is a big statue of him, somewhere, we didn't look for it). The girls met a new friend named Olivia, and played with her for awhile--and then off we went again.

Our gas issues continue. J was driving, and the same darned thing happened again--we forgot to watch it, and the computer isn't working to tell us we're running low. We got down to 9 miles of gas left, and thankfully were only one mile from a gas station near Nashville.

Do I dare mention this happened to us on the 3rd filling that day! J forgot again (and so did I)--thankfully we still had 33 miles left when we discovered it!

Thankfully we had a nice day of driving, and made it into Gatlinburg safe and sound, without running out of gas:) We first stayed at a campground right at the entry of the Smoky Mountain National Park, called Smoky Bear Campground. The owners were so nice. Even though we arrived pretty late, they were wonderful, and even helped us with getting the camper backed in.

Funny Moment: and my little five y/o Angel said: "Mama--a tick bit Makayla (our neighbor girl) in the head trying to make a hole in her brain!"

Today's Wildlife Encounters: in the middle of the night, right outside of our camper (right out of the window of the side where J and I slept)--we heard this growling--purring--like some sort of wildlife feline animal---it was at our fire pit, just 5 feet from us---we actually believe it was a cougar---as soon as I turned my flashlight on it took off--I know it was at least the size of a big dog. It's probably good it didn't stick around, eh:)

My Little Mermaid

My five year old Little Angel has had an interest in mermaids as of late. She's been asking me questions about them, such as, "mama, do mermaids have soft skin or fish skin?" And she's been asking questions about swimming and how they walk, etc. (And no we haven't watched Little Mermaid in at least two years, and I remember her being very afraid of the movie when she was a toddler:). She's been asking for a mermaid barbie doll. And last night, after she went to bed (we just require that they stay in their rooms, they can continue to play, draw or read in their rooms after "bedtime")---she called her daddy and asked him to find a mermaid book. Then about a half hour later she called him back to give him her present---the mermaid art above. I thought it was adorable:)

Mother's Day

Yesterday was a very nice day. My husband and beautiful daughters took me to a nice brunch at Matty's (our local bar, believe it or not, but it's classy there:) They have a beautiful room in the back that is full of windows, and the natural lighting was incredible! They only take a limited number of reservations, so it was a nice intimate setting--it wasn't loud, and it wasn't crowded--it was perfect! And they came over and gave each mom a pretty potted African Violet!

From there we drove to Boerner Botanical Gardens (part of the same park system that has our Wehr Nature Center)--it's only about a mile from our house. We've been there to see some of the summer concerts there, have taken nice long walks on the roads and on the trails, have gone cross country skiing, and have gone to the many playgrounds (it's a very large park), but sadly we've never actually gone into the gardens in the whole nine years we've lived here! (We even looked for a house built along the park for easy access when we were house-hunting, but decided we didn't want to pay Milwaukee County taxes:) What a hidden treasure! The girls had a wonderful time running around, looking at the beautiful waterfall, climbing rocks, walking across the wooden bridge; and mama had a wonderful time with her camera:)

Biking and Hiking

The girls are at a nice age now where we can take them out to a nearby bike trail and let them ride as we walk Piper. We aren't as comfortable doing that in our own beautiful neighborhood, because we don't have sidewalks. The bike trail works out perfectly, and we can even actually get some exercise while walking now (as opposed to walking at their pace:) because we can't keep up with them on foot (while they are on their bikes).! It was pretty with some wild life and the beautiful sounds of the tree frogs; and the trees are finally starting to bud, I hope!