Back from our Journey

Sorry to just kind of disappear. We had a busy week last week and then took off to the mountains for a long weekend. It has been so crazy that I don't remember too many details from last week. In the mountains I don't have internet access, so four days without a computer.

The biggest highlight was that Mary received her eye glasses on Tuesday. We have not had much time to put them to use, but she does look really nice in them.

We left Thursday morning, early, so that we could have time to stop at Melora's from Accidental Blogger. We had a wonderful time meeting her family. It was a first for me to actually meet someone that I only know from Blogland. You know, one of those invisible friends. Her family is wonderful, open and friendly to accept us in and feed my large group lunch. Her husband, Ed, made one of the best homemade pizzas I have ever had. My Katie and her K totally hit it off and disappeared for nearly the entire time we were there. Mary and T ran around outside, visited the local cemetary and found a patch of blackberries.

Before we left their house Mary managed to find and catch the largest Praying Mantis I have ever seen. Being us, we actually had an insect carrier in the car, which Mary used to take it to her next big thing... Sleep-over Summer Camp.

This is her first year of being able to go away to camp. Granted, it is the camp her Uncle is the Director of, but still very exciting. The camp ran from Friday afternoon through Sunday afternoon. So, I stayed with the rest of the kids at DH's parents, about 30 minutes away. Mary had a blast at the camp and we will have pictures developed soon from her disposable camera. She is ready to go back next year.

While we were at the in-laws the kids had a wonderful time in the woods. They caught butterflies that were there by the hundreds. We saw deer just about every time we turned around. This one just kind of hung out along the road coming down off the mountain.

Mary got my camera out of the bag and snapped some pictures of us heading up to the house.

Pasture land being converted to housing even up here.

The mountain here is the one we were heading to.

I wish I had taken more pictures, but in the moment I never really thought of running in and grabbing the camera.

After picking up Mary from camp, Uncle was able to spare a few moments and pose with all the kids.

I think this was the first time since Robbie's baptism in March that he was actually able to see Robbie awake. Robbie has changed so much since then.

Today we headed home, but had to make a pit stop and meet Melora and her family at Stone Mountain Park for a chance to play on the rock slide. It sounded like so much fun when she described it that I knew we needed to do it if we had a chance.

After the initial, "this water is freezing" the kids warmed up and had a blast. They did not want to leave even with the prospect of ice cream ahead of them.

This little guy scared a lot of people, including one snake-phobic person who went after him with a cane and scared everybody out of the water because of the 'deadly' copperhead. It was either a Northern Water Snake or Southern Water Snake, perfectly harmless.

We finally made it home a little after seven this evening. It has been a long trip. Fun, but long. I am glad to be home even if it does feel like an oven outside. I've been unpacking and trying to acclimate and trying to get rid of the headache that developed on the way home (rush hour traffic, detour around bad car accident and Robbie screaming the last 30 minutes).

Home Sweet Home!

Peace,

Amy