HAPPY BIRTHDAY DROVER!!!!!!

Happy Happy Birthday,
From all of me to you,
I wish it was my birthday,
So I'd get presents too! Yay!

Happy 12th birthday, Glenna! I love you!

July "Give That Photo A Name" Contest: Enter Now!

Note: I was wrong. Hobbes' first swim was at Crab Tree Falls.

This month's picture that needs a name is:

C'mon, what is the first thing that comes to mind when you see this picture? What? Huh? Huh? Tell me!

As always, you may have three entries.

The winner of this contest will choose 4 colors and a theme (i.e. flowers, stars, plain) and I will make them a quilted bag! Oh yeah! And if a guy wins, I'll give them something else. Yeah. Something.

The last day to enter will be Saturday, August 2nd, so hurry up!

Good luck!

P.S.
Sheesh! August already?

P.P.S.
Hooray! August already! (My birthday is August 27)

North Carolina Part 6: Hobbes' First Swim!

...err-make that splash.

In Tennessee we went to Marguerite Falls (Dad, tell me if I'm wrong) and Hobbes had his first swim! Actually, it was more of a splash, but it was his first encounter with water other than his water bowl and baths. And he liked it! Obviously his coat is warm, because he did not mind the water one bit. My toes, however, were going numb...

Hobbes liked the car ride there almost as much as the place itself!

These are some flowers we saw along the trail.

And here we are! Hobbes had so much fun.

We really liked it too. Aren't the falls beautiful?


Nice place to have your first swim, wouldn't you say?

Hurry up, Mom! I can't feel my toes!!

Sorry guys, just one more time!

I guess this concludes our trip! Now, these posts are probably out of the order we did them in, but who cares? Remember to check in on Monday and enter the contest!

North Carolina Part 5: Graveyard Fields and Davy Crockett

Hello! I am writing from my Grandparents' house. We have been kind of busy, which is why I didn't write earlier today. Sorry!

Another couple of things we did while we were in North Carolina was go to Davy Crockett State Park and to the Graveyard Fields waterfall. In DCSP, we saw a house that was built to look like Davy Crockett's house.


Sorry I don't have more pictures of the state park. There was also a nice river that we had a picnic by.

We also went to the Graveyard Fields waterfall, which is one of my favorite places in the whole world! The water is really cold, though. :-)

Josh was the first to get in.

Joel and I took a little longer...

...but eventually, we got in too!

After we got out, we were really cold, so we decided to lie on the warm rocks!

Ooooooh...

Ahhhhh...
Ohhh...

:-)

It was really fun, like everything else we did!

Tommorrow: Hobbes' First Swim!

North Carolina Part 4: Devil's Courthouse

Another thing we did in North Carolina was hike up to a big rock called "Devil's Courthouse."
This is what it looks like from the parking lot.

After an exhausting half mile hike, we reached the top. The trail was really steep!

This is a view from the top, looking at the parking lot. There's our car!

We could see four different states form the top of that rock: North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia!

It was so beautiful. Here are a bunch of pictures of the views:

We really liked that place. But I can tell you, I liked the hike down a lot better. :-)

Tomorrow: Graveyard Fields and Davy Crockett

North Carolina Part 3: A Forest, A Stream, and Mittens

I forgot to tell you in yesterday's post about what happened on the hike back from the waterfalls. We hiked back up to the top of Turtleback Falls, which you pass when going on the trail. Joel wanted to go down again, so my dad took him. When they got back up to the top, it started to rain pretty hard. We were under a small tree with some other people, waiting to see if it would let up a little bit. But then, it started to hail! And the tree we were under wasn't very big or very thick, so it hurt! We decided to run for it. So much for my mom, aunt, and grandma staying dry! On the way back up the trail, it stopped hailing, but it was still raining and the trail was a giant mudslide! I got a bunch of little rocks in my shoes, so I just took my shoes off and walked barefoot. Eventually it stopped raining, but we were all soaked! Obviously, everyone had nice hot showers when we got back :-).

Anyhoo, one day my uncle showed us a really cool forest. It was filled with pine trees and it was amazing! I love forests, so I had a great time. Hobbes was with us, too.

Here's me in one of the pine trees. They are really easy to climb because they have so many branches!

The floor of the forest was just a bunch of pine needles that have piled up over time. My Uncle Mike stuck a stick through them really easily. (That's him off to the left.)

Isn't it nice?

Another day we met my uncle at a stream. He had to find a bunch of bugs there for school. He taught us how to find them. The water was pretty cold, though!

We had to pick up rocks and see if there were any bugs under them. Some of them were really big!

We visited this stream last time we were in NC, and we met a nice German shepherd that lived there. We named her "Mittens" because she wasn't very tough. She would grab big rocks in her mouth, lie down and lick them, and then bury them. Oh yeah, she was fierce.

We threw rocks into the stream for her, and she stuck her head in the water to get them.

We had a lot of fun. Well, that's all for today! Tomorrow: The Devil's Courthouse (Don't worry, it's not what you think :-).)

North Carolina Part 2: Gorges State Park

Sorry I didn't post this earlier today, I had scheduled it for this morning but Blogger had a problem and it didn't work.

One of the things we did on our trip to NC was go to Gorges State Park. There are three waterfalls there: the two main ones are Turtleback Falls and Rainbow Falls, and there is a small one that my dad and my brothers and I found downstream, but it doesn't have a name. We don't have any pictures of it. Mrs's family and the S's went to Gorges with us last year, so you guys will recognize these places.


This is the big one: Rainbow Falls.


This is Turtleback Falls. You can slide down it into a freezing pool at the bottom. I have never done it, mostly because it is so cold. Both of the boys and my dad have done it, though. That is Dad and Joel at the top, getting ready to slide down.

There they go! Check out Joel's hair!

That is my Uncle Mike. In every picture we have of him going down the falls he looks like he is sitting.

That rope that Joel is climbing is how you get back up to the top of the falls once you have already gone down them. The falls are to the right of Joel.

Howdy, Josh!
Now, for Rainbow Falls! This guy was crazy. He started at that log in the corner, climbed up it, and then climbed up the wall.

This is where you usually jump off into the pool. That is my Uncle Mike to the far left, and my dad is next to him.

"Cowabunga!" That is actually what he said when he went down, complete with arms in the air doing a crazy "King Neb" move. :-)

There's my Uncle Mike!

And look! It's our friend, the crazy dude! Dude, you're crazy.

Here's where the crazy dude was in relation to where the other people were jumping off. He tried to get higher (see "fantasy"), but then he looked down and decided to get a little lower (see "reality"). :-)


My Uncle Mike loves to fly fish, so he did some while we were there.

Here is a nice picture of us kids.

Well, that's it for Gorges State Park. Coming up tomorrow: A Forest, A Stream, and Mittens.

Until then, my peeps,

Peace out.