Twin Lakes

This past weekend we went back to the Twin Lakes campground on Lake Hartwell with our friends and neighbors Rob, Melanie and their three kids.  This was their first trip in their new motor home, so we were more than happy to go with them for their maiden voyage.

It was hot and humid, but we had a nice breeze coming off the water.

Bottoms up!

Saturday morning was beautiful, if not hot...  The campground had a nice beach, although it was a pretty good trek from our site.

Then there is this...  A really good storm moved in.  That's Stu pointing at a drip in the awning.

My camera was inside nice and cool, my lens kept fogging up, so I've got some fuzzy shots.

Awesome...

Zoe splashing in the mud puddle.

Stu, Mel and Zoe checking out the water after/during the storm.

Danny, Mel and Zoe.

The waters great, come on in!  And we all did...

That will make a good mess of things!

So happy the rain stopped!

Now, back to the fire and s'mores! 

Sunset after the storm.

Lights up...check.

Fire roaring...check!

And a good time was had by all!  Our summery white sangria turned to red...

Happy Campers!

Cece, Danny, Zoe, Rob, Mel, me and Stu.

This cutie as grazing not far from the dumping station.

Stu showing Rob the art of tank dumping...

We are off to Seattle tomorrow!  Yahooo!

4th Of July With The Fords

We celebrated the 4th of July on Friday with our good friends the Fords, good thing too, we finally got a small break in the rain.

Meet our main course...

So yummy, and gone...

We were up at Grassy Fork, about half an hour away from our place further up in the mountains.

This is the creek that fills the pond.

Kids swinging on vines across the creek. 

Yahooo! 

It was so nice to see the sun, if only for a few hours.

Paddle boating on the pond.

It's hard to see in this picture, but Jerry has a citronella incense stuck in his hat and burning... the biting things were out in force.  This is also about the time the rain started again.

This is Andy, behind his back is what they call a "sparkler bomb"...  Take a whole box of sparklers and tape them together... 

Light and run! 

The boom is amazing considering it's "just" sparklers!

This is Ben, guess what he's doing...

We are learning all kinds of thing here in Tennessee!

Now it's the kids turn to play with the sparklers.

Fireworks!

                        

Renovations!

After all the rain we've had, and are still having, we have renamed the "Bus to the "Arc"...  We spent all day yesterday making some modifications, little changes in some cases, with big improvements!

We started in the shower, the original shower head was so low I about had to do a back bend to wash my hair...not any more!

Next was the dinette, we don't need the extra bed, it's so uncomfortable and certainly doesn't fit more than 2 adults, so it's off the team!  

Not to mention it takes up a lot of room!

Bench seats gone, the table is up next.

Wooo Hooo!  Stu is going to make us a new table this week out of walnut, I can't wait to see it! 

That's right kitchen sink faucet...you are next!

How about them apples!  I love it!

We are going camping again in two weeks so we'll have something by then...

Around The Yard

With all the traveling we have been doing, we haven't paid much attention to our yard this year, with the exception of Stu's "envy of the neighborhood" lawn.  

But....  Stu did finish our newspaper box to match the mailbox he made a few months back.

This is the front.

As usual, he did a great job!  I love it!

There is the matching set.

It's hard to believe this....

Looked like this...  This was taken in May of 2010 just before we started the house.  And this was cleaned up compared to what we started with!  Stu's a worker bee for sure!

We've had so much rain in the past few weeks, things are getting a little overgrown.

For the most part everything is handling the rain and lack of sun pretty well.

Except my poor roses, first the aphids got them, then the Japanese beetles and now mold...

My lavender isn't loving all the rain either.

The grass is looking great though!

Still no flowers on our crepe myrtle trees yet...

The backyard is finally holding it's own, the past few years it has struggled, but looks good now!

We are looking forward to getting some sun soon. This has been the wettest and coolest (no complaints there) Summer we have had here so far.  Looking at the weather forecast...it's not going to be any time soon.  But we all know about those weathermen...we'll see what we end up with! 

Rotten!

I went outside first thing this morning to refill the hummingbird feeder and found this...  My beautiful basil plant sheered off at the base, not eaten, just cut.  We've got some evil wildlife...  Looks like we're having pesto for dinner!