Gracie turns 8!

On Sunday after we got back from the beach, we celebrated Samantha's birthday at Hungry Mother State Park restaurant. We (Chris, me, Doris, Sidney, Bob, Samantha, Wil, and Allison) had a nice buffet meal and then we watched Gracie open her b-day gifts. Afterwards, Bob, me, Chris and Samantha rented a paddle boat and took a nice ride on the lake.

(Wil, Let me know if you can't get these downloaded. I will get some copies made for you or I can e-mail them to you. Oh, and by the way... you are Robust, Yet Smooth)

As promised!

At Margaritaville... Me, Chris, Carrie, Ricky and Lisa.
You can't go there and not order THIS!
Chris went fishing in the evenings and me and Brady would walk up the beach or sit in our beach chairs. Chris caught a baby shark while we were the but unfortunately I don't have the picture to prove it. It was too dark to get a good picture when he caught it.
It was enjoyable having the camper at the beach with us because you don't get as homesick. Our camper is our home away from home. The only thing I missed about staying in a hotel is the oceanfront balcony. On our other beach trips, me and Chris spend a lot of time sitting on the balacony watching the tide roll in and we both really missed that.
I LOVE THE BEACH! I miss it already.

Arriving on Saturday. Carrie took pity on us that we were having to sit in the parking lot waiting on our site so she chauffered us around on the golf cart for a while.
Brady cruising on the cart.
Chris wore his cowboy hat all week. The chicks dig it... all the chicks except his wife.
Beach bummin'!
Chris's MECCA!

Here are more pictures from the beach. As I left off in my last post, we spent the night in Fort Mill, NC on Friday night. At 7:00 on Sunday morning, we pulled out of Fort Mill KOA on our way to Myrtle Beach. We arrived at MB at 11:00 but our campsite was occupied. The previous campers didn't leave until 2:00. Our friends' sites were open so they were all set up and kicked back by the time we pulled in to our site. It was raining when we set up the camper but about the time we finished setting up the weather turned out beautiful and we spent that first evening on the ocean and at the pool and lazy river. That is pretty much where we stayed all week. We only left the campground a couple of times to go to Camping World, Margaritaville, the Coach store, and Crabby Mikes. Chris and I both agree that it was one of our best vacations ever. We rented a golf cart and packed it up every morning with beach chairs, umbrellas, drinks and boogie boards and hit the beach. At night, most campers "cruised" on the golf carts down the main strip. Everyone had their golf carts pimped out with decorations. Chris and I cruised the first night until we realized we were too old. :) Chris was like a kid in a candy store at Margaritaville. He absolutely loved it and I didn't think I would ever get him out of the gift shop. We volunteered our friend Carrie to participate as the Salt Shaker when the music started playing Margaritaville. We had a blast.

I didn't update

my blog the whole time we were gone. Not because I wasn't thinking about all my faithful blog readers (cough) but because we didn't have WiFi at the campground. It was $10.00 a day. Eff that! Not that you all aren't worth $10.00 a day but you know what I mean. We are home safe and I have tons of pictures. I'll update later today.

We are on our way to Myrtle Beach

We got the camper all packed up and ready to go. We are on our way to Myrtle Beach. We plan on driving about half way tonight and spending the night in Fort Mill, SC.

We pulled out of the driveway at 5:03 this evening and met up with our friends Claude and Phyllis and Ein on the entrance ramp in Rural Retreat. Lisa, Ricky, Britney, Shane, Phillip, and Carrie are leaving sometime in the middle of the night and driving straight through.

We finally pulled into the KOA in Fort Mill around 9:00 tonight.
These dudes held us up for about an hour. We went 11 miles in one hour because these guys thought it would be a good idea to patch a couple of pot holes at 6:OO on a Friday evening.
Here we are sitting in traffic.
Chris, the navigator, looking "fly" in his shades.

We followed Claude the whole way.

Oh yeah. And I took all of these pictures on my new Nikon Coolpix camera. I wanted a small camera for trips like this when I didn't want to lug the big Rebel around. 8.0 Megapixels and it is the size of a credit card and about 3/4 of an inch thick. We've had cell phones bigger than this thing in the recent past. Isn't technology amazing?

I'll update often. Well, maybe I will and maybe I won't. I'm on vacation, remember? No plans, no rules.

Goodnight all.

I'm 31!

I think Levi and Maranda look like brother and sister. Is it just me? Oh, and Kailey kept a close eye on the chef. I don't think she really liked him. And she was far from impressed with his culinary skills and knife/ spatula juggling. I would have taken pictures of her crying but I was busy stuffing my face.

At the end the two guys in the picture below came out of the kitchen with a gong (I kid you not) and this drum thing and sang happy birthday. It was fun.
I have no idea what kind of face I am making in this picture but it definitely looks like we have had too much Saki, long island ice tea, and Miller Lite.

Steak, lobster ,and shrimp. Oh my!

I turned 31 on July 5th. To celebrate, Chris wanted us to try out the new Japanese Steakhouse in Wytheville. Levi, Maranda and Kailey joined us. We had such a nice time. We celebrated my birthday and also the birthday of another lady who was sitting at our table.

Holy cow!

When my neice Ellie starts back to school this fall, she will be a SENIOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Where has the time gone? When me and Chris started dating, she was in a carseat!

This is the most recent picture I have of Ellie. I took it at the studio when they were visiting VA this summer. Isn't she a doll?

And just for fun, lets post some other pictures I have of her to embarass her half to death.

Have you ever seen anything so cute in your whole life?

I mean, seriously? Look at that grin.

From the silver disco pants, black boots days gone by!

10th birthday! Ha ha!

I LOVE YOU ELLIE!

Yeah, so

I am averaging about a month between blog posts. What of it? I have been busy. See?


Here are 3 of the 1291 pictures I took of Nikki and Ted's wedding.

Strictly for the entertainment of my sister...

My sister calls this morning and as we are talking, out of my mouth comes a stream of expletives (that would be curse words, Batman). She asked me what I was doing and I told her I was trying to cut out Belle's lips and I was having a hard time. Chris bought me a new Cricut cartridge for my birthday (tomorrow by the way so get those gifts in the mail) and it is the Disney princesses. So, I am making a birthday card for my gay neighbor Shane. I finally get the lips done and when I glue them down, the darn things are too fat. Sharon said just to leave it and tell Shane she just had Botox injections. :) I promised her I would post the finished card, so VOILA!