Travis Cottrell Concert

I had a "Girls Weekend Getaway" this weekend! LOVE those! A few friends and I drove to Destin, FL early Friday morning and spent the day shopping, eating, shopping and eating some more before eventually heading over to see Travis Cottrell in concert. He is fabulous! He is Beth Moore's worship leader and has traveled with her for years. When we all went and saw her in Jacksonville back in March we really liked his singing so one of the women looked him up on the web and found out he was coming to Destin this past weekend...and a "Girls' Weekend" came together.

If you have been reading my blog for any length of time you know that I like to take pictures of EVERYTHING! It's not often I go somewhere without my camera. This past weekend was no exception. But, my friends didn't want their pictures on the internet...so here's my compromise -

**names have been changed

SallySue** is the "oldest" of the bunch - our fearless leader (at least she tries to take charge - when WE let her! haha)

Baby sister SusieSally** loves to pull pranks - fortunately she was too tired (from having to sleep on an air mattress on a hard floor) so she didn't do any pranks this trip. She organized the whole trip though and to that I am very thankful because I had a great time!








Our poor driver - BeckyJo**- she had to do more U-turns than I've had to do in a lifetime!!! Driving in a van with 6 women with NO agenda?? BIG MISTAKE! She was such a trooper though.

LindaLou** - kept us rolling the whole time with her stand-up comedy. She is a school bus driver. I never knew this could be such a hilarious occupation.

My sweet, beautiful friend Tess (her real name) - she doesn't care if I show her picture. She is always quick to serve and make sure others are happy. Her wit is quick but her spirit is gentle and sweet.

They were complaining that I was constantly BEHIND the camera so Tess took my picture...yes, I was lounging! Very comfortable evening - not hot at all, great weather for an outdoor concert.

We had set up our chairs early and went back to the hotel for a little while so we had a front row seat. I loved the music they sang - it's all music we sing in church so we could sing right along with the band.








Travis has a FANTASTIC voice! He is truly blessed by God. Below is a video I got off of youtube with clips of some of their songs at a concert they did this year. Hope you enjoy!

Hotels with Internet Please

Tina and Bryant are flying into town this Friday for 2 weeks. While here they will be driving to Albany for two or three days to go house-hunting since that is where they are moving in August. I was talking to Tina on the phone earlier and she mentioned she has to find a hotel to stay in while she is in Albany. I suggested she get online and do some research now before getting into Albany and just choosing a hotel on a whim.

When Greg and I travel we have certain criteria we look for in hotels:

1. continental breakfast
2. FREE internet service
3. pool - preferred, but not necessary all the time unless we have Dakota with us
4. FREE parking - ticks us off to pay to stay in a hotel and then have to PAY to park in their parking lot! NO WAY HOSEA!!
   

We don't ask for much but we want these things everytime. With all the different hotel search sites and review sites out there it makes the job of looking for hotels so much easier! You can go to a site like HotelsCombined.com and choose what features you are looking for (Room Service, Restaurant, Parking, Pets Allowed, Pool, Internet, Business Center, etc) what city you are going to and the dates you need and this website will compare over 30 of the major reservation sites to find you the best prices.

Once you have found some hotels you might be interested in, I always refer to these websites to read the reviews written by customers who have stayed there.
Trip Advisor
Hotel-Guides
This has saved us from staying in hotels that "looked" like nice places in the pictures...but after reading customer reviews we realized the pictures were probably a lot prettier than the actual hotel. Once we got to the city and saw the hotel we were so thankful we didn't end up staying there!

We love traveling and we have stayed in many, many hotels over the last 13 years. I love the availability of these websites to aid us in our traveling needs. If you aren't using the internet to help you in your search for hotels - I strongly encourage you to give it a try...I think you'll be pleased!

Cross Country Trip...conclusion

When I left off here, we were in El Centro, CA. We had stopped around 11:00 pm at a hotel because I was road-weary and exhausted after driving for 3 days straight. When I called Tina to tell her I wasn't going to make it all the way that night I could hear the frustration in her voice. They were living in a hotel room on base waiting for me to get there. The plan was for them to go look for a place to live as soon as I got there with their car and I had already been driving for 2 days while they sat in a hotel room waiting. I understood their frustration but I also knew I couldn't drive any further.

When we got up the next morning and got back on the road we were surprised at what the scenery looked like. We had been driving in darkness for hours before stopping the night before so we had no idea what it looked like up until this point. Dakota called it "an arid wasteland" LOL. Nothing but brown, brown, brown for miles and miles.


Guess what? We actually saw tumbleweeds blowing across the road!! Haha


We had to go through a mountain range from El Centro into San Diego. Most of the mountains were Indian reservations. Dakota took pictures (while I drove) of the mountains because they were just these huge rocks. It wasn't until we got closer to San Diego that we finally started seeing some trees and greenery again. What a depressing place!




We finally made it!! Yes!! After leaving FL on Sunday we arrived safe and sound in San Diego, CA on Wednesday afternoon with only one speeding ticket. First thing I did was grab hold of my precious grandbaby who was only 4 months old at that time.


We were all staying in one hotel room together at the Marine Lodge. The next few days consisted of Bryant going to work and Tina and I trying to find them a place to live. Tina didn't feel comfortable driving out there on the CA freeways yet. Me, being the Nascar driver I am, had no problem with this and actually fell in love with CA driving! I had never been to CA before so I was enjoying learning my way around this small part of San Diego that they were going to be living in. When they were affected by the wildfires in October I knew all the areas Tina was telling me about and I was hearing about on the news because of my time I spent apartment shopping there with her in March. I like that familiarity.

Bryant isn't much for doing anything when he gets off work. He likes to just come back to the house (hotel room) and rest. Since Dakota and I were visitors and would be leaving soon we wanted to explore the city. We borrowed the car one afternoon and headed out...to find the Pacific Ocean. This was actually a hard task. Where we live in FL you can go to the beach (Gulf of Mexico) and park in huge parking lots and the beach is right there. It's not blocked by house after house, condo after condo or hotel after hotel. We don't have signs everywhere telling us "private property, no parking." We had to drive for over 2 hours to find somewhere that we could actually park (without paying an exorbitant fee) and get to the beach. Even then we had to walk about 6 blocks.

Dakota asked if he could go swimming. I gave him permission but as soon as he put his foot in the water and realized how cold it was he changed his mind.

It was nice to see, but I prefer our beach back home...the nice sugar-white sand! There's nothing like it in the world!

This was March 11th, Sunday afternoon - a beautiful warm day...you can see there are lots of people out enjoying the last bit of day before the sun sets. We spent about an hour here walking the beach, collecting shells (rocks?) before heading back to the hotel.


When Dakota and I had gone out the day before we went to Cabrilla National Monument State Park in Point Loma first before going to see the Ocean. The time of year that we were there was the annual migration time for the Pacific Gray Whales as they travel from the Arctic to Baja, CA. They pass right by Point Loma and the park. So we wanted to go whale-watching. Unfortunately we got there as the park was close to shutting down for the evening and there was lots that we wanted to do (and since I have to pay to get in) we decided to come back the next day with Tina and Bailee.

Although we didn't see any whales while we were at Cabrilla, we DID get to explore some tidepools. This was great because Dakota and I had just studied this in school and neither one of us knew what these were!! I was so excited to be able to walk down in this area and see what it was all about.

Dakota, Tina w/ Bailee in the pack getting ready to walk down to the tidepools.


Tide pools from above - it was low tide (obviously!)


When the tide is in, this area is full of water...


I know this picture doesn't do it justice, but there were so many neat little critters and creatures in these little pools of water! I loved this!


In the walls behind me are embedded hermit crabs, shells and other small creatures from when this area is full of water (high tide.)


We were back up top near the lighthouse now....this is looking down at the tidepools where we had just been.


Out in the Pacific Ocean, there are these small islands w/ mountains sticking up everywhere. I wish I had a boat...I would LOVE to go exploring!


Dakota and I stayed another day or two and then we rented a car and started our trek back to FL. It still took us three days to drive home. The neat thing about our return trip is we were able to see areas that we had missed the first time because we went through them while it was nighttime. I was hoping that Greg and I could make this trip together before Tina left CA. We love to travel and there were so many places I saw that I wanted to stop along the way and visit but I didn't want to do it without Greg since he's never been to CA either. It doesn't look like we are going to get that trip in because Tina is moving to GA in about a month. For this though -- I am ecstatic!!

Cross Country Trip

Once I made the decision to drive Tina & Bryant's car to CA from FL for them, I made Dakota go with me to keep me company. He did not relish the idea of being in a car for 2-3 days but I promised him we would stop and see things to break up the monotony of the trip but I needed him to go with me to keep me company. Honestly I hate driving. When I am at home I get out of driving whenever I can. I knew this was going to be a lonnnnnggggg trip and I wasn't about to do it by myself!

We packed up the car and headed out on March 5th, 2007. I had not traveled west since Hurricane Katrina had gone through and I was saddened by the ruins I still saw everywhere.

Dakota and I both like Mexican food but we don't get to eat it as often (unless we go somewhere for lunch) because Greg doesn't like it that much anymore. I told Dakota that we were eating Mexican while traveling through Texas because they can do some Mexican food up right! We stopped in Houston for dinner at a little Mexican restaurant...I don't think anybody spoke English. LOL, once Dakota and I realized that our waiter didn't understand a word we were saying we just pointed on our menus to what we wanted and hoped for the best. The food was WONDERFUL! Dakota ordered two tacos and got three but other than that everything came out perfectly.

We stopped in San Antonio for the night. The next morning after our continental breakfast and a quick swim in the pool we headed out to The Alamo in downtown San Antonio. We walked around there for about an hour and watched the movie about the history of The Alamo. Unfortunately we just so happened to be there on March 6th, the anniversary of the day the Alamo was overtaken so there were lots of dignitaries there and speeches going on and parts of the memorial that were closed off.

We left after about an hour and walked around downtown San Antonio by The Riverwalk instead. This was much more interesting! This is a river that runs through the downtown area - through hotels, a mall -- right through the middle of buildings! There are fountains everywhere and beautiful trees and plants. It was so beautiful!

We ate at Joe's Crab Shack for lunch. There are dozens of restaurants three stories high lined up on both sides of this river. You can sit inside or out on the patio area. We sat outside
overlooking the river while we ate our lunch.

This huge tree was right outside from where we ate...we had never seen a tree so big! We asked our waitress what kind of tree it was but she didn't know. I still don't know what it is?

We got back on the road about 1:00 to begin our trek across Texas. I was NOT looking foward to this. I just wanted to make it to El Paso if I could. I told Dakota to hunker down because we probably were not stopping the rest of the day (besides potty breaks) because I was on a mission to get to El Paso.

Now let me just tell you a little something about myself...I have a lead foot. I also think I was a professional race car driver in another life because I love to weave in and out of traffic to "get ahead" of the other cars. These two reasons combined are probably the main reason I don't like to drive - because I can't unleash my inner self...my REAL need-for-speed in my everyday driving. But in Texas...check out THIS speed limit ----------

Oh yeah babyyyyyy! That's what I'm talking about! That means I can go 90 right?? Whoohoooo I am in driver's heaven now! The road out there was so flat and you could see for miles and miles and miles so for about 2 hours I was driving 100 mph (oh the shock and horror - I know some of you are probably picking your jaws up off the ground right now! LOL) I slowed down to around 90 so I could clean my windshield...which means I wasn't paying attention to the road ahead of me...or more importantly the median ahead of me until it was too late...

Yep, I got pulled over for a speeding ticket. My first ticket I have ever had in my entire life. What was going through my mind as the officer was writing my ticket was the conversation my husband and I had before I left on this trip "Now, don't go getting any speeding tickets! You and your lead foot on the open road!"

I told him "What are you talking about? I've never gotten a ticket before. What makes you think I'm going to get one now??" Oh curses! He jinxed me!

When the officer asked me if I knew how fast I was going I told him no I didn't, but I knew I was driving fast. I told him I was cleaning off the windshield and wasn't paying attention to the speed. This was all the truth. He told me he clocked me doing 91 mph. I was thinking "Whoooowheeee, good thing you didn't catch me 5 mins ago, you would have clocked me doing 101 instead of just 91!" So I got my nice little ticket and got on my merry way. As soon as we got back on the road Dakota couldn't wait to call his daddy! Rat fink! No loyalty whatsoever!
Haha - his daddy put him on speed patrol - told him he was in charge of the speedometer from now on and when it got above the speed limit he was to put the pressure on me. He did and still does to this day!

The drive to San Antonio to El Paso was long and boring with rocks and scenery much like these.

It was very late when we arrived in El Paso - I called Greg and asked him to get on the computer and find us a hotel to stay in and reserve us a room. I was too tired to deal with trying to find a room at this hour but I didn't want to just stop anywhere and risk paying a lot of money when a better deal could be found elsewhere. He hooked us up good!

In the morning we went through the same routine of the continental breakfast and swimming in the pool before we got on the road again. The drive through New Mexico and Arizona was so much prettier than Texas. I loved how the scenery changed as we went from state to state all the way across the country.

We reached a point in Arizona where Dakota started going stir crazy and just had to get out of the car. I saw a sign for Picacho Peak State Park ahead so I pulled off the interstate real quick and we went to this park. We were there a couple hours hiking and rock-climbing. It felt great to get out and exercise after 3 days in the car!

The view was gorgeous from the top. The trip down was harder than the trip up because of all the rocks and pebbles. I had to sit and slide down on my butt alot because I was afraid I was going to slip on all the loose gravel and pebbles.

Dakota was getting a blister on his toe - poor guy! He was a trooper though. He had to wait on his old momma most of the time!!

Yes my face is red because I was hot!

Okay I can NOT BELIEVE how BIG these cactuses (cacti?) are????? They were everywhere!

Look at the shape of this one? LOL

Can you tell I like plants? Yet another cactus....

I thought we were going to make it all the way to San Diego that day but after 3 days of driving I was worn out. I ended up stopping in El Centro, CA for the night. I had no idea how far this was from Tina but at that point I didn't care. I was falling asleep at the wheel so I had to stop. When I woke up the next morning I was glad to discover we were only about 3 hours away.....

Home Again and Gone Again

We are back from our extended weekend getaway. It was a nice relaxing time with family. Greg, Dakota and I went and we took Justin and Brianna (my step-children) with us to Orlando for a family reunion. Greg's mom, sister and her daughter & husband and their son traveled with us and we all stayed together in a 5 bedroom/5 bath house in a gated community about a mile from Disney World. The entire family had rented homes in this community. I think we had a total of 4 homes occupied - there were LOTS of family members there!
I had never met Greg's side of the family before other than his immediate family so this was an adventure. Everyone was very nice but there were just so many people and this was one of those "out of my comfort zones" times when I just didn't feel the need to go above and beyond getting to know everybody. We only met for dinner every night so I would stick around and eat and chit-chat for a couple of hours then I would sneak away back to our house and just hang out while Greg spent time with his family. I was happy - he was happy and nobody missed me....until the last night when I didn't tell anybody goodbye. Oops, messed up there.

We drove all day Friday to get to Orlando...for those of you who don't realize it, it takes us 8 hours to get there -- even though we DO live in FL! By the time we got there and got unpacked it was time to go eat dinner with the family. After dinner we went to the grocery store for food items for the weekend.

We decided not to go to Sea World on Saturday because thunderstorms were in the forecast and it was expected to be nice on Sunday so we just rested and laid around the pool all day Saturday. Dakota loved that about the house....we had our very 0wn pool!! He spent every day in the pool!
I played Guitar Hero with the kids Saturday morning for awhile while Greg went up to one of the other houses to visit with his relatives. When he came back he and I snuck away to Wal-mart by ourselves (our only alone time on this trip - whoohoooo, big date at Walmart and lunch at Chick Fil-A...but anytime I can be alone with my honey is great!!)Sunday we headed to Sea World. This was quite a different experience for us. Our first trip to a theme park where we were on our own. The kids left us and went to do their own thing most of the time. They would meet back up with us for the shows and for lunch (since WE were buying) but for the most part we were on our own. Just leisurely strolling through the park doing what WE wanted to do...wow, I could get used to that!! I enjoyed the shows and the heat wasn't too too bad. We were there from about 9-5 and saw everything we wanted to see this trip. We went ahead and bought the FL resident Fun Pass which will allow us to go back unlimited times until the end of the year. It was only $10.00 extra and we do get down that way a few times a year so now we will already have this ticket and can go back to Sea World as much as we want.Me and my sweet boy are watching Shamu (the whale show). All of the shows were incredible! I love how the trainers interact with the dolphins and whales!Greg and his mom, Ruth. She had never been to Sea World before. She enjoyed herself although she received some sad news while we were there...a very dear, dear lifelong friend of hers in Indiana died during the day Sunday.
As soon as we got back home Monday she and Greg both began repacking for the trips out today. She left this morning to go to Indiana for the funeral on Thursday and Greg flew to New Jersey for a business trip until Friday. He then has to fly back out on Sunday to New York for another few days. After spending a wonderful weekend together I miss him terribly today!

Marriage Retreat 2008

I love to organize events! I run the Women's Ministry at my church and I'm always organizing something for that. If not for that, then I'm sometimes called upon to help plan other activities - for example our 2nd Annual Marriage Retreat in Gatlinburg, TN! We are leaving in 2 weeks for 4 days in the mountains - no kids, just adults...skiing, staying up late, going to a show, hanging out and having a good time. We had so much fun last year on this trip! Just to give you an idea of how to do this, I thought I would share with you the details of our trip. Cost per couple - $400.00 - includes lodging, activities, and all meals except travel meals (basically lunches) and one dinner.

Lodging- Mountain Laurel Chalets - if you pay for 3 nights you get one night free. We have 3 chalets rented and we were originally scheduled to go from Wednesday - Saturday only. When I found out about the free night's rental I gave everyone a choice of arriving early on Tuesday or staying an extra night Saturday. Once people gave me their answers I booked one chalet for an extra day on Tuesday and the other two chalets for Saturday night (at no extra charge!)

Meals - For those of us arriving early on Tuesday and those staying after on Saturday everyone is on their own as far as expenses go...but we are staying in a chalet so we can just purchase groceries and cook together those nights.

The meals I had to provide for with the money each couple paid was Wednesday night, all breakfasts, Thursday lunch, Friday Lunch, Friday night. I have 19 couples going which gives me 38 people so that is a great "group rate" to work with!
Wednesday night - $17.25 per person all inclusive (tax, tip, drink, dessert and choice of meat - several choices to choose from) Applewood Farmhouse Grill
2 free meals w/ group
Thursday Lunch - $7.75 per person all inclusive (1 free meal w/group) Bennett's BBQ
Friday Lunch - purchasing supplies for sandwiches, drinks, snacks for picnic lunch because we'll be driving into the Smokey Mountains for the day and hiking to a waterfall (weather permitting) - no restaurants will be around us.
Friday Dinner - going to prepare lots of chili and have it slow-cooking all day while we are in the Smokey Mountains so it will be ready for us when we get back to the chalets. (dessert, bread, cheese, crackers to go with that)

Activities We'll be having Morning Sessions on Marriage on Thursday and Friday at 9:00 am for about an hour and a half.
On Thursday after lunch most of the group will be going skiing at Ober Gatlinburg from noon - 10 pm. The group rate is $37.00 and includes tram ride, lesson, lift ticket and ski equipment. Those of us who aren't skiing will be shopping or perhaps attending a show of some sort - this is the off-season and a lot of the shows are closed right now (I'm still working on this part - but it will cost about 40.00 per person whatever we do! LOL)

On Friday after our morning session, and weather permitting we will be driving into the Smokey Mountains up to Newfound Gap and over towards Cherokee, NC. My plan is to hike to Mingo Falls because it is a short hike - less than 1 mile round trip.

Friday evening we are going into Pigeon Forge to The Comedy Barn

I will leave you with this clip from The Comedy Barn...it's long (9 mins) but if you haven't seen it, it's a hoot!!

Dakota's Ski Trip

My youngest made it home in one piece last night! He had a great time on his first ski trip AND his first time staying away from home like that without us. He did say though that he didn't like skiing - it was too hard. He loved tubing and ice skating, but he can live without the skiing. LOL I'm proud of him for trying it and getting through the ski school at least!

I'm All Alone for a few days

As of 7:00 a.m. today my sweet Dakota has gone off on his first trip with the youth group from church - they are going skiing in NC for 3 days. This is new territory for him AND for me! I've always chaperoned everything my children have done...but it was different with my older children because they were all in public school and not homeschooled like Dakota is. He practically begged to go on this trip without me. I gave in and let him go. So what I have done with my first day without a child around?
Took the Christmas tree down CLEANED house with MY music blaring!! Tomorrow I'm tackling Dakota's room...mwhahaha

From the Mountains to the Beach

We arrived home from our mountain vacation in Gatlinburg, TN on Christmas Eve, spent Christmas day with family, repacked our truck and headed to the beach for a week. My dad owns a beach house (as a 2nd home) and since he spent Christmas in Branson, Missouri this year I asked him if we could stay in his beach house for the week.

My step-daughter came with us so it was Greg and I and the two kids. It was awesome!
We had rain a couple of days but the weather was basically nice and sunny. The kids were even able to go out in the canoe one day!


One thing they got the most enjoyment out of was feeding the birds! Greg went by the day-old bread store and bought a huge garbage bag of "day-old bird bread" - they sell it for $1.99 and it comes with about 20 loafs of bread in there. The kids went through all that bread in 3 days - feeding the seagulls, herons, pelicans, and Canadian geese that came up. I have video of the geese swimming up to the pier and eating out of their hands.