Back to my Vacay recap and another MOTW

Eeeep, so sorry, didn't mean to be away so long. Let's see where was I, oh yes, last Friday was our 3rd leg in our trip from Georgia to Kentucky.
Amazingly the day dawned beautifully (although once again the power was out at the campground we stayed in, but that didn't hamper our efforts to be on the road by 8) We enjoyed the scenery for our shortest travel day and arrived at the Reunion site before lunchtime! (the pic is of a bridge crossing Lake Cumberland in Bronston Ky)We got the trailer set up right quick and headed off to the pool. (I threw some laundry in while the boys attempted to swim) I say attempted because the water was frigid!!! The younger 2 played in the water for about 30 minutes before their teeth started chattering. Meanwhile, my FIL arrived so my hubby took the boys off to go say Hi to their Pappaw. =D I stayed poolside to wait for the laundry to finish. I grabbed a book from the 'library' and settled in the sun to read. (can I just say that I am really good when it comes to making sure my kids get sunblocked, but suck when it comes to remebering myself!!!) Yup you guessed it, I burned my butt! (well not actually my butt but the backs of my legs all the way up to the tuck just under my tush! (argh I really wish I had taken my board short style bottoms instead!!!) And what didn't I pack...aloe! So needless to say I was rather uncomfortable the next few day! lol
Most of the family arrived Friday evening and we had a great time roasting hot dogs over the campfire and just hanging out! (more on the actual reunion tomorrow!)

Since I knew my nails would get scuffed up while traveling I left mine plain, so for you today I have my current mani. Special FX by Funky Fingers is a great rich red, (I figured since July's birthstone is the Ruby I'd make each mani this month include a nice rich red! =D) After 2 coats I added a swirl of polka dots done in pearl acrylic paint.
I much prefer using acrylics paints for my nail art as it doesn't dry as fast, so I don't feel like I'm wasting as much nor do I feel quite as rushed. After the dots dried I added 2 coats of Orly Fifty Four which is a sheer shimmery pink.

Ooooh ooooh ooh, I almost forgot to share the Barbie dress I made last week while we were camping!
I used some hand dyed pink knit material and made essentially a tube dress. To zhuzh it up a little I added a trio of ruffles down what was supposed to be the center front. I used the technique shown HERE. While I like the ruffles at the front I twisted it as I went to remove it and realized I liked them way better down the side. I did a bit of gathering at the neckline and then stitched on a gold hoop jewelry finding to hold the ties. It still needs a few accessories, but it will be up for sale shortly! =D

Onto Day 2 of our vacation... (lots of pics)

Well shock of all shocks Thursday morning broke to what but more pouring rain!!! We were up and putting up the jacks on the trailer by 7am and on the road by 7;30. While a small part of me wished we had been able to stay longer at Vogel, (it truly was beautiful) my saner brain knew that the rain would've made us all miserable! We headed off down the road and stopped for gas at a station/shop called Booger Hollow, I swear only in the South!!! LOL
After a bit of soggy driving we crossed into North Carlina for about 30 miles. (did I catch the Welcome to... sign, nope I missed it! LOL) The 'big' town we drove through in NC had several charming antigue/junk shops I would've loved to check out but alas not in the cards.
We continued driving and crossed into Tennessee. Our plan had been to drive on to the TN-Kentucky border before stopping, but Donnie was still wiped out and a bout of car sickness from our youngest (note to self, NO orange juice for little man on car trips!!!) had us deciding to cut this leg short by about an hour. The rain thankfully let up as we headed into the Tennessee mountains...It was very evident why they call them the Smoky Mountains. We ended up stopping at a family run campground about an hour south of the border. While it was nice we did experience a power outage for much of the time we were there.
The boys were bummed since the power was out they had closed the pool. :-( BUT the power came back on and we were not only able to play at the pool for a few hours, but watch a movie after dinner as well. The power went back out during another deluge of rain. Now me personally I was truly dreading trying to sleep as I am very used to having a fan on, and with the pouring rain it wasn't a good idea to leave the windows open. Thankfully the power was back on before we headed to bed and stayed on long enough for me to fall asleep. I'm not sure how long it stayed on as when we got up in the morning it was off again. No matter though as we were on the road by 7am again. (more pics from our trip are being added to my Flickr page HERE)

Holy Smokes it's July already!!!! (wordy, wordy, wordy)

Where on earth did the time go???? Sorry to have been away so long, but right after my last post I celebrated my 34th birthday. (Yay me!! =D) Didn't really do anything special just tried to relax before leaving on vacation.
My husbands' family reunion was the 25th so we headed out on Wednesday. We had planned to be on the road by 10am... we hit the campground at 9am to hitch up our trailer and be off. Well we had purchased a solid-arm weight distributing sway bar to replace the standard towing package. We didn't think it would take very long to install it...well boy howdy were we wrong! It was almost 2pm by the time we got the thing hitched up and got on the road. (in hindsight, things like that should ALWAYS be done the day BEFORE you leave. Although thankfully we discovered the 'tricks' to it and are now able to hitch up and be ready to roll in less than 15 minutes! =D) So anyways we hit the road and were on track to miss rush hour traffic in Atlanta, except Mother Nature had other plans and threw a horrendous storm at us as we were hitting the outskirts of ATL. Traffic slowed to a crawl as we slogged through copious amounts of rain and huge wind gusts. Now ATL is not my favorite place to drive on a good day so needless to say this portion of our trip was not cool. Thank goodness my husband is an excellent driver and we made it through the storm without any issues. However since the weather had traffic slowed to between 15-25 miles an hour by the time the storm let up we were stuck in rush hour traffic. (yes it literally took us almost 2 hours to get through the outskirts of atlanta!!!)
What should have taken us 4 hours ended up taking us 7!!!! By the time we reached Northern GA and Vogel State Park it was 9:00pm and pitch black, oh yeah and btw it was pouring down rain again!!! We hit the park after hours and grabbed our reservation info off the Late Arrival Board. There was a map, which sadly was poorly designed and a notice.
What did said notice say... Be Bear Aware!!!! ( the note went on to advise that a black bear had been seen repeatedly in the park/camp and reminded folks not to leave food out! Ugh talk about freaking me out. Thank goodness we found a pull through site right across from the comfort station! It was late and raining so we didn't even bother to unhook the truck fromt he trailer. We dropped the jacks (in the rain!) and settled in for the night. Within an hour we were all in bed!
I'll post about Thursday's journey either later tonight or tomorrow. Bye for now, friends