Not Much Time for Blogging

Getting in the back~to~school routine has been sooooo tough for me this year...lots of teacher trainings this summer!! {Do you know what Common Core is? Well, I do!} After teaching teachers all day, all I want to do is come home, play with the girls, and watch the Olympics. I've got lots to catch up on...here and around the house. Laundry has piled up, the house is already a wreck ...and school hasn't even oficially started yet!!

As a result of my complete and total exhaustion, we {me, Granny, Michelle, and the kids} decided to take a spontaneous trip to the mountains last weekend. We left right after my Thursday class and stayed through Sunday. We didn't do much, but it was nice to get away for just a few days.

Mallory thought she could hike the mountain wearing these rain boots.

 Transformers meet the ponies...

The Chocolate Bear...

The girls wanted their pictures taken with Queen Elinor, Mor'du, and one of the triplets. I apologized to the owner for taking pictures, but she actually said that people come in every day to take pictures with the bears! Really?? By the way, have you ever tried caramel~sea salt fudge? You should. You really, really should.

How cool are these hillbillies? And how tiny does Anna Claire look?

Mast General Store and barrels and barrels of every kind of candy you could imagine...

On the way home we stopped at a road~side veggie stand and I bought "groceries" for the week: corn, squash, tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, blue berries and raspberries. We've eaten very well this week!! I'm sad that we've just about run out of mountain~grown veggies.

Thankfully, I don't have to work on Friday...we're headed to the PGA...hooray!!

Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire

It was H~O~T in the mountains. So much for escaping the heat. The mornings were cool, but things warmed up quickly. So, what did we do in the evenings? We built a fire and made smores! Lip smackin' good...

The cousins...

This girl is going to be a veterinarian. I had to drag her away from this baby goat at the petting zoo.

When you only take one small bin of toys and books you have to get creative. The girls "decorated" the swing with painter's tape.

Uh~oh. Are we in trouble?

Two~may~toes from Granny's garden. Yummy!

Hiking up the mountain...

Can you see Dylan? He pushed that truck all the way up the mountain and back down!

We had fun and the girls did great in the car {I was worried about the five-hour drive}, but Mallory had a tummy bug while we were there which made things a little uncomfortable for her some of the time. The three of us also slept in the same room because I was afraid if I slept in my own room the girls might wake up in the middle of the night and not remember where they were...which they both did. All in all, this was great practice for the beach next week...Edisto, here we come!