• Travel

    Gatlinburg, TN Trip {Day 1}

    Forth July 4th Trip 2013::Gatlinburg, TN {Day 1} Chalet ~ Day 2 ~ Day 3 ~ Day 4 ~ Day 5 Wednesday we got up pretty early so we could head up to Gatlinburg for the weekend. The trip there it monsooned for a good 2 hours, making the trip exhausting and stressful. Luckily the rain lightened up and we could relax a bit and make up some time. When we got to Townsend, TN, we started looking for a place to eat lunch. We stopped at the Black Bear Cafe. We enjoyed a quick lunch (cheeseburger, grilled cheese, grilled…

  • Travel

    Gatlinburg Chalet

    Our 4th Annual 4th of July Trip {the Chalet} Day 1 ~ Day 2 ~ Day 3 ~ Day 4 ~ Day 5This year for the 4th of July, we went further away from home to visit Gatlinburg, TN. Rob and I have fond memories of this place and it has become a place that our kids love as well. We rented a chalet up on top of Ski mountain. It was a nice, roomy place except for the kitchen and dining room. The decor is a bit outdated for those that are concerned about that. We didn’t mind. We…

  • Travel

    Cub Scout Beach Trip 2013::Pensacola, FL

    This past weekend was the Annual Cub Scout Pack Summer trip, but instead of venturing to higher ground, we braved the heat at the beach. Yes, we camped near the beach in Pensacola, Florida. Many leaders suggest it every year and every year a few other leaders are quick to nicks the idea. However, this year we thought we’d give it a turn. We stayed at Big Lagoon State Park, which was quite large with lots of camping areas. (Wikipedia) After Breakfast of egg, sausage, & potato scramble, we had a quick FYI meeting and a group picture. The braves…

  • Travel

    Trip to Birmingham

    Drew and the AHS JV soccer team were in a tournament back in April. He went up with the team. Rob and I went up Friday night to watch the 2 games. Drove back to our friends’ lake house in Dadeville, then served at Emmaus Saturday morning and headed back up to Birmingham after that. Alex was with Rob’s mom while we did all this.

  • Travel

    Biloxi, MS

    Last weekend we went to the Mississippi Coast. You see we were supposed to go see Elton John a few weeks ago in Birmingham. Rob and Drew had tickets on the 8th row and I along with another friend of ours had tickets not so close, but Elton ended up sick. So we got notification 2 hours before leaving that it was cancelled. So bummed! Rob’s been keeping an eye out for Elton concerts within driving distance that had good seat available. He found some in Biloxi on the 16th row. It was a bit pricey, so I told him…

  • Travel

    Sugar Bowl Trip 2005::New Orleans, LA

    It’s not like I don’t have enough to do, but I find these little things that irritate me that become my obsession until I do them. One of which is going through my old Xanga posts namely Travel posts and reposting them with pics and more cohesiveness. The first one I found after talking to some of my student workers about going to Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I looked back at my post from them and was like “GAG!” So here’s my first post recreation. In January 2005, Rob and I went to Louisiana for the New Year. Auburn…

  • Travel

    Church Retreat {2013}

    The past 3 years Drew has attended the Winter Retreat for the Youth at Shocco Springs. They usually have about 500 youth and about 100 adults go and he just loves it! Since he and his friends have started attending they always come back telling stories of God, spreading the word, and the football game…a boys vs girls football game; one for each grade level. It’s an amazing time and he always comes back on fire for God. Just love to see that in him. Well, during the same time that the youth retreat is going on, at the same…

  • Travel

    MLK Weekend in the Mountains with Friends

    Over MLK weekend we went up to Blue Ridge, Ga with our friends the “S” family. We left Friday night after loading up the car. We arrived about 9ish, just in time to set up our air mattresses and hope in. Saturday morning we awoke to Mr. S cooking bacon. Rob got up and started cranking out waffles. After that we got dressed. The Drew went outside to see our dogs playing with the beautiful husky, Beckham, from up the hill who came to say hi. Once we packed the coolers for the day, we loaded up and headed to…

  • Travel

    Carnival Dream::Day 8 {Disembarkation & Daytona}

    ~ Day 1::Day of Embarkation ~ Day 2::Fun Day at Sea ~ Day 3::Cozumel ~ Day 4::Belize ~ Day 5::Roatan 1 ~ Day 5::Roatan 2 ~ Day 6::Costa Maya ~ Day 7::Day at Sea ~ At port in Port Canaveral On the last day of the cruise, you get up, eat breakfast, and head to the location where you sit until your tag number is called. You see here that our tag number was 34. We came to realize we were the 2nd to last group to be called. How did we get that lucky? We have no idea. **sarcasm**…

  • Travel

    Carnival Dream::Day 7 {Day at Sea}

    ~ Day 1 ~ Day 2 ~ Day 3 ~ Day 4 ~ Day 5:Part 1 ~ Day 5:Part 2 ~ Day 6 ~ Day 8 ~ The 7th day was a Fun Day at Sea. The day seemed to fly by. We started with breakfast. Then, a towel animal demonstration. We played some bingo and some trivia. One last nap in our cozy cabin. We enjoyed our last dinner and were so sad to say goodbye to our wait staff. Our bar waitress, Samali One last hurrah in the dining room. We also had to pack up our bags…

  • Travel

    Carnival Dream::Day 6 {Costa Maya}

    ~ Day 1::Day of Embarkation ~ Day 2::Fun Day at Sea ~ Day 3::Cozumel ~ Day 4::Belize ~ Day 5::Roatan 1 ~ Day 5::Roatan 2 ~ Day 7::Day at Sea ~ Day 8::Disembarkation/Daytona ~ Day 6 we got up early as we had a 7am excursion in Costa Maya, Mexico. In fact when we arrived it was still dark. Our adventure for the day was boarding a Catamaran for an exciting snorkel in the 4th largest barrier reef in the world called the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef at 585 miles long. Here Alex stands as we wait for everyone to gather…

  • Travel

    Carnival Dream::Day 5 {Roatan} Part 2

    ~ Day 1::Day of Embarkation ~ Day 2::Fun Day at Sea ~ Day 3::Cozumel ~ Day 4::Belize ~ Day 5::Roatan 1 ~ Day 6::Costa Maya ~ Day 7::Day at Sea ~ Day 8::Disembarkation/Daytona ~ So if you missed Part 1 of Day 5, you need to go read about it here. Here’s a few pics from our trip back from the zipline. Seventh Day Adventist Bilingual School After leaving the zipline, we asked Richard to drive us to “downtown” so we could shop. He took us to this weird strip mall. We noticed while we were there that an excursion…

  • Travel

    Carnival Dream::Day 5 {Roatan} Part 1

    ~ Day 1::Day of Embarkation ~ Day 2::Fun Day at Sea ~ Day 3::Cozumel ~ Day 4::Belize ~ Day 5::Roatan 2 ~ Day 6::Costa Maya ~ Day 7::Day at Sea ~ Day 8::Disembarkation/Daytona ~ Just FYI, I had so many pics I wanted to share from our day in Roatan that I decided to break this post down into 2 parts. I hope to have part 2 up tomorrow! We arrived in Mahogany Bay, Roatan early and since we weren’t doing a cruise excursion we were able to hop off the ship as soon as we were docked. We had…

  • Travel

    Carnival Dream::Day 4 {Belize}

    ~ Day 1::Day of Embarkation ~ Day 2::Fun Day at Sea ~ Day 3::Cozumel ~ Day 5::Roatan 1 ~ Day 5::Roatan 2 ~ Day 6::Costa Maya ~ Day 7::Day at Sea ~ Day 8::Disembarkation/Daytona ~ On Tuesday, we got up early and it was still dark…

  • Travel

    Carnival Dream::Day 3 {Cozumel}

    ~ Day 1::Day of Embarkation ~ Day 2::Fun Day at Sea ~ Day 4::Belize ~ Day 5::Roatan 1 ~ Day 5::Roatan 2 ~ Day 6::Costa Maya ~ Day 7::Day at Sea ~ Day 8::Disembarkation/Daytona ~ Day 3 was our first day at port. We docked in Cozumel around 9am. For our day in Cozumel, we had planned a day on our own. The nice part about not doing an excursion with the cruise line is that you beat everyone off the ship. So we caught a cab to Mr. Sancho’s Beach and had the first pick at a spot on…

  • Travel

    Carnival Dream::Day 2 {Sea Day}

    ~ Day 1::Day of Embarkation ~ Day 3::Cozumel ~ Day 4::Belize ~ Day 5::Roatan 1 ~ Day 5::Roatan 2 ~ Day 6::Costa Maya ~ Day 7::Day at Sea ~ Day 8::Disembarkation/Daytona ~ Sunday we started the day off with breakfast in the Dining Room. After breakfast, we took Alex to Camp Carnival and the rest of us went to Oceans Plaza to play Kryptic Challenge. Then, we watched Movie Charades. Host Battle Match Game and TV Theme trivia were next. Later we got our swimsuits on so that we could go out on deck for some sun and swimming. We…

  • Travel

    Carnival Dream::Day 1 {Embarkation}

    Here’s my first of probably at least 7 posts about our cruise earlier this month that will include lots of cruising tips. They may be a little spread out, but I’m just super busy now and am working on writing these up and going through photos as I have time. Friday we left to head up to Valley, AL to watch Drew march during halftime. We had made arrangements before hand to snatch him up as soon as they came off the field and head south. That’s exactly what we did. I think it was almost 9 pm when we…

  • Travel

    Bon Voyage, Y’all

    This month has been crazy!! I have been swamped with soccer league and soccer tourney pics the last month. I’ve barely had time to be excited about sailing on Saturday…OK, I admit, I’ve made time to be excited about our cruise. This past weekend me and a friend who I hired to help me shoot a soccer tourney took over 9,000 total pictures. So this week, we had to weed through them and thank goodness for Rob has gotten them put on the online galleries. So most hours that I was not working, this week I’ve spent them dealing with…

  • Travel

    Baton Rouge Visit

    I feel like I haven’t blogged in forever! I am so far behind and with each passing day, I get farther and farther behind. It’s so frustrating, but life has been so busy. Although, it’s summer, it sure doesn’t feel like except for the HEAT outside. Sometimes I think life would be easier if we all had a pause button, so I could get caught up! Never hurts to dream, right? Well, I’m going to do my best this week to get caught up on my pictures and my blog. Friday July 20th, we picked Drew up at the end…