Friday, September 26, 2008

I'm Home From North Carolina



Hi, fellow bloggers!


It's so nice to be back! A big hug for all of you reading this. :) My vacation was lovely but home is where the heart is! :) And there is no describing the difference of being comfortable in our house to living in a tent in the outdoors and using a bath house....ahhh, the comforts of home. :)


I promised pictures and pictures you shall have! I'll have you know that choosing pictures for this post from all my 500+ pictures of the trip was EXTREMELY difficult. But here goes. :)


First of all, guess who stowed away in the van?

Survivorman, of course!

Here he is seated on the picnic table in the middle of our campsite right next to a dish of cranberry jelly. In the background you can see my the tent that my brothers and I slept in. It divides down the middle and they had half of it and I had half of it.

Mama cooking over the gas stove, Daddy relaxing. The yellow tent was for my parents. (You can also see someone else's camper in the very back... they left after our first day there and so we had a bit more breathing room)

Here's my half of our tent, complete with Airbed, pillows, duffel bag, and Vera Bradley Purse! The gorgeous Vera Bradley purse was given to me by my very dear friend Joanna and I was absolutely delighted with it!! Thank you Joanna!!!




Here is my brother Mark in the middle of Deep Creek, which ran right past our campsite and made a lovely trickling sound to lull us to sleep at night.


Here are my dear parents on a hike in some very pretty woods.







We had to bundle up in the evenings and mornings when the temperature dropped.....


I was really cold!!



Here is a rare picture of Mark actually wearing some kind of coat...usually he sticks to a hoodie and insists he's not cold. Steven likes wearing his blue down coat, so that's not unusual. In this picture you can see how close the stream was to our campsite...


Here is a beautiful part of Deep Creek that we had a picnic lunch right next to...it was heavenly!
Here's Mama next to it...

Here is a beautiful trout that Daddy caught with his fly-rod...look at the pretty spots!



Here is Indian Creek Falls...a gorgeous waterfall. Daddy and I hiked to it one day and spent the afternoon fishing (Daddy) and photographing (me).

And the Smoky Mountains were beautiful!


I found a little mushroom along one of our hiking trails and I had to stop and take a picture. :)

Anyway, I have hundreds more pictures (literally) but that's all for now. I may post more in the future.

I'm glad to be back!

Julia

11 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  2. Those are great pictures! I'm glad you're back too. :) The weather and sites look perfectly wonderful! I'm glad you had fun, and I agree with you, "but home is where the heart is!"

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  3. Aw, yea! Cool post!! :-D
    Are some of those pictures from Andrew's Bald? Did y'all do much hiking? I guess they wouldn't be from Andrew's Bald because you were in NC. Anyway, I LOVE the pictures!
    I know what you mean by brothers not wearing coats or anything. My brother is very much like that. :P
    And I STILL love the pictures!!

    ~Madiosn

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  4. Great pictures!! BUt you are right--home is where hte heart is!!

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  5. WELCOME HOME, DEARY!!!! I'm so glad you're back! And thanks for the WONDERFUL email - I shall respond to it when I have enough time to do it justice...a nice email deserves a nice reply. :o)
    Love the pictures, but LOVE the fact that you're home now. ;o) I've missed you for the past two Fridays. :o( But maybe we can get together soon! :o)
    I did receive your BEAUTIFUL postcard - today, actually. THANK YOU! That was so nice of you to think about me and send that! You're such an awesome friend!
    Btw, it DOES look COLD from all the pictures! BRRR! Is FL going to be that cold when we go in January? (Which, btw, I am SO looking forward to! Yay!)
    Ok, I'll save the rest for a later email... ;o)
    Oh, and I'm so glad that your dad had an awesome birthday. How cool that you guys got to spend it that way. :o)
    Ok, ok now I'm really going. (Before this turns into an email length comment...) lol
    LOVE YOU, GIRL! And I'm SO GLAD you're HOME! *HUGS*
    Joanna

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  6. Hi Julia!

    I loved all the pictures. The mountains are so pretty. I glad you all had a good time.


    Love,

    ~M.E.~

    McKenzie

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  7. Thanks for the comments so far!! :) It's so nice to be blogging again! :)

    Thanks Joelle!

    Madison, we did not visit Andrew's Bald, (I'm not sure where that is) but we did go to Clingman's Dome...the highest point in the Smoky Mountains...WOW, what a view!... and also visited several hiking trails including one that led to Indian Creek Falls, which was spectacular!

    Thanks Ella!

    Dearest Joanna,
    It's so delightful to hear from you again!! :D What a lovely long comment!!! :o) It made me smile outside and in!! :)
    I don't think FL will be too cold...50's or 60's at night and 70's in the daytime...for December, anyway! :) I can't wait either!!
    Love you!

    Julia

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  8. Thanks for commenting, Mckenzie!! I appreciate it. :)

    Julia

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  9. I love you blog header! The picture is beautiful!

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  10. Those are great pictures! I love them all! IT looks like you had SO much fun! Thanks for sharing!

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  11. RYC: Me, too! God has blessed me tremendously by causing our paths to intersect. Now I hope they run parallel forever! ;o)
    In all seriousness, thanks for being an awesome friend. I'm so glad we're going to be graduating together. For now, keep up the hard work! :o)
    Love ya!
    Joanna

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Hi! Thank you for leaving a comment on my blog. I hope you are having an absolutely wonderful day. :)

Please remember to keep your thoughts and remarks kind and pleasing in the sight of our Lord.

I would encourage you to sign your name to your comments... otherwise it might not be published.

If you have a question you would like to ask me, feel free to leave me your email address - it will not be published - and I will try to answer or help as best as I can. :)

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Love & Blessings!
~ Julia ~