I finally did it...

After years (yes years) of trying to make a "proper" Countdown to Christmas (and doing a few less than perfect ones)...

I finally did it , I made a Countdown to Christmas, in case you have't seen these they are intended to make the wait for Santa/Christmas a little shorter. I have seen these all over the Blog world and have been wanting to make a official one and i think it turned out quite nice.

The paper gift box/bags,the pine garland & the sparkly garland are from the dollar store as is the candy inside and and the little green pieces of paper are actually in the shape of Christmas trees (found at a local thrift store) as well as the lights. Each day there is a diffeent activity we will do (like making cookies, reading a special Christmas book etc). The boys seem to like it and it gives us something to look forward to.

That's it I just wanted to share, because this make me HAPPY!
Now we are finally counting down the days to Christmas, how about you?

A camping we will go.....................

Maybe I should say a camping we went.

We decided it was time to take the boys camping (again), it's been a while since we've camped and the boys loved it last time we went (the lake last time), our drive was a nice one.............

This time we decided to go to the Mountains, near Lake Lure and Chimney Rock. We packed up our gear and headed out on thursday morning (about a 3 hour drive), Hickory Nut Falls Campground:

Our Campsite:


Once we unpacked and got the tent up Rob decided that since our campsite was right on the River, really I mean it right on the river see........................


he needed to jump in (into 60 degree water, brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr). Crazy, eh?


We also took a walk around the campsite, we took a walk around the campsite, saw some groundhogs (lots of them). Rob took some pretty closeup pictures of them (they didn't seem to mind)

There was plenty of rock climbing and playing, making mommy nervous and daddy proud.
I managed to take some cool pictures:

Soon enough it was time to prepare dinner (sorry no pictures here) to busy getting the fixings for hot dogs and hamburgers.
Rob lit the fire:
We cooked and ate and pretty soon we were tired and ready for bed, we listened to NPR for a while and went inside, the boys and I played UNO for a while while daddy picked up the remainder of the nights dinner (putting it in the car, safe from critters)


See those tired faces...........................bedtime it is!
It was really nice that night and we had the wonderful sound on the river to lull us to sleep.

Early the next morning the boys were ready to play and climb some more while we prepared coffee and breakfast.

They played nice (most of the time ) and at least neither one of them ended up in the water.

Not sure what he was playing here, but I though it was cute.

Just because it's cute.....................

And yes Rob jumped in the water again (if you don't believe me) look here:



After we cleaned up from breakfast and got dressed we decided we would go to the tiny town of Chimney Rock, but when we tried to start the car (DEAD) so we had to call AAA (yep they rescued us, because believe it or not there were not many people at the campground).
We got the car started and decided to drive around to charge the battery and then stop to visit the shops.

There was a little "waterfall" by the campsite.

We could see Chimney Rock from the entrance to the campsite. Yep we were that close...

I just had to take this picture (while we drove around) He looks to concentrated and so QUIET!
We walked around the shops and along the trails behind the shops, just exploring (we saw a DEAD snake YUCK!)


Not sure why this picture came out a little blurry, need to reset me camera settings?

We also drove by Lake Lure and I had to make Rob stop so I could take this picture.
I just couldn't resist, it looks so peaceful. We finally decided it was time to head back to the campsite, it was still a little early so the boys and I played Monopoly for a while.
We climbed rocks again, acted goofy until dinner time.
We had dinner, then roasted marshmallows for SMORES.



and hung out by the fire until it was time for bed.

The next morning we headed to Chimney Rock, this is the sign that greeted us after we took the shuttle to the elevator.

Yeah, we took the elevator (we planned on walking all the way down so we saved our energy for that) and we got a bit of a lesson on the way up.

Before we headed to our climb, we made a "potty" break and Patrick insisted I take a picture of the inside of the bathroom because he thought it was soooooo pretty.

The whole inside of the bathroom was painted to mimic the outside.

That's where we are headed all the way to the top and then ALL the way back down...

On our way up, little by little.

We made it, we are at the top.

Here is the view form the tippy top , thank goodness it was a clear and wonderfully warm day.
We walked to all the nook and crannies taking pictures when we could.

That's the view from the other side, taken right before we head to Hickory Nut Falls and then to the clearing where the car is parked (ALL THE WAY DOWN DOWN DOWN)

A little tunnel called the SUBWAY, we kept walking, and walking until we could hear the sounds of water falling ....
We made it to Hickory Nut Falls (I guess some movies have been filmed here among others "The Last of the Mohican's"
Goofy boys in front of the not too impressive falls...

One of the few pictures of all 4 of us (a nice lady offered to take it, and even though Rob said NO I said YES!)
From there we walked a 5 mile hike down to the bottom of the mountain. I took no pictures (I was to concentrated on catching my breath and making my legs would keep on going). the boys did it with no problem (Rob and I on the other hand...)


We finally made it to the bottom of the mountain, climbed in the car and drove back to the campsite, of course relaxed until it was dinner time.

Rob lit our last fire, ate dinner and smores and went to bed early (by them even the boys were tired, it had been such a long day.) We slept like babies.

Next morning we woke up early and we were going to drive to Grandfather Mountain but Rob woke up not feeling too good (probably from jumping in that freezing cold water) so we decided to pack up and call it a day...
we took down our tent, packed up our gear and said goodbye to our campsite, until next time.
We had a good time but it will be nice to get home and sleep on a real bed.

'till next time

Birthday bash........................

Come join us........................

As promised pictures of Robert's birthday, but you'll never guess what we had besides a water slide and junk food............................

A surprise guest Abuelita and Abuelito came to celebrate with Robert (let me tell you the funny story about that).............................
We had it all prepared, gifts were bought, food/snacks prepared and inflatable slide was being delivered all I had left was to go get the "cake" and maybe pick up some balloons................so I head to the local grocery where I ordered the cake (yep ordered I do not bake very well) and it's right next to a Dollar Tree store and I thought I would pick up some balloons..........................I park next to a car with the door open and a "lady" smoking......................when I turn off the car and look more closely at the "lady" in the car I parked next to ...................can you guess who it was....................................Abuelita! My mom sitting right there in the parking lot of the grocery store I was about to go into.

HAHAHAHAHAHA! They had planned this to be a huge surprise and the ones surprised were them.......................... needless to say I went back home and pretended I hadn't seen them and all of a sudden they know on the door and I tell Robert to go open that it's probably one of his guests and SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They were hidden behind bunches of balloons.

Of course the boys especially Robert were delighted to see them.
Since the slide was set up the boys started to enjoy it even before the guests arrived......

Shortly the guest began to arrive (we had some coming early and some coming mid party) so it was non-stop kids, water and fun.

Enough said I have pictures to prove it................

Everyone (well except abuelito and abuelita) had a great time. The boys thought it was hilarious the Rob was sliding down too! (I slide down as well but I can't seem to find the picture to prove it)

They all behaved and for the most part followed all our rules. It was up and down NON STOP!

Here's a cute picture of all the boys (yeah NO GIRLS ALLOWED..................except ME!

They did take a break to eat some pizza, drink some soda and chomp on some chips, but got up right after and continued the fun..........................

Just so you can see the size of this monster alone and with the boys for scale......................
The only other time they stopped was to eat cake and open Robert's presents (I took several pictures but they are very good, they were all huddles around Robert so all you see is the boys hovering over the presents)
This was the best I could do..................see all of them just trying to sneak a peek at what Robert got or checking to see if he opened theirs....................
After that the played around a little more and it was time to wrap up start taking down the slide
Everyone had a blast and after the day was done we went out for dinner and the boys stayed the night at the hotel with abuelito & abuelita.

The next day the boys wanted to go to Target (to spend the money they had received Robert for his birthday and Patrick as a treat from abuelita & abuelito). When we got back we put them to work


Nothing like seeing the boys enjoying their grandparents...................
We had a awesome time
Thank you for coming................................