Visiting the Smokies. . .

So hubby and I took a leisurely afternoon Sunday drive down to the Great Smokey Mountain National Park....wishing we had packed a picnic and left earlier in the day, but we enjoyed the sites, sounds and smells of the forest.  The leaves haven't really changed a lot yet, but in a few weekends I'll go back and revisit and take more pictures.

Here's hubby and me - he has the longer arms:

We passed through the outer edge of the park and back through Galinburg and Pigeon Forge area to head home.  Man, talk about busy tourist area!

 

Another neat thing we saw was this quilt block on a building.  Here in Tennessee they have a trail of these throughout the entire state.  Close to 470 blocks.  It's called the Appalachian Quilt Trail.  This block is located in Townsend, Blount County.  This was pure luck to see along the side of the road, though I had planned to seek these blocks out as a traveling day with the kids - now I'm more excited to get started!

 It was a wonderful weekend!

Date night with nature....

last Friday hubby and I did a picnic at Gambrills State Park in Frederick, Maryland.  It was soo nice and pleasant.  No one around where we were.  It was peaceful and beautiful.  We go in a little fishing.....and I mean a LITTLE FISHing :)



That is MY hand...I have small hands...small fish!  It was fun though, we got a lot of little bluegills and sunfish.  The pond was beautiful and the reflection in the late afternoon sun was awsome:



The park has 3 overlooks into the valley below and we sat and watch a very strong nasty thunderstorm come across....of course then we made a beeline home to avoid the storm on the highway:



I'm remember why I enjoy being out in nature so much (though I detest the bugs immensely), it's so peaceful.

Then we hit a few little white balls on Sunday evening at our local golf course, The Links at Challedon.



Not a flattening picture of me, but that is me swinging a club!

Hubby looks much better at it than I do:



Their tee boxes had beautiful landscape around them:



and we even saw some wildlife....deer all over the place:



Another fun and busy weekend.

Weekend Stuff...

well, most of this doesn't have to do with quilting, but there are pictures involved!

Hubby and I made date night a traveling show!  We picked up my car, dropped off stuff to the mission, got both cars emissions done, then we window shopped at Bass Pro Shop, then Dicks and finally we ended up at the Howard County Fair!  Whew....just rethinking about it is crazy...we are nonstop!!

I took a few fun shots of the fair and only one quilt, mainly because all the quilts are covered with plastic and it's really hard to get a good image.  The one I did capture was incredible!  It won a ribbon and was hand quilt, the design mimicked the bias work.  And to top it off it was done in Raven's fabric!





Then driving home yesterday from picking up my girls, we got to enjoy a hot air balloon:



This weekend is a whirl wind.....whooshhhhhhhh....and we are off again today.  Spending morning/early afternoon at a Stitch and Bitch, then coming spending time with family, then off to hit golf balls with my new golf set...oh did I mention we purchase clubs at Dicks?? :)