I flew into Medford, Oregon on Sunday afternoon. I made a beeline for the rental car and drove 2 hours to meet my nephew. Can you believe that I have not seen my nephew since 1992!? My nephew was born in 1985. I was still in high school and trying to graduate and escape. I joined the military as soon…
Family Tradition: Picking Christmas Trees in North Carolina’s Mountains
Yesterday after work, we drove to the North Carolina mountains to pick a Christmas tree. Not far from the Blue Ridge Parkway is a place called Frosty’s. We are blessed to live so close to the Blue Ridge Mountains and to call North Carolina home. The last three years we’ve found small farms in North Carolina to find our trees.…
Creative Advent & Christmas Gifts – Family Traditions
Happy Thanksgiving! Can you believe that Advent begins Sunday! Where did 2025 go!? It seems to have flown by in the blink of an eye. It hardly seems like Marty and I have been married for just over a year, that is for sure. We’ve done so many fun, adventurous things in the last year and are looking forward to…
Searching for White Squirrels in Brevard- FOUND!
The last several months have been crazy at work. Anyone with a job can relate to work craziness, right? <smile> I really love my job. It is literally the best company I have ever worked for and we have some really amazing people in our company. We get through the daily grind with a hefty dose of teamwork! In the…
Dickey Gap to Damascus – Our 50 Mile Backpacking Adventure
It’s been a month since we got back from our backpacking trip on th Appalachian Trail. It was epic! I have not had time to write about it because I have been busy with work and trying to get fully staffed. It’s been rough-ish as I am hiring in 3 of my 5 divisions right now. The holidays are a…
Pulled Over Twice: A Wild Week with Officers
This has been a week! Whew! I wanted to make this a separate post because it is so funny. Two times in an 8 day period, I was pulled over by law enforcement. You cannot make this stuff up. While I was in Arizona, I had a rental car and had to meet the team in Nogales, Arizona on Tuesday…
Exploring Sabino Canyon and Saguaro National Park
I travelled to Arizona for work the week before last. The new client rollout went well and I had a little time to see a few things after work. Win-win. On the first day after work, I went to Sabino Canyon National Recreation Area in the Coronado National Forest. It was nice to take a short walk after sitting on…
Merchants Millpond State Park
What a whirlwind this past week was! We got back from backpacking 50 miles on the Appalachian Trail Sunday. I spent Monday packing to go to Arizona for work for the week. I landed back in Charlotte at 8:40pm Friday……. Whew. We woke up early Saturday to meet friends for a camping and kayaking trip to Merchants Millpond. We LOVE…
Heading Out on 50 miles!
I got my backpack together on Sunday. I added 3L of water which weighs almost 8 pounds. Yikes. I added a complete Smartwool base layer because of the cool temperatures at night. The total weight before adding the keto muffins I baked? 41 pounds. I also need to add my vitamins. I think I will definitely need my daily vitamins…
Celebrating Our First Anniversary: A Journey of Friendship and Love
Life continues on without Shadow. The huskies seemed to be okay yesterday, but neither of them ate any breakfast this morning. Could be that they just are not hungry or they could be grieving. We went for two walks yesterday with Ghost and Ammy. The house seems a lot more quiet without grumpy grandpa. I think in retrospect, we realize…
My Little Red Bike 