It's the simple things....

One of our favorite things about Daytona Beach are these!You CANNOT find any better strawberries than those from Plant City which is very close to Daytona Beach. Last year we bought a huge flat so I froze two big bags and we just used the last of them a few months ago. Of course I will do the same this year....yummy!

And, what goes better with strawberries than this?

I also L.O.V.E. going to Old Navy in Daytona - it is FLIPFLOP heaven!!
Even right smack in the middle of our 'flip flop' season the local stores don't have as many as here and at $2.50 a pair, I can buy lots!! (I'm sure Cierra and I will be making more trips there before we head home, too).

We made it to the "Sunshine State"!

safe and sound with only a few mistakes -

When I travel, I wear a cross necklace; no question. There is also at least one in my bag. If I have to pack 'light', I only take a black and brown but if I have plenty of room I take many.
Sunday evening I packed many but chose my St. John petroglyph. Don't ask me why but that was my first mistake. Read on....

After 2 days of snow, 25 hours of snow removal and fixing one flat tire, we were Florida bound! We left Sunday evening around 6:30 and I was immediately wondering if we did the right thing. This is what the first road we travelled on looked like - mistake #2 (keep in mind that it's not only the motor home but we also tow a vehicle).
It is about 10 miles for us to get to I-81 which we were very surprised to see was only one lane and that was even ice packed. From I-81 we hit I-66 which wasn't much better and quickly started to deteriorate since some thawing occurred during the day but the temperature was steadily dropping and was expected to go down as low as single digits. With about 10 miles left to go before we hit the beltway, we gave up. It was just too treacherous to keep going. My sister on the other hand was ahead of us and decided to keep moving....

We stopped in Manassas which is only about 1 1/5 hours from us for the night. Olive Garden was an excellent choice :) then we headed to Walmart for our stay. (most super-centers allow motorhomes to stay overnight which is great)
We decided to get a picture of one of the piles of snow....(a little dirty but you get the point) these piles were everywhere!The bread shelves were still bare from the 'blizzard'But there was plenty of milk...We decided to get an early start and found the roads somewhat better by 8:30 a.m. but still ran into this. It honestly felt like a concrete truck just dropped gobs of concrete.....very rough!By the time we hit Quantico in Virginia the roads were alot better and then North Carolina was great - dry roads, no snow and sunshine! We were excited, to say the least. I spotted my first palm tree in NC....love it!


We kept going throughout the day and finally made it here by around 10:00 last night - safe and sound.


The weather is nice, a little chilly but nothing like back home. The forecast calls for 10+ inches of snow starting today through tomorrow. I hate it for the other 1/2 of our family :( but they will survive and volunteered to fill in for Ronnie and Dad with the snow removal. When will all this 'snow' stop!!??

Did I mention

light at the end of the tunnel?
Well, here it is - blue sky and sun! We are very excited.

Here's another reason Chase, Cierra and I are excited, lol! We all love chocolate - I got this brownie pan for Christmas from my sister and it is simply. the. best! We all like edges so every one of these brownies has edges. How cool is that?

"I'm-not-at-Blissdom-Blog-Hop"

Nope, I am certainly not there but would LOVE to be! I've been following MckMama and Melissa who are having a blast while I'm buried in 2' of snow and homebound.

I am almost at my one year anniversary and have learned so much, made so many friends and am SO addicted but I haven't quite taken that step to attend one of the 'blog conferences'. I know it would be lots of fun and Ronnie tells me 'just do it' - he loves to go places, too and would find something to keep him occupied. Plus, how cool is it that you can keep your laptop up during meetings and while speakers are 'at it'? Wow!

So, if you're one of us too who didn't take the plunge, come along and hop over to Blessed Moon and join the blog-hop! Hopefully soon I'll have a "blissdom badge" on my blog and be able to share in all the fun!

Blizzard of 2010....

still underway but I do think there's light at the end of the tunnel. Everything is pretty much white around here. Ronnie and J have the 'heavy equipment' out, trying to dig neighbors and tenants out. Brandon shoveled several building this morning so as you can see, everyone is pulling together to get us out of this 'white-out'.
When I went to bed last night, we had 13 inches. As anticipated, we hit 24 inches a few hours ago and it's still snowing. I tried to open the door to the deck but was unsuccessful so here's some shots from inside..this is the entrance to our pool - snow is up over the gatethis is the view from Ronnie's desk...typically he can look out to the deckHere's a view from the door to the deck and swing set..
I think you probably get the point, we are buried!

As of now the plan is to pull out tomorrow as long as the roads are clear. I'm not willing to bank on it yet but if it stops snowing by dark, maybe. The problem is we are about an hour from the main road (I-81, I-66) so I guess we'll just have to see.

Big White Bumps! Oh My!

I think once again the weather men were right this year. I can't watch the latest because our dish went out a few hours ago! (yes, we are currently without tv and our power is flickering) But....Ronnie and Chase left around 6:00 and we had 6 1/2 inches - here's where we are, 6 hours later - 13 inches!
I went out on the porch and all I see are big white bumps throughout our driveway and yard. It is like a blizzard out there, no joke!They are finishing up for the night, knowing very well that in about 7 hours when they get up they will have to do it al over again and again and again.....when is this supposed to end?! I think we have at least another 18 hours. Oh my!

Riding out the storm.....

Bags packed - motor home ready, house sitters waiting but we're not leaving anytime soon :( Today was supposed to be the day we left for Daytona Beach.....yes, supposed to be. Unfortunately we are right in the bull's eye of more than 2 feet of snow. I like snow but this year we have had more than our share so I'm pretty much over it and ready for Spring. Now we sit and wait for this to stop (sometime tomorrow) so Ronnie and Jeremy can get all the parking lots clear. Then, we will be on the road heading to the sunshine state!

We can't complain though, we have made the best of our situation. We kept Kayden last night and have enjoyed having her here with us today...she had Mickey Mouse waffles this morning We moved the cars around before the snow came (notice the asphalt)we read some books...we watched out the windowwe played with some 'toys' :)then we went outside...wow, lots of snow! Boy, it is really snowing! and what a difference from this morning's picture.

And now Daddy came and picked up the princess and we won't see her for over a week. For us, it's back to last minute stuff and cleaning so I'm ready whenever the bus is ready to pull out :)!

too cute!

Actually she doesn't mind at all but I couldn't resist the face :) Her booboo has glue and steri strips rather than a stitch but it looks good. She was such a big girl dealing with all the drama!

Before and After

I mentioned in a few posts over the weekend that Ronnie helped out a friend by "re-doing" their bathroom. Of course I'm partial but it turned out really nice! I think you'll agree....shower "before"shower "after"vanity "before"vanity "after" a lot different, huh?

Let's Get Creative...

We've gotten A LOT of snow this year so we are pretty much 'over it'! It started snowing before I left Frederick today so when I got home I found this in the driveway :)Yes, he is making the best of it! But he did have a nice fire going for me....one of us is always around but he is very particular with how he gets the woodstove going. Cierra was making a 'veggie pizza'So I decided to finish up a 'project' for an upcoming baby shower - I love doing this stuff!! This isn't the final pick but I liked this one and wouldn't want to disclose the 'pick'!Next I moved on to making Kayden a shirt for Valentine's Day. I really wanted to do this but it didn't turn out 'perfect'. Maybe she can wear it to bed, ha!And then there's this.....Cierra came up and asked if I had taken a picture of the trees yet. This doesn't do it justice! This is a beautiful, wet, heavy snow that has all the trees and woods covered. So beautiful but I am too lazy to go any further than the front porch to get pictures.

So, not sure what you're doing tonight but we've been busy :)