A Trip for Sanity's Sake

Sometimes you need a trip just for the sake of a trip and to get away from real life. And that's what I did a couple of weeks ago. I packed myself and some craft projects I needed help with and headed to Felicia's. She can work wonders with projects.

I don't have a lot of pictures because the kids were in school. Mostly I have pictures of project progress. We worked on two dollhouses and three stools!

Felicia working her magic.

The inside was really horrible. The whole thing was painted dark brown and black when I first got it. It took a full bottle of paint remover gel. Then I started painting it Christmas colors.

Then Felicia added all the cool paintings and lettering.

And I added a lot of things inside both for looks and in some cases to hide the dark areas in the corners where I couldn't get the old paint off.

And these two plain brown tables became the tables in the photos below.

It was a really short trip. Here are the few photos I have of the kids, three of the girls and Miguel, one of Felicia's grandchildren. We also took a ton of Larissa as my book character Kia in my YA book which will be released through Elk Lake next spring/summer. They were interested in actually using our photos, but they say the resolution is too low. Too bad I don't have time for another trip! I work every Sunday and cannot miss any so it makes for a short trip anywhere I go.

South Carolina Fun

After many days of no water, no electricity, no plumbing etc, I finally took three of the kids and headed to a friend's house in South Carolina. Here are some photos of the things we've done. The last pumpkin photo and a few of the zoo photos are ones she took on her phone.

 Pumpkin fun

Pool fun

Zoo Fun

After North Carolina

After North Carolina, we all went different ways.

Felicia's group left first.

Our husbands

Us

Felicia and crew and friends ready to roll.

Ty, Adam and Tara left next. They left around 8:00 p.m. Sunday night and drove through the night. They made great time since there wasn't that much traffic at that time.

Saying Goodbye

Rick and the twins left for camp on Monday morning and drove from NC to Merritt Island, FL. I would love to say that I think these weeks at Mission Camp will make a difference, but as I look at the photos Rick took I see that she is NOT wearing her work boots, she is wearing my Rue 21 boots that look like work boots but aren't. We talked about her maybe getting those for later but that they weren't work boots. Yet there she is with them. Also with another siblings' clothes etc. The twins also ate Rick's work food and snacks from the van in addition to their own. He even stopped and grilled sausages for them on the trip down! Kayla also lied about having her court homework done, so I do not know what will happen at this point. Prayers for changed hearts appreciated.

In the meantime, Jasmine and I drove to Indiana. We went to Clifty Falls State  Park for just a couple of hours. The falls weren't very important this time of year.

Then the next day we drove on to Elkhart, near South Bend on the IN/MI border to visit my mom and sister.

With my mom and sister. We come in XS, L and XL sizes!

Jasmine's first elephant ear. At the Jazz festival.

With two high school friends.

From there Jasmine and I went on to book convention. In the meantime, the used transmission I'd just gotten before NC began to leak. More to come.