I'm a wee bit behind

I should've posted before now, I've just not been in a blogging mood. Just busy doing other things I guess. What's the best way to get out of that?? Just sit down and get to typing and hope that I get in the mood again. So here's a few things I've been doing since my last post.....

Last Friday we went to see my parents for the holiday weekend. Mike wanted to try a new way that he thought was faster. It may have been if we wouldn't have gotten stuck behind school buses for a half hour. That's the downside to driving through those little towns instead of getting on a bigger highway. You have those one laners and when ya get somebody slow in front of ya it can be a real pain. We ended up getting there about the same time as usual. He wanted to go the same way coming back and I protested but we did it anyway (only because we had a bet going and I was really hoping I'd win. That's why I didn't point it out when he took a wrong turn..LOL!) It turns out it is about 30 minutes quicker. You just have to hope you don't end up with someone in front of you that wants to go 10 miles under the speed limit. Anyway....

We had a really great time at my parents house. When we got there I hooked up my mom's Wii Fit for her. Did I mention I got one too? Yep! I stood in line outside of Best Buy last week when they were released. I tried 3 other places after I took the kids to school and they had already sold out. I knew Best Buy didn't open until 10 so if I had any hope of getting one I had to go wait. Got it and we love it! It's so much fun! I found some muscles I forgot I had. You wanna lose weight? Do some hula hooping. That'll do it. I highly recommend Wii Fit to anyone who has a Wii. I know it's expensive but it's worth it. We spent, or I guess I should say that I spent a lot of time on it that night. Mostly being laughed at by everyone else. It is loads of fun....even worth everyone laughing at you. On Saturday my mom and I drove up to Charleston. It's a little over an hour from where they live. It was a really pretty day and there were a couple of needlework shops I wanted to check out. Can you believe that there's only a total of 4 needlework shops in all of West Virginia? What is that?! There's definitely a lack of shopage up there. You want a review of the 2 that I did go to, you say? Ok....

The first shop we went to was a shop in South Charleston called Cranberry Needlecrafts. Honestly, we were in there for maybe 5 minutes. I wasn't impressed with the shop at all, nor was I impressed with the person who was working in the shops lack of desire to even acknowledge we were there. No worries here, we'll head on to the next shop. Hopefully they'll be semi friendly. The next shop we went to is called Village Sampler and is in a little town called St. Albans. It's a really nice shop and the owner was SO friendly. She had a lot of goodies. The shop was a lot bigger than it looked from the outside. I didn't buy much but I did find some treasures. You know why I wanted to make the journey to these shops? Because I've found in my experiences that it's the little out of the way shops, the ones in small towns that have of print Prairie Schooler charts. I made a good choice when my mom asked me what I wanted to do that day. I ended up finding 2 OOP charts and 2 others that I wanted to add to my collection. I got book # 42 Angels, #43 Father Christmas, # 62 Kris Kringle, and #78 Kitchen Table. We had a nice time browsing. I wish that shop was closer to me. She offers a lot of classes. The shops around here don't offer any. I wish they would.

So check this out. On the way to Charleston we saw a lot of bill boards for an Amish Farm, right? We were super excited because neither of us had ever been to one before but have always wanted to. Our plan was to go to the needlework shops and then go to this Amish Farm on the way back. I wrote down all of the info I'd seen on the billboards so we'd know which exit to take, ect. We follow the directions and end up at a stinkin store called Amish Farms. Can ya believe that? We got jipped. Those billboards were very misleading. Humph.

On Sunday Mike and my brother had reservations to go whitewater rafting in the lower New River. My parents had bought the trip for Mike for his birthday. It was an all day thing. At the end of their trip we all went down to the bottom to watch the rafts come through hoping we'd see them. I thought we did but it didn't end up being them. I really wanted to get some pictures of them. Turns out they have a photographer rafting along in a kayak taking pictures. They were pricey but so worth it. I never would've gotten pictures like this.

Mike's on the left, my brother's

on the right.

Love, love, love, these pictures. They had a really great time and had lots of stories to tell. I think they might be going again this summer. I want to take the kids on one of the family rafting trips that are calmer. They have one for ages 6 and up. That might have to wait until next summer though. I know they have this rule where if someone falls out you can't jump in after them, the guide will help them. I think it would take a pack of wild horses x 10 to hold me back if a kid fell in the water. I know I'd abandon ship.

Aren't these pictures fantastic? Love the one up there that looks like my brother and Mike are fixing to fall out LOL!

And for your viewing pleasure, here's a pic I took at the bottom of the New River. This is the river they were rafting on. That bridge is the New River Gorge Bridge. I had to cross the bridge and then drive around a mountain to get to the bottom. That's not even half of the bridge. It's really long. They have a bridge day in Oct. and they close down one side of the bridge. they have a big festival and you can even jump off of it if you want to. There's a better picture of the bridge and info about Bridge Day here. I think we might try to go.