Look what we found!

Lately I have been enjoying the beautiful song of a little male house finch who sits on my bird feeder and just sings his little heart out. One day I told David he must be singing for a lady friend. Sure enough, we were sitting by the sliding glass door and heard a chirp from my hanging plant. Then David went to water it and....

found this.

Fancy Paaants (this must be said in a sing-song voice)

Look who's getting fancy now....Actually I needed special embroidery scissors. Believe it not but my regular scissors for my yarn work can't quick snip my thread. Go figure. And I have special tipped Fiskar ones for my tatting but I need to keep those sharp for tatting. (honestly, there is method behind the madness) So if I had to buy new scissors why not get some cute ones? Plus the 40% coupon from Michaels added to the incentive.

Cool huh? They are stork scissors.

New Doily

So I seldom make doilies because...well because I don't have anywhere nice to really put them. But I couldn't resist giving thread crochet another try. I picked up a book of Pineapple Doilies. I guess I can see the "pineapple" shape? I thought they were pretty anyways. Here are some pictures of my finished product called Pineapple Blossom.

All finished, it measures approximately 12 inches in diameter.

Here's a nice detail of the center.

Weekend in Boone (part 2)

Better late than never. Where has the time gone? I thought I would devote a separate post to our hike up Elk Knob. Elk Knob State Park is a relatively new park, so much that the trail isn't quite finished and you have to take a rocky "road bed" (ranger's words, not mine, honestly I don't know what vehicle could have made it up that road) for the last 300-400 yards up to the top. It was the most strenuous hike I have done. Not the trail part so much but once you get to the rock path. Sheesh! Every time we turned a corner we were like "this has to be it, there's no more mountain to go up...wrong!" But the view was spectacular and it wasn't even a crystal clear day. Take a look.

This is Elk Knob.

David really liked their use of recycled material for trail markers instead of the old painted wood ones. Just thought I'd show the innovations in trail markers. :-P

While spring was in full bloom down in GSO, not too much was happening on this mountain side. But we did find these patches of green. I really like them for some reason.

Here is the path at first. Lovely new trail...nice shot sweetie. (giving the photographer the stink-eye)

Then after about a mile or so, it turns into this...

Uneven rock path...nice. Straight up too.

Then I turn around and realize the way back down doesn't like much fun either.

But the view was awesome! The park is about 20 min. up 194 N. from Boone and you can see as far as TN on clear day. Can you find Grandfather?

Finally...my "just around this corner" theory paid off. We made it!

Here is the view over parts of NC and VA.

Nice huh?

Like I said, it was one of the strenuous hikes that I have done when you get towards the top. But well worth it.

Weekend in Boone (part 1)

Now that school is just about over with and all the hard work is done, David and I took a weekend off and headed for the mountains.

So we headed for our favorite place, The Mast Farm Inn, where we were treated like royalty. The owners treat us like family and the food is top notch!

Last year the Inn started keeping rabbits. I just love petting them.

This little guy just loved attention and would press his face against the cage to get you to pet him. Just like a dog.

Saturday morning after breakfast we headed out for some hiking. First we hit the easier trek, waterfalls.

Aren't these lovely, they are just behind an Episcopal Church in Valle Crucis.

We kept seeing these flowers along the trail, not sure what they are.

And these were almost like wild pansies.

Sunday before we left, we were invited by a friend (or maybe I invited us?) to go see the baby cows on her farm. Oh my they are soooo cute!

This little guy was a week old. Check out the eye lashes!

And he says, "I'm not too sure about you..."

This little cutie would slowly inch his way up until you noticed him. Then scamper off.

Beautiful Day for the Zoo

After the last week of temps well above normal, this weekend turned out to be quite mild. So David and I decided to get up early and go to the zoo this morning. We've never gone right when they open, so this was a good chance to see more animals while they were active. The rhinos, elephants, zebra, giraffes and otters were all out and about. It was really nice. My favorite park is the Aviary. David and I spend a lot of time there listening and trying to find every bird on the chart. Goofy I know...but it's fun. I'm not sure of the names but enjoy some of the great pictures he took.

Cute little elephant, getting a drink and eating some breakfast.

Can you find the bird?

Gorgeous!

Singing his little heart out.

Wait, wait.. get my good side.

Mad Tatter

So with my free time, I picked back up on my hobbies. I got a new pattern book full of bookmarks. And some new thread. Check out 2 new patterns and my 3 new colors. Who wants one????

Hey...what do you know...I passed!

It's a miracle! I'm gonna graduate! Yay!

I am so glad it's all over, now begins the really hard part...finding a job.

Belated Birthday

It's Spring Break down in Florida and now that I'm done with my exams, my mom made a special visit up to North Carolina. Without school to take up all my time, I've really enjoyed a nice visit. And since I was unable to make down to celebrate her birthday back in March, I made up for it this weekend.

Homemade German Chocolate Cake! Yummy!

Happy Belated Birthday Mom! (PS those are library books you see off in the corner but assure you they are fiction books for my reading pleasure)