Camping & Catching Up

Matthew and I are in Hollywood, SC, again. It's the weekend after Labor Day, and since the mountains decided to feel like fall we decided to go for one more beach trip. We both had an exhausting week of work and thought it would be better to drive down Saturday. We were able to take our time. We had a lovely breakfast at the Atlanta Bread Company then hit the highway.

It was quite cool at the beach but Matthew surfed anyway. I sat on the beach reading which is what I do best. I decided to play hooky on Monday, so we made the most out of Sunday and Monday morning. Matthew bought a long sleeve wet shirt. He said it really kept him warm. He managed to catch one really good wave while we were there.

OK. So I started this post while we were actually at the beach, and I am now realizing that I had not finished it! All in all, it was a very nice get away just after school had started. Now it's a week until November begins! Tomorrow and Tuesday is our All-County Orchestra Festival, and November has 3 short weeks for me. I have a trip to Winston-Salem, Thanksgiving, and my sister's 40th birthday! It's going to be a good month. :)

Writing Spider

I am not a spider person. My mother, however, can look up picture after picture of spiders on the internet. I... I can't do it. As a child, I did read "Charlotte's Web" and have always been fascinated by writing spiders. About three weeks ago, this Charlotte showed up next to our basement door. I have been careful when I call the kittens inside, so they don't mangle her web. I make them go around.

When I decided to get some photos of our friend, I noticed that she had a friend, too. Can you see "him"? He was moving ALL around her. She was not moving, and I thought she was dead. He was pulling her legs, and it looked like he was attaching her to the web. It was weird.
I went back inside for a minute, and when I came back out she moved! The next thing I knew, her little "friend" was wrapped tighter than a burrito at Moe's.

Yes, he is that white dot at her mouth. This all happened August 20, and she is still out there. Sometimes when I'm out there calling in the kittens, I picture the last scene of "Charlotte's Web" when the babies release, and I get some major heebie jeebies. I haven't seen any egg sacks yet... I guess I'll find out how that works.

Busy Summer

Hey kids! It has been a busy summer for me. I finished my 5th Summer Strings Camp last Friday, and then went camping at the beach. Matthew had a good time surfing, and I enjoyed fighting my new beach umbrella. Half of it broke, but half shade was better than no shade! When I got over being embarrassed by my flapping umbrella, I enjoyed the pounding waves and reading a book.

Matthew went down Friday afternoon, and I drove down Saturday. I met Matthew in Edisto and made a new friend.

The campsite had these adorable geese. These boys were pursuing a pretty little female.

I made dinner Sunday night. Matthew packed a few leftovers from our fridge at home which included some rice, and I brought a red pepper and some tomatoes which we added to the rice. I went to Piggly Wiggly and bought some andouille sausage and a red onion. This is everything before I piled it all together on a plate! (I also poured a little bit of my beer into the pan with the sausage! Yum!)

It was delicious! I love camper cooking! I am looking forward to more camping weekends!

Making Dinner

I knew I wanted to make a quiche since I have a lot of eggs and tomatoes. I bought some Gruyere cheese, an onion, and a pie crust (sorry, Jen, I just haven't quite tackled making my own).

Time to make dinner! Mmmm... I have chorizo sausage in the fridge. I start cooking the chorizo and chop up an onion. As I add the onion to the chorizo, I realize... Gruyere cheese doesn't pair so well with that flavor. I had already defrosted my chopped spinach. What to do?

Make two quiches, of course! I made a crustless quiche with spinach, tomato, and Gruyere. Yum!

The second was with a crust. I put the chorizo and onion on the bottom, poured the egg, spinach, and cheddar mixture on top and then topped it with sliced tomatoes (just for looks).

We'll see how it turns out!

Tree Climbing

Today was just a typical morning drinking coffee and looking at Facebook. Dizzy and Miles have been staying out all night playing. Dizzy came to the door ready for breakfast. I go down to the basement door to call in Miles. He was mewing but there was no sign of him. I race back upstairs to get my shoes and go find him. Sure enough he had treed himself. I wonder if something scared him or if he was playing and raced up a tree only to realize he could not get back down. Silly kitty...

I try to coax him down but he didn't want to do it. It was only about 10-12 feet. I know Miles can climb down a ladder, so I found one and took it out to him. It wasn't tall enough to reach him, so I had to hold it up. He climbed down and was safe.

Moldy needs to teach her brothers how to climb back down trees. She's a pro.

Camping

Last week Matthew and I bought a camper! So what do we do? We went to the beach, of course. Since it was a HUGE holiday weekend, a lot of places were full, but I managed to find a place in Hardeeville, SC. It was a sleepy little RV park. It was pretty late when we pulled in (already dark), but we plugged up the power and the water and were good to go! I don't know why we haven't done this sooner.
The camper is a 5th wheel which means there is a hitch that goes in the bed of Matthew truck. The camper is 23 feet long (which is not huge for a 5th wheel). It can sleep 4 comfortably. It could sleep 6 if 4 people are willing to share a large bed. It has a couch, a table with bench seats which all turn into the big bed. There is a sink, stove, oven, and microwave. It has a fridge and freezer, too. And never fear! There is a complete bathroom! But I think the most important feature, since we are doing beach trips, is the air conditioning. It's super cold! We had to turn it off a few times.
OK. So we arrived Friday night and got it all hooked up. The next morning we were on the beach. Matthew caught a few waves, and I read a few pages of Harry Potter. We took a trip to Wal-Mart to stock the camper.

We had a blast! After our shopping trip we just hung out at the picnic table at our campsite. We found FRESH shrimp for $4.50 lb. I had to cut their heads off but I got to cook in our new camper! It was all I could talk about before we actually bought it. They were the best shrimp I've ever had.

The next morning I made coffee! It's a percolator.

After sleeping in, doing more reading, we spent Sunday in Savannah just walking around. There are some really neat buildings. We tried to go check out Tybee Island. I think they were having fireworks because 5,000 people were all traveling down one lane of road onto the island. It was OK though because we found a bar. LOL!

Monday morning we off to Hilton Head. We did some walking/jogging. I went ahead and wore my swimsuit so I could jump directly into the water. We had a wonderful morning, but it was time to head home. Matthew emptied the holding tanks (yes, there is a tank for grey water and a tank for you-know-what). I packed up everything.

I can't wait to go again!

Redneck Tendancies?

Last night I was dreaming that I was in Wal-Mart looking for a special hook to crochet with or something. So I found the section with the string, yarn, and lace. They had samples of different things you could make. One item was lingerie. It had silk straps and cups and the body of it was camo.

Needless to say, I woke up laughing.