Vacation Recap!

Last week Jaime and I took a vacation with my father and mother, brother and sister in law. We all met up in South Carolina and then drove to Clemson/Seneca and went boating on the Keowee :) It was beautiful and I forgot how hard it is to swim for very long!
Here I am discussing something with Lacy.

When we were on the boat it started to rain and we all ran to the back to keep from getting wet. Not that we weren't already wet to begin with. Well that caused the front end of the boat to raise up since it was lighter and it slowed us down. My parents bravely decided to sit in the front of the boat to increase our speed. What good parents!
My brother, Taylor, decided that he couldn't see to drive the boat sitting down, so he stood up. He's always doing things a little differently. Good thing the lake patrol wasn't out and about.


Over all it was a great trip on the lake. My mother even wanted to go tubing with me which was very very fun (as long as my bathing suit stayed in place).

After this we picked the dogs up from the kennel (no dogs on the boat!) and made our way up to Andrews, NC to this little cottage that we rented. My dad was using this GPS unit to find our way up there while my mother was using the typed directions that the owner of the cottage emailed to her. This email included phrases like "go by pass a gas station" etc. We ended up on a road that brought us past way too many red-necks and then a sign that said 'pavement ends' which it promptly did. This road then turned into a very windy mountain road which included piles of tree stumps on fire, you know, the usual for Andrews. The road turned into a one lane mountain gravel road. My parents were like this is so beautiful! I was like.. those are the last words you're ever going to say. We're going to be murdered out here. Then my mom said... what if this guy doesn't even have a cabin out here? What if he just took our money? We took this one lane (And by one lane I mean... no three point turns allowed) road and finally found a cottage, it was really pretty. Then we passed several trailers that hadn't been inhabited for a while and we got scared again. Finally we found our cottage and when we got out of the car the view was absolutely beautiful. We were all thrilled! What a diamond in the rough!


Even the puppies thought it was fun! Too bad they found some poo on the ground they thought was tasty, we had a hard time keeping them from it.


Here we are playing Trivial Pursuit inside the tiny tiny cabin. It was very cozy and Taylor and Jaime did not do well. Every one was cheating except them. I guess in this case cheaters do win.


The water was beautiful and cold. We even taught Huxley how to swim. We let Churchill swim but he was a little more nervous about it than Huxley. Churchill did not like the fact that while I was swimming he could not get to me. Poor dear. Here he is exploring! There was no beach just a dock you jumped off which can be pretty intimidating to a schnauzer but he made the best of it.


I think the dogs really liked the great outdoors. We got some awesome hiking in which wiped them out for the rest of the day. We also went white water rafting. Left the dogs at home with Mom while she read and we headed out to Nantahala! Dad was really great to get some pictures of us coming down the last rapid. Although the water was absolutely freezing we all had a great time.



After all this I surprised Jaime by taking him to the Biltmore House for a late anniversary gift. It's just the kind of thing that he loves! We had a wonderful time and even ate a very fancy lunch followed by Creme Brule and Wine Tasting! We don't like wine but it was fun :) We also tried to take a picture with my camera set on automatic... didn't work that well but I think we look adorable.


A very good week if I must say so myself. I'll leave you with this little tidbit of cuteness. After the long hike in the Joyce Kilner forest those babies were tuckered out :)