Picnic at the Lake

Plum Orchard Lake is such a beautiful place. 

I could not have asked for a better day. The trees were so colorful, the air was warm and the water was still. There was also hardly anyone at the lake either. Overall I only saw two other people and they were both in boats fishing from afar. 

 I took Emma and Bolo to have a picnic and explore the area a little.  

 I wish I could build a house right here!

 After our picnic, we drove around the lake to the playground. 

Emma didn't want to play to much because the shooting range was close and someone was practicing....Bolo wanted to get out of there too. 

This place was so amazing. 

I know I will be back!

Nuttleburg - mining ghost town

West Virginia is a huge coal mining state.
Nuttleburg was a mining town built in 1870s.

The production lasted in till 1958. 

All that is left is empty buildings and structure-less foundations. 

The coal would be loaded from the mountain above and brought down to trains that were waiting to load.

A train would pull under and the coal would dump into the cars.

 There was about 10-15 smokers that lined the trail.

 This used to be the "store" for the town.

There were lots of other structures in the area but we stuck to just this section.
It was a really interesting place that I am sure I will be back to to explore more. 

Pumpkin House 2015

There is a home in West Virginia that carves over 3,000 pumpkins and displays them around their home a couple days before Halloween. 

I had seen this home on Pintrest and it was so absolutely beautiful! 

I had to go! 

This year I had heard that the home was only doing it the weekend of the big day, so there wasn't much time to see it before it would be gone. 

I had planned on going the Friday before the 31st. 

It was a pretty stressful day so I decided that Emma needed to stay home with daddy and stick to her normal nighttime routine. 

I hopped in the car a little later then I had wanted to being the small town was a hour away from where I live. 

Let me just tell you. The traffic getting off the freeway was a absolute nightmare. 

I somehow found a place to park quickly and walked the 15 minutes to the house. 

This is where I feel like a total IDIOT! 

I had my flash on my camera.... WHAT WAS I THINKING!!! 

All on my photos there is no pumpkin glow. All bright light. 

 All of these people are looking at a wall of pumpkins lighting up with the rhythm of music. 

This is the only semi glowing photo I have and its blurry.  :( 

  There were so many people!  I wonder that the neighbors think. 

On the walk to and from my car there were other homes that participated in the spirit that were nice to look at also.

 Next year I might make it back here. I will remember to turn off my flash though, but then again I might just come in the daylight. There is way less people and you can actually look at some of the carvings. I would definitely bring Emma with me too. 

Halloween 2015

This was Emma's first real Halloween. Last year she was around 7 months so we didn't take her trick-or-treating. She still doesn't get the concept now but had a blast doing all the fun things that makes Halloween. 

I was a little shocked that West Virginia wasn't trick or treating on Saturday the 31st. They instead did it on the Thursday before. Thank goodness I had looked it up because there was only 4 hours intill it started. I wasn't prepared for it. I still had to get candy, have dinner done and pick Mike up from the airport. 

I also wasn't sure how many kids we would get being our first year here.

My street has only one other house with kids on it so I wasn't expecting many. 

I couldn't believe it when I saw the cars starting to line the street and kids getting out. 

We handed out candy for the first hour. 

Then turned off the lights and went to a few houses for Emma. 

 She loved going up to the houses and raising her bucket. 

 Trick or treating was a success. We gave all of our candy away and Emma seemed to have a blast. 

We didn't decorate too much this year. 

We were the only house on the street so it looked like a lot. 

We had waited to do pumpkins because Mike was out of town. 

Even though trick or treating was over, we still decided to carve pumpkins. We could at least put them out on the actual day of Halloween.

Emma painted hers. 

 The aftermath. 

 Mines on the left, Mikes on the right. 

It was another great Halloween to remember.

Trick-or-Treating Early

About two weeks ago, our farmers market and mall both were having trick-or-treating on the same day.
Luck for us, they were at different times. 

I met up with some friends and started the fun.

I love farmers markets.
I am so glad I had found out about Capital Market because the have the best green beans and peaches!
But anyways...we started there first.
I left her pink bow that I put in her hair fluff at home.  :(

 I was so surprised that she kept her duck costume on the whole time. We had been trying it on everyday but she would only last about 3 minutes in it each time.
 I think seeing the other kids helped.

 Some of the stands gave out the normal candy while others gave out apples and bananas.

  We headed to the mall after.
This picture does not show at all what it was like there.
 It was so unbelievably busy that this was the first and last time we will do this.
Waiting in a 20 minute line for a dum-dum is not what I call fun.
It was nice to see all the cute kids in costume but for my sanity...we will not be back.

They do a costume contest and there music was playing while people were waiting for it to start. We didn't stay to watch it. There must have been 50 babies waiting to go down the runway and that was just the first group.
There was 5 groups all together.
No thanks.
But Emma was having fun.

Happy Halloween

Bridge Day 2015

Bridge Day in West Virginia is the biggest event in the state.

They close off the New River Gorge Bridge for the over 150,000 people that show up for the day. 

This is the longest arch bridge in the western hemisphere so it is the largest tourist attraction here also.

The main event at bridge day is the base jumpers that are legally allowed to jump. 

They also have zip-lining, walking under the bridge, repelling, white water rafting and of course food. 

We headed out knowing it was going to be a bit chilly outside. 

I guess we weren't really prepared for HOW COLD IT WAS! 

More so Emma because shes all I cared about.

I had her pretty layered up but I still felt like she was cold, so we didn't stay on the bridge to long.

I got a couple shots and left the blistering wind. 

 Kayaking rapids 

 Rafting groups

 Cant imagine how cold this water was!

I was hoping the trees would have changed a little more before this day but it was still very pretty.

Note to self for next year: dress like it is snowing out. 

Gritts Farm X2

Emma and I headed out to Gritts farm once again for some fun. We had went a few weeks ago when Mike was able to go and now Emma and I went again with some friends and their kids. 

Diving out there was pretty much a disaster. 

I had Emma in a Halloween shirt, a sweatshirt and of course a pair of pants. Half way through driving she started to say "wet" over and over. Then it hit me...when I smelled it. 

She threw up. 

It had only happened one other time and it was when she had yogurt for breakfast. 

Well today you guessed it. 

Yogurt. 

I guess if we are going to be going in the car then yogurt is not a good choice for her. 

I tried to clean her up as best as I could but that smell just doesn't come out using only baby wipes. 

I thank goodness put a change of clothes in the car...of course they didn't match, but oh well.

 The only problem was her sweatshirt. 

I had her wear it a little when the wind was blowing, but every chance I could take it off her, I did. 

 Still loving the goats. 

side note: I really thought moving to West Virginia we were going to have a little bit of land in order to have a couple goats or some chickens. I knew she would have loved it...and so would have I. 

 The first time we came here, Emma was not able to play in the corn box. There was so many kids in there that there would have been definitely tears from getting hurt. This time around there was still field trips at the farm but the groups stayed together. So when they were at one activity the whole group was there enjoying themselves. The time before the kids were running wild everywhere.

She had a blast in the corn box and looking at the goats. 

See ya next year Gritts Farm. 

We have a Gymnast!

Emma did a real somersault today. The first one I did not catch on video...but this was the second one. 

  The actual somersault doesn't start till 0.33 sec. 

Fall Hikes

There is no hiding that I love to go outside and explore. My love first started just a couple years ago when I lived in Hawaii. I had never really stopped to listen to the birds or feel the wind blow the way I do now. Of course I would "enjoy" pretty things outside back then, but I never truly loved it the way I do now. 

I want my baby to feel the grass between her toes at a young age. 

With that said, I am always looking for new places to go and explore as much as I can. 

Moving to West Virginia has become a little tricky with my exploring bug that I have. Hawaii, I was able to get around the whole island and adventure, then come home and have plenty of time to make dinner.  Here, everything seems so far away. The places where I would really love to go takes 2-3 hours just to drive there. Count the hour or so of actual exploring, then the 2-3 hours to drive home. Mike and I are looking into buying a RV to make things a little easier with being able to travel long distances...especially with Bolo.  

Don't get me wrong, there are still neat places around my home to see but I can only duplicate them so many times.

  

This Fall will be Emma's first. 

Sadly, we don't have a tree in our yard so there will be no throwing her into a pile of leaves, but on our hikes we do we get plenty of opportunities to see all the changing colors. 

Wine Celler Park has been my favorite place to go at the moment. There is never anyone there and it is a easy walk for Emma...so I can run some energy out of her. 

I don't like to take Bolo with us when we walk to far. He doesn't really seem to enjoy it so I don't want to push him. 

This day it was so beautiful and I wanted him to get some fresh air so we took the walk extra slow. 

We sat at the lake for a good hour just taking it all in. 

These are the best days. 

Once again, I knew we weren't going to far so Bolo was able to come and explore with us to 

The Devils Tea Table.

It was a huge rock in the middle of the forest. 

A very peaceful spot. 

We were exploring another part of West Virginia when we came up on a creek with some beautiful waterfalls.
Keeney Creek
I am such a sucker for a waterfall, big or small.

 I just wish I had my good camera with me.
I am just going to have to come back to check out all of the other waterfalls in this area.
There are so many!