Holly River State Park.

This year we took our second trip to beautiful Holly River State Park, in West Virginia. I am not much for camping but this park is amazing. Holly River State Park is located in central W. Va. and is the second largest in the state park system.  It has a total of 8,101 peaceful wooded acres that are located on mountains as tall as 2,800 feet. In case you are looking for more to do, the West Virginia Wildlife Center – WVDNR Wildlife, and  Elk River Public Hunting and Fishing Area are both located closely so you can visit them too during your trip. 

Both times that we have visited we haved stayed  in the cabins. There are 10 cabins availabe for rental during the months of April-November.  They all have bathrooms with showers, open fireplaces, beds with the linens provided, and fully equipped kitchens. The kitchens are so handy and making cooking dinner very easy.  They are very nice, clean, and well kept up.  Cabin number 10 is the largest and most modern, but the other 9 are situated among the lush forest of large trees and offer a more natural setting. The campground features 88 sites with electric hookups. There are 4 bathhouses with toilet facilites for the available for the campers.

cabin # 8

There are many hinking trails ranging in length from .5 miles to 10 miles long. My favorite quick trail is the Nature's Rock Garden.  The trail is right next to the cabins and only takes about 30 minutes to walk- even with my young children.

My daughter loves climbing on the many huge rocks on the trail.

In the Potato Knob section of the park, there are many interesting things to see. We enjoy spending time at the large waterfall called the Upper Falls. 

It was a short hike from there to another stunning place called the shute. Here the creek rushes through a narrow rock fissure and plunges into the water below.

From a Distance Photo Challange

This weeks I Heart Faces theme is From A Distance. The challenge is a little different from the usual challenges  because the subjects face does not have to be clearly visible! 

I decided to submit a photo taken from my trip to China. I took this pictureof my mother sitting on the steps of he Great Wall of China. I love this photo because it shows how expansive and curvy the wall is. Be sure to check out the other beautiful entries at http://www.iheartfaces.com/2011/06/photo-challenge-from-a-distance/

New photo...

Happy INSD

Hello everyone. I hope you are as excited as I am about this weekend!! Today is International Scrapbooking Day and Sunday is Mother's Day! For all you digi scrappers, this means loads of freebies!  I know that DSA is having a freebie blog train and don't forget to stop by GDS to pick up your daily download. Here is the link to the GDS page:  http://www.godigitalscrapbooking.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17399. I'm going to try and get some scrapping done amid all the freebie hunting and downloading.  :0)!

Here are some LO's that I have done recently:

I Heart Faces Pet Challenge

This is a photo of Maple, one of our dairy goats.  She is a sweetheart and always very curious to see what's going on around her. Check out the rest of the Pet photos at I Heart Faces http://www.iheartfaces.com/2011/04/photo-challenge-pets/ for this weeks challenge.

ADSR Challenge 8

For Challenge 8 we supposed to use the title Family= ( insert word of your choice) I came up with many different different titles like Family = Love, or Family = Change, but I decided to go with Family = Destiny.

Journaling reads: When I was a teenager I read a biography about Josephine Baker. Josephine adopted many children of different races and called them her rainbow tribe. I thought that was the "coolest thing" and dreamt that someday I would have a rainbow Tribe of my own.  As the years rolled by, I forgot about Josephine and her tribe, but i believe that God quietly planted a seed in my heart for a reason. More than a decade later, I married and assumed that my husband and I would have children like everyone else. I couldn't have been more wrong. i discovered that I suffered from fertility issues and that giving birth to a child was not something that came very easily. I grieved and wondered why. Then one day I saw a TV commercial advertising a documentary featuring Josephine baker. Suddenly it all came back to me and I understood. " I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11   Now I have my own Rainbow Tribe... the family that I was always destined to have.

Here are the credits and requirements for my page:
You may choose TWO out of the FIVE options.

Use at least 2 different alphas for your title - done
Use at least 3 pattern papers
Use at least 3 solid papers
Use at least 2 different fonts in your journaling - done
Make a list of the reasons why you answered with that word (your title)
Title of your layout. "Family = (your answer)" - done
credits:
paper by Shabby Princess, flowers by SDS and by me, butterfly by Mye De Leon, Alpha for "destiny" from Kuper Doodles

ADSR

My partner mommdeb  and I are doing really well in the Amazing Digi Scrap Race.  It has been a lot of fun and I have loved seeing all of the talented creative people out there. Challenge 7 was difficult for me because it was very detailed and forced me to include quite a few elements into my page. Here are the items that we were required to include in our LO. I listed my credits after the requirements.

1 paper for your background, but NOT a scenic paper- pp by Flerggs

2 Different Trees- by PK and Everyday mom ideas
2 Different Types of Leaves- from HK Designs
2 Different Types of Flowers- both from AE
2 Different Rocks- both from The Water LO Project
Fence- from Holly Ann at GDS
Squirrel- extracted by me
Chipmunk- extracted by me
Mushrooms- from JD Skrapz
Grass- from Studio 4 Designworks at GDS
Butterfly- AE
Bird- HK Designs at GDS
Sun- from Erin's Dreams
Add one frame and one photo- frame from SDS
Add a title, quote or journaling- title from Design House Digital
 
Here is my LO for the race.  I really like how it turned out. 

For challenge 5, we were to scrap about something that we like to do when we are alone. We were given three different "recipes" that we could follow for our page.  I love negative space LO's, so I chose recipe three. I used an eraser brush on the edges of my photo to make it look like it's blending into the background paper. Here is the recipe that I used:

1 Background Paper
1 Photo
Small Amount of Journaling
1Element of your choice (can be any element)
My paper is from Dancing Princess Designs
 
Here is my LO