Christmas tree decorating with Casey

It's been ages since I blogged.  this seemed like a good reason to blog today.  Casey was here as usual yesterday and I thought it would be nice for him to help me decorate the tree.  We had a great time.  Casey didn't want to stop until all the ornaments were gone and on the tree.  It was lots of fun, thanks Casey. 
 

Wildlife on our front door screen

 When we got up this morning we saw this Praying Mantis on our front door screen.  He stayed there all day, even though we went in and out of the door many times.  This looks like a baby, since they are usually much bigger when fully grown.  It was very neat to watch him/her slowly make it 's way up to the top of the door. 

  This is looking on top of the Praying Mantis.                                       

 
 

 This is a view from inside looking out.                  

Fun in Gatlinburg

We had a lot of fun times in Gatlinburg.  The cabin was beautiful, with a great porch we made use of reading books while listening to the rain on the trees.  Yes, it did rain off and on, but it was still nice, and the rain stopped at helpful times.  I took a picture of the resident porch spider, it may be a bit hard to make out. 

 

 

  
  Some views from our porch.

  Morgan taking a bath in the kitchen sink the first night.  She fit well.

Casey loved going up and down the stairs and running through the house.

Morgan liked chewing on the plastic tub, and crawling all around the floor. 

We had some nice family moments.  One at a restaurant on our last night there. 

Art and I went into the town of Gatlinburg for the day and had a great time.  Art rode the sky-lift up    the mountain while I stayed safely with my feet on the ground and took pictures. 

We got thirsty while we were walking in town so we stopped in at a restaurant to get a cold drink.  We met this really nice waitress from the Ukraine, her name was Maryna.  She spent about 40 minutes total talking to us about her experience here in the U.S.  She came on a student visa, and wants to stay longer to travel throughout the country.  She finds Americans friendly and generally happy.  She says this is not the norm in her country, everyone has a sort of downcast face.  We really had a good time talking to her.  We hope her application for a  tourist visa comes through. 

                             Other family pics.

Here are some pictures of the mountains in the town.

And lastly, here is the reason they call them the Smokey Mountains.  Art took me back to this spot after we had passed it by on the way home.  Anyone who knows Art, knows he hates to lose time by stopping to take pics or backtracking.  He was so nice to go back to this outlook, he knew I hadn't taken a good picture of the mountains  from this high up.  

Goodbye Gatlinburg, we will return sometime soon I hope.

 

Monkey Diaries-Wednesday and Thursday

It's been a while since we have had the Monkey Diaries. I was waiting until I got something worthy of blogging about. The first one, from yesterday, is a picture of my chair in the living room, with a note stating that Art was taking the monkey to "take your gorilla to work day". So, we were minus the monkey for the day, but I can't say I missed him greatly. The second picture is from today. Apparently the monkey wanted to help water the garden today. He sadly wasn't very much help, and was sent back in the house to dry off.

Butterflies in the garden

I have two Monarch butterflies that have been frequenting my garden. I snapped this picture of one of them visiting my zinnias.

Friday Monkey Diaries

Ok, I haven't been blogging about the monkey adventures every day. They have to pass the funny test for me to put it on. These last two fit in to that category. The first one is the monkey sitting outside and with a book and a drink, like Art loves to do. The second one is the monkey hiding in the china cabinet because we had a bat land on our screen door last night. Art has a huge aversion to bats, and was fairly upset at the spot this bat picked to rest. He of course re-directed his fear onto the monkey.

A new challange

Casey tried his hand at a new toy when he was at our house on Monday. I got him a Mr. Potato Head over the weekend. Here is a picture of him working intently to place all the parts in the right place. A classic toy is still fun.