Finally!

Now this is what I call VACATIONING! The weather was beautiful - not too hot and not too cold. Floating around on a pristine lake up in the mountains where you can smell the pine trees and feel the cool breeze. Even if I did not catch any fish (which I did) it is a great way to relax.

I cannot believe how unbelievably busy I was before we left for vacation and seems like I have been pretty much the same since we got back. Part of the business has been spending time with Debby before she left for Iraq. She has actually been deployed, but will be in Washington preparing for a while.

We had a really GREAT time in Arnold at the Mountain Retreat. We had great chats, great food, great fishing, some special occasions and an all around very relaxing time. I was able to get the bindings sewn on both the dogs quilts for Wanda and also my "Wild Woman" quilt. We also had a good game of poker and a night out at the local Pub for Debby's birthday. I also almost completed the binding for a table topper that Joy gave me. One of the highlights of the trip was getting to be close to a 400 pound Mama brown bear and her two cubs. Thankfully we did not have an encounter with 800 pound Daddy. We had the opportunity watching the Mom and her cubs having dinner in the trash bins at the complex. That is Debby's Toyota that you can see in the right corner of this shot. I was really amazed that Mom would get so close to humans with her cubs, but let me tell you she keep a good watch. Every time someone moved she truly shot them the evil eye until they stood still! There were some beautiful lakes in the area and we had a great time using our float tubes. Max and Paul did some fly fishing in the river and they both managed to hook some up. We were not that successful fishing the lakes, but we did manage to hook up some beautiful trout, but we did not keep any.

The following is a shot of Utica Lake, which was one of the most peaceful, serene and awesomely beautiful places I have ever seen and one we will always hold near and dear to our hearts! This vacation will be one we will remember for a lifetime! I will try to get more of the photos posted on Shutterfly - it is just so hard to add photos to really let people see where we were and what we were doing.Later . . .