First Trip to Camp Driftwood

Continuing the "best summer ever" we spent last weekend in Leesburg, Alabama at Camp Driftwood. That is the name of our friend Josh's parent's new lake house. I hope it is the first of many! There was talk of returning in the fall for kayaking and campfire. Lovely.

Saturday we rented a pontoon to cruise around Lake Weiss. It was so fun! Like I mentioned yesterday, Priscilla was out on it for a while. When we came back to our dock to make lunch I dropped her off so she wouldn't get too exhausted and we went out again!

This is Billie! She belongs to Lauren and Josh and is a frisbee catching swimming maniac! She is so beautiful and sweet.

Varuca came too! She is the puppy we found in our backyard if you remember. She has gotten so big already! She used Priscilla's life jacket too.

It was such a beautiful day, pretty much until we parked the boat and got out to swim. Then it got dark and started raining out of nowhere. Wah! We waited it out and it finally stopped. It was pretty dark for a while, but it was still a great day for swimming.

I got so many photos of Travis leaping off the boat, but this one is my favorite! Look at that form!

It might look like it was just me, Travis, Crystal and Marc, but there were four other people there! I just don't know how much the others like pictures of themselves in their bathing suits online. I know the four of us don't care, ha!

This picture makes me laugh! Look at Travis just tipping off the edge! And Marc looks like a cherub flying by!

Billie stood at the top of the stairs with her frisbee. You can't come up unless you throw it!

Boat ladies! Look at Billie's perfect selfie face.

Boat! When I was growing up my grandparents had a pontoon boat and we rode on it a lot. I wish they still had it!

The fun wasn't done once our boat rental was up. They had this nice dock to swim off of! That big blue thing is a trampoline! The lake was really low (it is a man made lake and they let the water go down as it gets into fall) but it was perfect for floating.

I love this photo! Look at that sweet puppy!

I wish we could have stayed a few more days. There is nothing like swimming and laying out on the dock to dry off.

The cabin has this wonderful HUGE picnic table and grill. We made hot dogs for lunch twice, and grilled pizzas for dinner.

I'm real into these Stiegl Radlers. Perfect summah drink.

We had to leave all too soon on Sunday. Here's to Camp Driftwood! May your flag fly forever!

Priscilla's Big Weekend at the Lake!

This past weekend Travis and I were invited to spend the weekend with friends at a lake house in Alabama. I have always wanted to take the pugs swimming to see if they like it but I don't know a dog friendly swimming hole in Nashville, and since pugs overheat so fast I don't want to take them on a long trip and risk heat exhaustion. This was the perfect place! The lake house was right on the water so I could pop Priscilla right back in the air conditioner if she got too hot! Phyllis didn't get to come because she doesn't like big dogs and there was a big sweet golden retriever there the whole weekend (you'll see her later!)

I was still a little worried about the heat, but the vet told me Priscilla has the best nostrils she's ever seen on a pug so I figured it was worth a go. I took way too many pictures. And I'm probably posting too many. But she is so cute!!!!

I ordered a life jacket from Amazon since no where in town has them this late in the season. It was on super sale too! I'm so glad it fit. Pugs are notoriously hard to fit since they have short bodies but big barrel chests. If you are shopping for one, we got her a small and it fit great!

We rode out on the boat and I got ready to see if she would like to swim. Priscilla is pretty happy as long as she is near you. She swam right too me and just kind of clung to me at first. It might have been the first time she was in the water in her life!

 She much preferred riding out of the water on a float. I think it made her feel more secure. Here she is with Josh, the birthday boy! His parents own the lake house and I'm so thankful they let us use it for the weekend!

 After a little while paddling around I put her back on the boat (with the life jacket of course). A few minutes later my friends were yelling that she had fallen off and went under! I panicked but thankfully the life jacket pulled her right back up. She had wandered through the open door at the front and somersaulted off! Poor thing! Thankfully, it didn't seem to phase her much.

We swam a little longer then rode back to our dock. Look at that wet baby!

Back on the dock, back in the jacket. Poor old blind thing doesn't slow down when she gets to the edge of things. While a few of the boys took the boat back, Crystal, Priscilla and I floated in the lake. I still wasn't sure she liked it so I put her back on the dock but she whined at me and tried to jump off until I pulled her back in.

 Look at her swimming! She wagged her tail while she did it!

 Mother daughter portrait.

 She seemed most comfortable in this float so I pushed her around in it for a long time.

Her face! I'm pretty sure now that she liked it. I'm proud of her for being so brave! It was a LOT of activity and excitement for an elderly lady who spends most of her time asleep on my couch.

After drying off she seemed so white and fluffy like a little bunny. She was a little cold so I wrapped her in a blanket and went outside. She got to sleep with us, which never happens. I think that was her favorite part of the weekend. She was very good and only barked at me once, to put her in between us. So sweet.

 The next day Travis didn't want her to get wet since we were driving home mid-day. He was a little sun burnt so he sat in the shade on the dock and held her for a few hours. In the life jacket of course. She was very content.

 The handle!

 Ugh I can't get over her cute little face!

She slept the whole 3 hour drive home wrapped in a blanket. What a big weekend for my girl!

World's Longest Yard Sale: Part Two!

After our lunch I was ready to get back out and dig! The traffic was much better, I think it was around 1 in the afternoon? It only took us a little while to get back where we were before we turned off the trail. I tried to take some pictures to show you what the stops looked like. There were lots like this, a bunch of vendors set up together in a yard or field. 

This lady had a great booth, but her prices were delusional! I asked how much a little Black Forest clock was, and she was like "Oh, someone broke that earlier...so it is 45 dollars." Yeah right! The prices at the sale ran the gamut. I kind of liked the gut churning moment when you asked for a price. It could be an antique dealer who was going to ask top dollar, or it could be someone just getting rid of stuff in their attic who is going to sell you that JR Deluxe edition for 50 cents.

Pretty hot. Haha, I like the dolls.

Look at these chairs! They match our dinette set PERFECTLY! I hadn't seen the same fabric anywhere before. There was no way to get them in my car so I didn't even ask the price. Such a bummer.

We got homemade ice cream! We're so used to the over priced ice cream in town (I'm looking at your Jeni's with your golf ball sized scoop for five dollars) we couldn't believe we got all this for 3 bucks! I got strawberry, Travis got peach.

Travis wore one of his fanny packs, and even though I made fun of him before, it actually worked out great! And I don't think it looked dorky at all. He had a little organizer inside with the bills separated. 

There were TONS of beautiful old cars along the route. This beauty was probably my favorite. Travis was practically drooling! 

I wouldn't mind cruising around in it.

Another stop. The route is through some beautiful country. One of the little mottos on their site is "See your America!" I like that idea, you could see a lot of the country from Michigan to Alabama. 

Travis has been replacing all our knives with nice old ones. Slowly but surely everything in our house is going vintage. I am not good at sticking to an era, and my house will never be a show piece, but there really is something about vintage, everything was made better.

I will admit, I was really on the hunt for some taxidermy. I finally decided that I could have some in my house. I didn't get a deer though. You'll just have to wait and see! (Or if you follow me on instagram you already know about my new little friend.)

Sweet Travis. I'm glad he loves the hunt as much as I do. We're getting quite a collection of Halloween records. I guess we need to have a party this year. One thing I haven't been able to find is a good record rack. What I really want is a record table. 

Little 1940's kittens! I have one of these, that I have had as long as I can remember. The vendor I got them from said he had over 100 at the beginning of the sale! I would have loved to see them all together! They are so sweet and tiny!

I really like this flag tent! In the past two years I have become a super dork who loves flags. I took so many pictures of this as we drove past! Then more after we stopped. When we got close you could see it was cheap plastic, not old weathered canvas like I imagined. But still cool.

Our last stop of the day. It was NOT for boiled peanuts. Gross.

A lady was selling little succulent cuttings for 50 cents to 1 dollar a piece! I have been wanting to try my hand at succulents again (I killed THREE last summer) and for such a tiny investment I decided it was time. Here are what I got. Hen and chicks are my favorite. I need to identify the cactus. I pledge to NOT over nurture this time. Haha. I haven't kept a plant alive yet. 

It was almost 6 o'clock by this point and most of the vendors were covering up their wares and leaving for the day. We made out way off of the 127 sale route. It is hard to tell, but we were up in the mountains. We went down so many switch backs! It was really beautiful though.

Cute restaurant we passed. Look at that sign! And that A frame.

I was really cranky by this time but I perked up when we got to Mellow Mushroom. It is the only place I will break the "only eat places you can't eat at home" rule for. Their pizza is SO GOOD. We got an oil and garlic base, with bell peppers and pineapple. We has been shopping for nine hours and it didn't take much for us to fall asleep once we got to our hotel. 

Before we went, Travis and I decided that we might go home after shopping on Saturday because we thought we'd be over it after going to yard sales all day. But I was actually chomping at the bit to get back to it on Sunday! I'll show you that tomorrow.