My Surprising Life Hodgepodge

1. What’s surprised you most about your life or life in general?

Looking back the things that have surprised me most in life are the people God has put in my life, the places and adventures I have enjoyed and the protection from God that I benefited from on these adventures.

Here’s a short list of some surprises in my life:

That God brought Dear and I together during our time as part of a Christian Rock Band performing in the U.S. and Great Britain.

That we had three children.

That we moved to Washington State away from all our extended family for Dear to pursue a whole new career.

That our three children married helpmates who love God and we’ve enjoyed so many adventures with all of them.

That through my blogging experience God blessed me with the Mennonite Girls Can Cook. Who would have guessed I would be part of this group of women who love God, their families, are growing disciples of Jesus and who love to feed orphans and widows with our royalties? The adventures I’ve had with this group alone is mind boggling.

That we are now enjoying our first little grand.

That it looks like we’ll be moving away from the City to the Country. I’ve been a city mouse all my life…

That God is good to me and has surprised me my whole life long.

2. Sweet potato fries, sweet potato casserole, a baked sweet potato, a bowl of butternut squash soup, a caramel apple or a slice of pumpkin pie…you have to order one thing on this list right now. Which one do you go for?

It’s a toss up between butternut squash soup and sweet potato fries.

3. What’s a famous book set in your home state? Have you read it? On a scale of 1-5 (5 is fantastic) how many stars does it rate?

I went to Goodreads and looked at their list of top 200 books from Washington State and I haven’t read even one. My daughter read all the Twilight series. The top votes went to Snow Falling on Cedars. The only book on the list that looks interesting to me is The Boys in the Boat.
4. There are 60 days until Christmas…have you started your shopping? How do you stay organized for the holidays?

No, I have not shopped at all yet. We have just had our family discussion on what Christmas will look like this year. The only thing that is organized for the holidays is the fact that I have everything in the attic in it’s proper containers. The holidays that I choose to gather decor for have their own bins, etc. I hope our kitchen will be completed before Thanksgiving or before Christmas.

5. October 26th is National Tennessee Day. Have you ever lived or spent any time in Tennessee? Is this a state you’d like to visit one day? The top rated tourist attractions in Tennessee are-

The Great Smoky Mountain National Park (Gatlinburg area), Elvis’s Graceland (Memphis), Birth of the Music Biz (Memphis and Nashville), Dollywood (Pigeon Forge), Tennessee’s Military Heritage (many battlefields), The Hermitage (Andrew Jackson’s home), The Parthenon (Nashville), Oak Ridge American Museum of Science and Energy, Chattagnooa and the Tennessee Valley Railroad, Downtown Knoxville, Lookout Mountain, The Titanic Museum (Pigeon Forge), The Museum of Appalachia (Clinton), and The Lost Sea Adventure (Sweetwater)

How many on this list have you seen? Which one on the list would you most like to see?

Back in May of 2014 our daughter and I drove from Seattle to Jacksonville, North Carolina to set her up in an apartment just before her Marine husband returned from a long tour of duty in Afghanistan. We drove through part of Tennessee to get to North Carolina. Our first stop was Hendersonville to spend the night at the home of one of Andrew’s Marine buddies who was in Afghanistan with him. The next day we drove through part of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park and had a sandwich in Gatlinburg. We drove through Pigeon Forge to get to Gatlinburg. That is one weird town. Click here and you’ll see my post from our drive through Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg.

I’ll have to pass on traveling to Tennessee again.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

Mommy and Addy. We had 7 days enjoying her and watching her every move from October 12-19. She cut her first tooth upon turning 7 months old.

Thank you to Joyce From This Side of the Pond who asks the questions for Wednesday Hodgepodge. And thank you to everyone who took the time to read my answers. I appreciate your time and comments.

Prayers for Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge

To remind me to pray for the people of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge I’m re-posting about one of the days from Katie and my road trip from Seattle to Jacksonville, North Carolina in May of 2014. We were driving her and a lot of her stuff back to Camp Le Jeune in anticipation of Andrew’s return from Afghanistan.

Praying for this area of our country that is burning. Praying for rain and containment. Also praying for the people who have lost everything. Not forgetting to pray, too, for the Firefighters and First Responders.

From May of 2014…

We left Hendersonville, Tennessee after a stop at Starbucks and filling up our gas tank at a Kroeger Grocery store Station. Kroeger in Washington is either our Fred Meyer stores or our QFC stores.

Right about here on the road our clocks turned forward an hour and we were now in the Eastern Time Zone!

We really weren’t prepared for our drive through Sevierville and Pigeon Forge and the strange sights we would see.

This was promising but then we drove into the bizarre world of Pigeon Forge.

What!?

The Hatfields and the McCoys!

The Titanic?

We weren’t able to make it to Rushmore and this did not make up for it!

A Bavarian Denny’s? This town had an amazing amount of dinner theaters of different genres to experience. There were some great looking miniature golf properties but so many other ~~tacky~~ unusual properties.

We did not divert our path further to go to Dollywood.

Now this was more like it. This was the scenery we were expecting on our Smoky Mountain Detour.

This was in the town of Gatlinburg. This town had a lot of candy shops, donut shops, fudge shops, taffy shops and Whiskey shops.

Ripley’s Aquarium was also located here. I’m scared to think of what kind of creatures you would see in there.

We bought a sandwich here and headed out to our destination on this day which was Asheville, North Carolina.

We laughed real hard when we crossed this river 8 times during our detour!

We made it to Asheville at 5:30, checked into our hotel and then got ready for our dinner reservation at the Omni Grove Hotel on their Sunset Terrace. That experience will be a future post!

We are so happy to be here in Asheville for a two day stretch. We spent most of the day at the Biltmore Estate properties today and walked our feet off. We are chilling in our hotel room tonight having a picnic in our room instead of heading out to eat. The weather was beautiful today. Tomorrow we drive our final miles on this road trip across the U.S.A.

Thanks to all of you bloggy friends for following along with us on this journey across the U.S.A.

Now back to 2016 I’ll be linking this post to signs, signs with Lesley.

SeaJack #6 The Smoky Mountain Detour…