Welcome Connor!

My newest nephew, Connor, was born at 7:37 am today.  He's 7 lb 12 oz and 20.5 inches long.  I can't wait to meet him in person!

Hike #3: Tiger Creek Preserve

I'm a few hikes behind now - that's what happens when you forget to blog for a week or two.  Here's my layout and description of our third hike, an 8.4 mile hike in Tiger Creek Preserve in Babson Park.

Hike #3, Tiger Creek Preserve (#31 in the book), consisted of two trails covering 7 different habitats.  We found the first trail head, the George Clooney Trail, immediately on our left when we turned onto Pfundstein Rd.  The parking was along the roadside rather than in a real lot.  It was a warm day so I wore short sleeves and my hiking pants.  I grabbed the index card for the first trail and we moved out.

This first trail, a .7 mile hike, had several side trails that ended with a dead-end “End of Trail” sign (which the book noted and the instructions were to take the trails to the end and then backtrack).  The diamond markers promised to mark our path were nonexistent but the path was short and not that difficult to follow so soon we were on our way.  We came across a seating area with wooden benches and took a side trail.  On the first side trail there were some odd marks in the ground which Lisa informed me were signs of wild hogs, which rut in the ground. Now we were a little nervous, not really keen to come across wild hogs (or coyotes or bobcats, whose tracks we also saw during our hike).  Luckily those predators were not among the wildlife we saw today.  I told Lisa that they usually come out at night, which I’m pretty sure is true.

Towards the end of the short walk I did get us a bit lost. I saw what I thought was an observation tower so I walked us in the opposite direction.  It was actually the entrance sign and I was supposed to walk towards it.  We realized that when we got back to the part of the trail where we saw the hog marks.

The longer portion of the hike was still to come - 7.7 miles.  We found the second trail head, The Highlands Trail, further down the road; we drove down a dirt road to get to this one which had a grassy parking lot.  There were maps at the entrance sign which were a big help, since my hand drawn map was pathetic.  There was also a sign-in sheet; Lisa recorded our visit and we started out on our hike around 11:30.

The trail was marked with orange blazes and it was on this hike that we finally learned how to follow blazes (paint markings on trees and metal poles and sometimes orange flags).  Always keep your eye on the next blaze; a double blaze means an abrupt and sharp turn in the trail.  We planned to take one side trail which was marked with blue blazes.

The trail was sometimes dirt and sometimes sand (where it crossed with a jeep trail).  It was not as hilly as Catfish Creek Preserve but not flat.  We walked to an intersection where the 1 mile side trail we wanted was clearly marked to the left.  We headed left and followed the blue blazes across a cute and fairly long bridge with no railings.  On the other side we surprised a flock of quail which came bursting out of the scrub scaring Lisa (who was still focused on bobcats, coyotes, and serial killers).  This side trail was quite cozy, with trees surrounding us and a nice carpeted floor lined with lichen, a type of moss, which dried with the absence of rain.  We often heard rustling in the bushes but we didn’t see anything.

The side trail was a circle and we ended up back at the bridge.  We crossed back over; the picture for this hike is on that bridge.  Back at the trail sign we walked over to the main trail, once again following orange blazes.  This section was 6.3 miles (that sounded a little scary).  We were now in terrain that symbolizes the Lake Wales Ridge: sandy, hilly, and open.  There wasn’t much tree coverage and it was sunny; sun block would have been a good idea.

A little ways into the trail we heard a loud noise in the shrubs.  We stopped to look and there was a big gopher tortoise staring at us.  As we whipped out our cameras he ran forward and slid down into his burrow.  We weren’t fast enough to get a picture of him, but we did get a picture of his home.

This was the best marked trail we’ve been on; it was easy to follow the orange blazes.  Sometimes there were arrows and mile markers to show how far we’d walked.  Halfway around this loop we heard crashing in the brush and looked over to see two large deer bounding through the scrub, flipping up their tails as they disappeared into the trees.  So cool! 

The hike was beautiful but it was long and we started to feel it at mile 5.  We were thankful to come to the end of the big loop and even more happy when we came out of the main trail back to the starting path, but too happy I think because this is where we almost got lost and forgot to follow the blazes.  Using Lisa’s phone navigation, which worked out here in the boondocks, we got back on track.  The last mile was painful – Lisa couldn’t stand up straight and my ankle had stiffened and felt so sore.  We collapsed in the car where I had one last bottle of water to guzzle.  We finished around 2:30, so the entire 8.4 mile hike took 3.5 hours.

Layout credits:

Kit - Believe by Ruth Davis

Fonts - PC Brita, PC Chessie Dash

Birthdays and Anniversaries - All About the Love

Today is my mom's birthday - Happy Birthday Mom!  In 1947 my grandmother blessed this world with my mother and though not all the years in between then and now have been kind to her, she has maintained a kind heart towards others.  My mother is a blessing in our lives. 

Today is also my marriage anniversary (not to be confused with my wedding anniversary, which is in July, lol).  12 years ago today my husband and I took an inpromptu trip down to the courthouse and made it legal.  It was the best decision we ever made.  And it was a lot easier to plan a wedding with a man who was already my husband, lol.

There are all kinds of love in this world, and we should all be thankful for each one we have the chance to experience.  I have some love-themed layouts to share with you all today, and if you need more inspiration the Feb 6 blog entry at E-Scape and Scrap was all about the love.

Bee Mine 4-Ever

using kit My Honey by The Busy Elf Designs

My What-4 List

using kit My Honey by The Busy Elf Designs

2 Sisters - 2 Friends

using Count on Me Papers and Elements by Julie Mead

8 Isn't Enough

using Count on Me Papers and Elements by Julie Mead

They're here!

I've finished my first 3 hiking layouts - the title page for the album and layouts covering hikes 1 & 2.  I know you've been waiting for them.  The journaling on the pages is basically the original blog entries, so I'm not reprinting that here.  You can just go look at the earlier blog entries.  :-)

We didn't get to hike last weekend because of technical difficulties, but we're headed back out again tomorrow!

Title page:

Supplies used: The Fairy Glen Fantasy Paper Set by Scrapdragon Designs, Family Roots by Scrapdragon Designs.

On the double-layouts below I used pictures from the hike to blend behind the left pages for interest to the journaling pages.  On the right pages I used papers from The Fairy Glen Fantasy Paper Set to blend behind the pages to add texture to the solid papers.
Hike #1: Circle B Bar Reserve

Supplies used: The Fairy Glen Fantasy Paper Set by Scrapdragon Designs, Folded Papers - Jewel Brights by Scrapdragon Designs

Hike #2: Catfish Creek Preserve

Supplies used: The Fairy Glen Fantasy Paper Set by Scrapdragon Designs, Folded Papers - Jewel Brights by Scrapdragon Designs

Groundhog Day

The bottom line - no shadow = end of winter.  I think that's something everyone is looking forward to this year.  Good old P. Phil has our backs.

Speaking of Groundhog Day, it's one of my favorite movies. If you haven't seen it, starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell, you should check it out for some sweet and silly laughs.

February is here and that begins the parade of birthdays that march through this month for our family.  Uncle Vern and Brian both have birthdays today to start it off.  If you can believe it, on top of all the existing birthdays Nicole is purposely creating another February birthday.  She literally scheduled a birthday in February - she's having a C-Section on Feb 24 so that New Baby Hickey can share a birthday with his Uncle John.  :-)

Hike #2: Catfish Creek Preserve State Park

Catfish Creek Preserve State Park is located a bit off the beaten path in Dundee, Florida. This area is a part of the Lake Wales Ridge. The trailhead is just a small parking lot with some signage touting the preserve as an award winner. My guidebook directed us to head off to the right after parking where we would pick up a trail map in the red mailbox. She wasn’t kidding, either, there was a red mailbox and when we opened it there were trail maps inside. Cool!
Lisa and I arrived at 2:45 pm and set off on our hike. At that time the temperature had reached a high of 53. It didn’t get any warmer that day. The author estimated it would take 2 hours to hike a 3.5 mile perimeter trail. The book warned that the trail was for people who were looking for a physical challenge. I’m going to have to take these warnings more seriously. And we should probably start our hikes earlier so we don’t have to worry about nightfall catching us.

Just like last time I wrote down the gist of the directions on a note card and took that with us. Note to self – it’s hard enough to read a map, written directions are just not my forte. We started on the trail leading off to the right and immediately noticed the marker numbers that were described in the book. We had to walk to marker 8 and then turn right. Well, not exactly – that’s not what my instructions said, but that’s what my mind read. We were actually supposed to come to marker 8 where we would then see marker 12 intersecting and turn left. Kind of different, don’t you think? Either way we never saw marker 8 or marker 12, but we did see markers 13 – 16 so we followed those. We were on red and white blazed trails, which seemed close enough to the white blazes we should have been following at the time.

The first thing we noticed was that, just as the book warned, the trails were all loose sand. Many of the trails were shared with equestrians which is why they were so loosely packed. We also noticed that the trail was very hilly, giving us a challenging walk (to be honest this is what I was looking for, although I did not share that information with Lisa prior to the hike in case she had any thoughts of backing out, lol). I brought my trekking poles, the ones Dana and Nicole gave me for Christmas; based on the description of the trail I thought this would be a great place to try them out. They were a big help at keeping my balance uphill and downhill on the uneven terrain. It took a while to get the height and wrist straps the way I wanted them so I’m glad I chose to use this as a test run.

While walking up one of the hills I was looking down, of course, to make sure my feet were working properly (falling on a hike doesn’t sound like much fun) and I saw a snake. Well, I saw Lisa’s feet right next to a snake. So I tell her, “Hey, isn’t that a snake?” And she says “Where?” I say “Right there, you could be stepping on it.” Sure enough, it was a snake – really skinny, about 2 feet long, and orange and black. It looked alive but it didn’t move, so perhaps it was sunning itself to warm up. We took several pictures, and then thought we shouldn’t push our luck since we couldn’t tell whether the head was triangle or round. For the record, neither Lisa nor I freaked out about the snake. I was proud of us for that, although in retrospect perhaps we should have been a little more worried that Lisa almost stepped on a snake without seeing it and that I walked towards the snake rather than running away (I needed a picture).

When we reached marker 16 I knew that we had a problem, because by this time I had noticed that we should have reached marker 12, which I’d never seen. My solution to the problem was to keep walking straight. The numbers were going up and eventually we were supposed to arrive at 24, so it seemed logical that straight was the right way. As we walked through a gate (clue #1) and over a very steep hill, I noticed there were no more marker numbers (clue #2). About 15 minutes later I finally admitted to Lisa that we might be lost. Just then we reached number 77. Yes, lost – 77 was not on my card anywhere. Lisa suggested that I look at the trail map – duh. I pulled out that cool trail map we found in the mailbox and, yes, oops, 77 was way off the trail we should have been on. In fact this trail was leading us out into the unchartered wilderness and was in no way related to the perimeter walk we were originally on.

We headed back over that steep hill, retracing our steps in hopes of rejoining our trail. When we reached marker 16 we had to choose left or right (because straight would presumably take us back to the beginning). I looked at the map and finally decided we should go left. Yes, left. Yes, I’m sure, left. As we walked we saw the correctly marked blazes and followed the numbers up 18, 19… 19, we had to turn at 19 if we were going to see the statue. It’s at this point I can finally admit I should be giving Lisa more information about these walks before we take them. She’s being an incredibly good sport at letting me plan the whole thing, so I should probably warn her about things like hills, and sand, and snakes, and statues.

The statue is of the founder of the preserve, Allan David Broussard, and is one of the highlights of the walk. We found it (I’m so proud of us) atop one of the tallest hills yet, and the view from up there overlooking nearby ponds and forest was beautiful. Each walk needs its own picture so the statue picture will symbolize Hike #2. Hike #1’s picture is Trevor and I at the end of the walk. I managed to get the tops of my trekking poles into the picture. Lisa managed to drop her phone in the sand/dirt for the second consecutive hike.

Lisa started tracking deer prints as we walked; they eventually led off into the forest. There was another print too – she says large cat (i.e. panther), I said perhaps dog (I’m not a tracker), but whatever animal it was followed the deer off into the forest. Interesting.

Right after seeing marker 24 we went off course again and ended up at marker 38 (I was looking for marker 23). We couldn’t find our way past the 30’s so we backtracked to 24 and walked around the other way. While we were backtracking we saw numbers that I promise weren’t there the first time (if they had been, I would have seen them and known we were walking the wrong way). Lisa wondered how we could have missed all these things. My theory was that perhaps we were no longer actually walking; we might still be laying on the trail somewhere. Maybe the snake had gotten us. Eventually we found marker 24, though, so that theory went out the window.

We wrapped our hike up after 2 hours and 20 minutes, arriving back at the car just before dark. This is a hike we’ll need to do again. First of all it’s a good way to judge our fitness, and second of all we did not do the trail we were supposed to walk – our trail was some mishmash of trails intertwining together making no clear path since several times we had to backtrack to find our way again. I’m very happy that despite our wanderings we did find the statue. I’m also glad we did such a difficult walk early in our sequence, because we should feel differently the next time we hike it (meaning, we should be in better shape, lol) and perhaps we will have improved our sense of direction (or else we’ll learn how to read a map). For now our legs were sore and our fingers were frozen but we had accomplished something (and made it out of the woods before dark) and that felt good. What felt even better was the hot bubble bath I took when I got home.

CHA - Initials That Mean Nothing to Non-Scrapbookers

If I ran around my house yelling "It's CHA Week!" I would get blank stares.  My family already thinks I'm pretty crazy, so it's not like that would push them over the edge, but they wouldn't get it.  Of course for scrapbookers this is an exciting time - it means new products on the market!  What?  Of COURSE I need them.  They are pretty.  LOL  Oops, pretend I didn't say that.  I need them because they are vital to the aestetics of my scrapbook pages - I promise they are not too pretty to use, ending up on the shelf with my other too pretty supplies.  :-)  Although I've been tearing through my stash lately, using up some items that once would have been deemed too pretty, too gorgeous, or too dang cute to use.  I'm committed to getting some of that pretty, cute, adorable, beautiful, gorgeous, fantastic and any other superlative you can think of on to my pages.

Scrapbook Update has an up-to-date listing of all the sneak peeks.

My favorites this year (so far) are Fun House by GCD Studios, Antiquities by GCD Studios which comes in 8x8, Paper Crush by Sassafras Lass (though admittedly not my all-time fav from them), the die-cut tags from Studio Calico's new Countryside line, State Fair by Studio Calico, and of course Monkey Adventures from Reminisce.