Saying Goodbye Is Hard To Do.......

After Two Years, seven months and six days my Fitbit obsession has come to an end.  I swore when my Fitbit stopped working I would be done with it and would not buy another one. Well on Saturday that day came. It will no longer hold a charge, she has died...

I have had a good run with her...
I have walked/ran 14,711,604 steps
I have gone 6,277.90 miles
I have gone up 24,397 floors

In the time I have had her I can only remember 4 days I was not wearing it.  I put it on the minute I got out of bed and took it off just before getting  in bed. I wore it everywhere. I checked my steps constantly and hated to not make my goal everyday. You might say I was a little obsessed....

I made Fitbit friends and competed with them weekly.

I am torn between relief that I don't have to worry about my steps anymore and fear that I will get lazy because I don't have to be accountable to it anymore.

You might say I was a Fitbit addict, I feel like I am going through withdrawal......

So it is goodbye Fitbit world we have had a lot of fun together but it is time to move on!

Carry on all my Fitbit friends, I will be getting those steps in on my own now.....

Sharon

Stepping Stone Fun.....

We decided that we needed some stepping stones in our back yard to finish off our new landscaping. I thought it would be fun to have the grandkids make me some instead of just going to the store and buying them.

It was going to be an outside project but the week we did it the rain never stopped coming down so it moved to an inside project.

The kids all had a lot of fun making the designs for there stepping stones. I had them make a design and then we put it on clear contact paper that I had cut to fit in the molds. It worked really well for them to have it stuck to the paper so it did not move around once we put the cement in.

For molds I went to the Dollar Store and got some square plastic containers. We also use some pie tins because they all wanted to make more then one. A lot of the post I read about making them said you should coat the container with vaseline so the cement will fall out easier once it is hard. I did not do this and we had no trouble with them dropping right out of the mold.

Rick with the help of Josie mixed the Quikrete (cement) Once it was all mixed up Rick pored it in and all the kids got to smooth it out. We did add a piece of wire to each to help make it stronger.

After 48 hours of drying we got to remove them from the molds. Once we took them out I pealed off the contact paper. They turned out great. We now have some  unique stepping stones and fun memories of making them with the kids.

Happy Crafting
Sharon

Pikes Peak State Park, Part Two of Camping In Iowa......

Last weekend we went to another Iowa State Park, Pikes Peak State Park in McGregor IA.  It is on the bluffs of the Mississippi River. I can not say enough about how beautiful it was. The hiking and biking trails are great and well maintained. We had so much fun. McGregor is a cute little town just a few miles from the park that has lots of little shops to go into. We never made it to them because we spent so much time hiking and biking but they looked super cute.  Right across the river is Prairie du Chien WI which is a bigger town if you need anything. We went to Prairie du Chien because we forgot a couple of things and found a great meat market called Mississippi Meats

The view from Pikes Peak was just beautiful. The river is just so immense. Every time I looked at the river I was in awe.

                                     A lot of wild flower to take in at the park

When evening rolled around  we would walk down to the peak and watch the sunset. Again I was in awe

We had so much fun hiking! Anyone who knows me knows that I love to hike and walk so it was perfect for me. We hiked everyday we were there and still did now get to every trail.

There were hidden treasures to see throughout the park.

                                                Another overlook that we hiked to.

                                                 Morgan taking a little breather

We laughed when we say the name of this trail..My-Otis. We never did go on the trail

                     Otis had enough of hiking by the time we found this bench to take a rest on

                Morgan on the other hand had a lot of fun and wanted to explore everything

The pictures cannot show you the depth and steepness  of the hills that we hiked on.

                                                                     Natures art

Another hidden treasure was this old house trough. What was really neat about it was it was full of water that was coming out of a natural steam. Water was seeping out of the ground. It was so clear and so cold. The dogs loved walking in it after walking in the heat.

We came across these mushrooms while hiking. They were so bright yellow that they stood out from all the brown and green. We only saw this one bunch of them in all our hiking.

On Sunday we had set out to do a 5 to 6 mile hike. We were not going to take the dogs with us but they were so excited to go when we took them for a hike around the campgrounds we decided to take them with us. Little did they or us know we ended up hiking for 5 hours and went 9.6 miles. They were ready to lay down when we got back.

We went to Effigy Mounds National Monument on Monday afternoon. I had never heard of it before but was really glad we went to see them. We learned a lot. You can read about what Effigy Mounds is Here.

They had really great trails to go on to see the mounds and several great overlooks.

As we were walking down a trail I saw this tiny little bug flying by me. It kept flying around my head and then landed on a leaf. I was able to snap a picture of it. I looked just like a little fairy.

                     In the evening the deer would come out of the woods. They were fun to watch.

In the park they had several hummingbird feeders up.  There was often up to a dozen hummingbirds buzzing around. I managed to get a couple good pictures of them.

This was our campsite. We were in site 44. We liked the campgrounds a lot. The sits were very roomy and most of them were flat. The bathroom/shower house was very nice and clean the few times I was in it.  The only thing we did not like was the dump station. It was on a downslope so it was difficult to get the tanks dumped.

What is a trip without a selfie...even if we are dirty and sweaty from hiking 9 miles

I cannot say enough about Pikes Peak State Park. This trip was one if not our favorite camping trip we have taken. We had so much fun that we have booked another trip there in the fall. I cannot wait to see the bluffs in all the fall colors.

Get out and explore!
Sharon