Childhood Summer Vacations

Hey guys today I have some one super fabulous over for the 20SB blog swap today

hope you enjoy her post and check her out!

Hello friends of Hannah, thank you for having me today. My name is Elle and I blog over at Skylarking. Today I have been invited over here to tell you about a childhood vacation of mine in accordance with the 20SB blog swap.

When I was 12 my family had planned a holiday on the island of Majorca before I was due to start high school. I was very excited, me, my brother, my mum, nan and grandad all packed our bags and off we went to the beautiful sunny island off the Spanish coast. My brother was 13 and this was the first holiday that we were allowed a little more responsibility to play in the pool by ourselves and take a walk to the little store solo.

Excited by this we planned a huge excursion to the end of the road by hired buggy bike. Being typically me, we left late and as we got to the store Michael had to rush back to take the bike back.

Walking out of the store, being the dilly dolly day dream that I am, I turned left instead of right. Yes, I was this dumb. On and on I walked and I could have sworn our hotel was closer. After about 15 minutes I realised I was lost. I was 12, in a foreign country, alone.

I tried to retrace my steps, but couldn't get myself together to figure out where I was. I was starting to panic. All kinds of over dramatic thoughts flooded my brain. I figured I knew my way back to the hotel from the beach, so off to the beach I walked to then in turn find the right path and then I would be on the home straight right?

Well no not right, I had NO idea where I was. I was wearing a bikini and had change from the pocket money my Nana had given me to buy a bag from the store. After about 30 minutes of walking around I started to get overly dramatic again and panicked that I could possibly dehydrate in this heat so bought an ice lolly.

So here I was, on the beach, at 12, in a country where I didn't speak the language, completely on my own for the first time in my life, crying into a little radio active green iced treat.

A light bulb suddenly pinged in my little brain. I toddled off to the bus stop. I saw a bus with the name of my hotel on... yesssssss this was it, I was going home and wouldn't be sold into child slavery!

On the bus I sat, crying, for ages, well in actual fact it was 2 and a half hours.

All in all it was a nightmare journey. I finally found my way back to the hotel FOUR hours later. My poor Mama was out of her MIND! I was lucky to find her just as she was tying to get in touch with the Spanish police. It turns out there was a place 40 miles down the road with the same name as our hotel and that is where I had ended up.

I was the dumbest kid in the world. Seriously, have at these stories.

Thank you for having me over here. It has been fun.

Love Elle xo

Back to School

how can it be mid July already?

it seems like summer has just flown by and its already time to start 

getting ready for back to school shopping.

New crayons, clothes, notebooks, shoes will be bought.

Kids will be excited to start school so they can show off that new backpack.

Well in our community there are children that wont get to go back to school shopping.

They wont have the chance to pick out a new backpack or lunchbox

and this year I want to do something about this.

I want them to have a chance to get new supplies and pick out a backpack

So over the next couple months I am going to be collecting items for the 
kids in Foster Care here in my community.
There is a big need for these kids, especially the older one.
They need everything from clothes to pencils
so below is a list from DSS of the stuff they need


Items that are needed most
Larger Size Backpacks 
college ruled loose leaf paper
(these two items were really stressed 
the high school kids really need these!)


they also need any other school supplies that you could think of
(i.e. crayons, pens, pencils, scissors)


this year the kids are getting uniforms for school
they will need
Red or Blue collared/polo shirts (any size)
Khaki or Navy pants (any size)
 they can come from anywhere
they have them at Walmart and target

or if you don't live near and would like to help anyway 
you can donate through Paypal
I will be able to take that money and get the items that are needed most!!
just click the button below

James 1:27 says
"religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this:
to look after orphans and widows in their distress"
God calls us all to care for these children 
we may not all be capable to adopt or foster 
but as christian we have to care for them
and this is just one small way we can show that we
love them and that we care about them!

my goal is that every child would get something new for school!
so please please please consider donating!!
Thanks

Summer Road Trip 2012

this past weekend my mom and I took off on a road trip!

I was going to visit the University of Maryland school of social work

and we decided to make a fun weekend of it

so here is how things went down

Friday:
fly to Atlanta
fly to Baltimore
Drive to the University of Maryland
meet with Dean of the school of Social Work
browse around Baltimore
drive to Gettysburg
ghost tour of Gettysburg
it was such a rushed day I felt like we were rushing around everywhere
but overall I loved the school and how they run their program
I don't like the price tag :(
on the way to Gettysburg it as raining/hailing so bad we had to pull over for about 20 minutes
we finally made it to Gettysburg after crossing the
Mason Dixon and the PA state line
the town of Gettysburg was much cuter than we expected
we spent all evening there and then went on a little ghost tour

Saturday:

Gettysburg

Lancaster PA

Amish buggie Ride

and a drive towards Philly

day started bright and early we were up and at the park by 8:30

I just loved loved loved being in Gettysburg

it was so cool to stand in the places I spent so much time studying

I seriously could have spent days there but we only had a few hours

so we went to a little show/presentation on the battle and then set out for

Little Big Top

we spent most of our time here

were we listened to a park ranger talk about the 2nd day of the battle

after that we drove around and then headed out

(with a stop for a coke float of course)

next stop was Lancaster PA

home to man Amish families

we drove through historic downtown and then went out to the country to see the Amish

people kept saying you can smell when you close and boy you can it just smells like farm'

once we were there we found a place to stay and then went on a buggie ride

one the rid the people we road with knew of our home town Hiram and the driver

know of my best friends hometown of Clarksville

such a small world

it was so neat to get to ride in the buggie and tour an actual working Amish farm

(we got cookies and lemonade along the way)

after the ride we grabbed dinner at a local restaurant and were about

to head back to our hotel when we were told the whole town was completely closed down

on Sunday's and we figured there was no need to stay there so we asked if we could checked out

and they let us and we made a split decision to head to Philadelphia

so we drove pretty close and got a hotel room

(seriously the nastiest place I have ever stayed in all my travels!!)

Sunday:

Independence Hall

Liberty Bell

Philly Cheese Steak

and Drive back to Maryland

We got up and headed downtown

we got to Independence square

got our tickets to see inside Independence hall

our tickets were for about an hour later

so we walked to where Ben Franklin was berried and saw that

and just got a snack and waited to go in

inside Independence hall was so neat it was kinda surreal to be standing in the place

were so much of our American history was mad

I loved it!!

and seeing the Liberty Bell was just as cool

they had exhibits about our nation and the freedom we have that were pretty interesting

after we saw the bell we went out to get the one thing I was really looking forward to

a Philly Cheese steak!!

and it was as good as I thought it was going to be!!

after we walked down to the water and then meet a sweet little lady that sold t-shirts

once we did everything in Philly we headed back to Baltimore

we drove through New Jersey and Delaware on the way back

I was so sad that the trip was ending but grateful that I was able to go!!

I love that I got to see this hospital
would love to work there one day!

it was so much fun to be able to drive around a part of our country

that is filled with so much history

and to see things I've learned about all these years in school!!

thanks Mom for take me!!!

Just had to throw this one in

I love these chips and I forgot to bring some back with me

but lucky for me I found them at the Bi-lo here in Charleston!!!

my spelling is probably way off on this but my spell check isn't working