trying to see if this is going to

finally post to Facebook of if it is still blocked.
I hope to update here on Monday.
So much to talk about too late to do it tonight.

Great Smoky Mountains Wildlife

It has been almost 2 weeks since my last post. But I have been sick and on vacation. After a trip to the ER for dh and I, (He needed to go and the insurance said I had to go to the ER or wait another 48 hours to go to urgent care!!!) what the heck is up with that? I am finally on 3 meds for a Sinus infection and slowly starting to feel better. So I processed a few quick pics from a couple of days ago.
These are some beautiful animals that we saw while traveling through the Cades Cove part of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. We saw lots of animals and I was very impressed with the trip.

This was a Doe that we saw just inside the loop in the woods. She was with 3 others. I wish the background hadn't been so crowded but hey you take what you can get with mother nature :D


These are some Turkeys that we saw in the fields beside of the horse pastures. I wish they had been closer. But again oh well lol.

 The husband and I are pretty sure this is a coyote. Pretty none the less. We actually saw a couple of these but the other one was running through the woods. If you know for sure what this is I would love to know :)

He decided to sit right beside of the tree to the right as we were heading up to the restrooms but some car come flying up so they could get a picture of him. Needless to say he was up and moving again before I could fire the shot. This was right at dusk.

This buck was right along the side of the road and had no care in the world. I believe he even posed for us. And when I say us I have to give credit to "the husband" as he actually pressed the shutter and snapped this beautiful image. I set the focal point and all settings to get the right exposure etc.. I think we work pretty well as a team lol.

We also saw a black bear cub, unfortunately I didn't get a shot of it as the was literally a "crazy" lady in front of us who jumped out of her car as soon as the bear ran in front of them and chased the poor thing across the field and into the woods. I really think she was crazy as apparently she doesn't know that "mama" was more than likely watching her every move, either that or the cub is going to be in big trouble when mama bear wakes up from her hibernation and realizes the baby is gone. Yes I was crazy in Alaska when I sat on the window seal of the van and photographed a bear cub there but I wasn't crazy enough to get out and chase him. But then the one in Alaska never moved haha, he just laid there and ate his dandilions.

 I was totally bummed that we didn't get a shot off though as I am sure most of you know that bears this time of year is a huge rarity. They aren't supposed to be out. lol

I have some images of icicles, waterfalls, the mill etc.... coming up soon. Hoping the weather and infection cooperate and I get a few images of the Winterfest lights before we leave.

We have been trying to find things that were here 15 years ago while we were on our honeymoon but that is pretty hard. Most things have been torn down or things built up in front of the old ones. The China unlimited shop is still here that is one of very few things we remember besides the lights.
Any way ears are hurting will try to write more tomorrow evening or maybe even Thursday while waiting on the husband to take his Chiefs exam in Knoxville.

Oh man I am sitting here

reading a friend of mines blog about their experiences while moving to Japan. I am so greatful that ours hasn't been as rough as hers.
You can read about her here http://ourimperfectlife.blogspot.com/p/favorite-blog-posts.html.
I met Debra and her family while we were stationed at NAS Corpus Christi. After reading her entries I will have to post ours as things are finally done. Luckily for us our whole process is going more smoothly than hers I think mainly due to the fact that we have more time to get everything set up. When all is said and done there will be 13 months between the time we found out we were moving to Naples and the time we actually get there. That wasn't our choice btw....
I was reading her blog while backing up my External HD's to my portable HD's. After having and entire 1TB HD fail on me last year I don't want to take any chances with the move. So I am backing up images to and from CD's, to and from HD's. I am leaving the CD's and Externals in Storage here in the states and taking the (4) 1TB portables with me to Naples. I will buy more once there as needed.

On a side note it snowed again today. It was very pretty but not nearly as pretty as the "white" Christmas we had. It was very windy and cold today. I hope to venture out tomorrow and get some photos. Hopefully the ice we are expecting doesn't get too bad. I want to venture further out this time :D.
Guess I should get going gotta get some packing done as we are heading to the Great Wolf Lodge on Wednesday as long as the roads are passible. Then on Friday we are off to Gatlinburg TN for our 15 yr Anniversary. Yes we are taking the kids, lol we always take the kids. That is the sacrafice of being a military family some times.
Hopefully I get to update tomorrow with some new snow images.

It is a new year and lots of things...

Finally blogger and google are cooperating :D

are in store for us.
But before I get into all of that I will just post a couple of pics from our "White Christmas". I don't consider it a white Christmas unless you wake up with it on the ground lol but apparently that isn't the "official" way to look at it :D
Hope you enjoy.

Well apparently blogger and google aren't communicating. I will get the images up as soon as they both cooperate.