Vacation Pictures and Candy Winners!!

Happy Sunday, everyone!! I hope you are having a wonderful weekend!! I have winners to announce for my blog candy, but first I have a few vacation pictures to share with you :) Originally, we were headed to Key Largo, but the hurricanes altered our plans. So we decided on San Diego, but on the way there in the RV, we ran into bad weather, including flooding, so we detoured North and ended up in beautiful Colorado.

Unfortunately, this was the view we had of the Rocky Mountains much of the trip as it rained most of the time. This was taken from one of our campsites.

Then one day, the sun broke through the clouds, creating this gorgeous rainbow!!

You can almost see it touching the ground.

The clouds started to break up, revealing blue skies and snow-covered peaks.

And finally you could see the mountain tops :)

We saw lots of wildlife, like this adorable rabbit.

We also saw mule deer, but I couldn't get a clear snap before they bounded away.

There were lots of antelope, but I couldn't get a closer shot of them from the RV.

There were elk everywhere in Rocky Mountain National Park, and in the town we stayed in, Estes Park.

I don't think she liked me taking a picture of her ;)

It was incredible to see these guys walking through the campground and the streets of the town!!

Thank you to everyone who visited my blog while I was away!! I appreciate it so much!! I'm still having trouble getting back into the swing of things. I've fallen behind on Facebook and Instagram. I hope to be back up to speed soon.

And now to announce the winners of the two Lemoncraft giveaways!! The winner of the Fresh Summer set is...

And # 67 is...

And the winner of the Christmas Carols set is...

And #37 is...

Congratulations, Sonia and Pamellia!! If you both send me your addresses (indymermaid @ gmail . com), I will get these in the mail to you!! Thank you all again for entering!! I have another exciting giveaway coming up very soon so I hope you'll stop back by!!

Have a great day :)

Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2016 - October, plus Vacation Pictures

Happy Tuesday!! I'm still working on getting around to your blogs to visit. I'd hoped to be able to comment on all of the posts I missed while I was away, but I was leaving so many comments, blogger thought I was a spammer. I had to click on the "not a robot" button and then the picture captcha..sometimes multiple pictures. And it's hard to figure out what I'm supposed to click on when the blog is in a foreign language. It's taking me so long for just one comment, there's no way I can comment on all of your posts and I truly apologize, but I am scrolling through to see all of the ones I missed.

I have a few vacation pictures to share with you but first, I have my October tag for Tim's 12 Tags of 2016 challenge.

I pretty much followed Tim's instructions, substituting for materials I had on hand. Sadly, I don't have the cool monster face dies, so I used the Rickety House instead. To add dimension to the house like he did to the face, I popped up the roof with foam tape.

Some close-ups of the crackle on the patchwork collage background.

Also, I used Tim's Wood Plank Texture Fade instead of the Rivet Texture Fade. Tim used a metal spider and mine's a remnant rub.

The house took up so much space, I didn't have room for a word band, so I used haunted, a remnant rub. The eye in the corner is also one, to represent the eye on Tim's tag.

I'm entering this in the following challenges:

1) Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2016

Okay, now for some photos from my vacation if you're interested :) I took so many pictures, I haven't been able to go through them all, but I tried to pick out some highlights to share.

We had no agenda for the trip and really didn't know where we would end up. We pointed the motorhome south and started out on Galveston Island, Texas. Look...I found the perfect t-shirt:

So me!! It's even pink!! I had to buy it :)

The good thing about going in the off-season is that the are no crowds and you don't have to worry about reservations. We were looking for one campground and turned left instead of right, which took us to the east end where all the action was. Lucky for us we found a campground just steps away from the beach. I took this picture from a beach chair as I lounging under the awning.

We were right next to the spot where the helicopter took off for sightseeing tours of the island.

This is a shot of Pleasure Pier from the beach in front of the campground.

I snapped this shot of the pelican in front of one of the many ships that chugged along the waters.

After a few days in Texas, we drove along the bayous of Louisiana to...

...the Big Easy.

Here's a hazy shot of the city across Lake Pontchartrain.

And the Superdome.

From there, we drove along the gulf shores,

to Biloxi, Mississippi.

From there, it was on to Destin, Florida.

The campground we stayed at is actually in Miramir Beach and one of the few that you can camp right on the beach. I'm talking actually on the sand!! The view from the motorhome :)

Some pretty sea oats.

 The sunsets were amazing!!

So that's just a few shots from the trip. I truly didn't want to leave the beach, but it's back to the real world :) Thanks again for visiting my while I was away!! Have a wonderful day!! Big hugs :)

Vacation Pictures and WINNER!!

Happy Tuesday!! I've missed all of you!! I want to sincerely thank those of you who stopped by while I was away on vacation. I appreciate you all so much!! I am trying my best to catch up but it will probably be a couple of days before I can get around to visit. I have a winner to announce for the Fuse Tool but first, I'd like to share a few pictures of my trip. If you want, you can skip the pics and scroll down to the bottom for the winner :)

So...originally we planned on heading to the east coast (my mermaid self was looking forward to the ocean waves), but after seeing the weather reports, we decided (at the last minute) to head west instead (my thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected by Hurricane Joaquin). We literally planned the trip one day at a time...deciding on where we would go next each evening.

Our first stop was through Saguaro National Park in Arizona...we've been there before but it's separated into two parts. We drove through the one we hadn't visited before.

Our next stop was Death Valley National Park. Okay...I try not to be superstitious, really, I do. But when a raven lands on a Death Valley sign while you are there...a little spooky.

It was a harbinger...

Death Valley is an incredible place of rocky mountains and sandy floors (and incredible heat!!)

How amazing to be that far below sea level!!

Next, we visited Kings Canyon National Park, and...

Sequoia National Park. The trees are so freaking huge, I couldn't get all of one in a shot :)

Then we visited Yosemite, which is one of my all-time favorite National Parks for the incredible scenery. Here's El Capitan...

and a beautiful mountain lake with snow on the distant peaks.

I always try to capture wildlife when we are traveling and I got this guy in Yosemite.

We saw a few roadrunners, and I was able to capture this adorable one. We were headed to another national park and then we were going to the coast to travel Highway 101 from LA to San Diego when we got a call that my Dad's younger brother passed away. (I try not to be superstitious, but apparently that raven in Death Valley was trying to tell us something). He'd been fighting Multiple Myeloma for a few years but he was fine when we left. He developed a cold which turned into pneumonia and he refused to go to a hospital. He said he was ready to go and a few hours later, he passed. We rushed to get back home, even blowing out a tire on the RV in New Mexico.

I snapped this over the Saltan Sea in California...I took it as a sign that God is watching over us in good times and bad. So, the first part of the trip was wonderful but the last was stressful. I'm dealing with family issues right now so it will be a few days before I can get around to visit all of you. Please bear with me.

And now for the winner of the Fuse Tool...Thank you all who entered!! I'm sorry there can only be one winner!! I used Random.org to select and it chose......

And #6 is................... Annie Rose !! Congrats, Annie Rose!! Please email me at indymermaid(at)yahoo(dot)com and I will get the Fuse Tool in the mail to you!!

Thank you again all who entered and to those of you who supported me while I was gone!! I'll be by soon!! I've missed you and can't wait to reconnect!! Have a great day :)