When my husband and I got married 13 years ago, my mom gave us a wonderful wedding gift that I will treasure always!  She collected favorite recipes from family and friends and bound them all in a recipe book for us.  Here is the cover of our one-of-a-kind recipe book, definitely a labor of love:

I hope you can read the ingredients and instructions from the above photo because I don't want to type it on this post if I don't need to.   If you can't see this clearly,  let me know and I'll type it up for you and email it to you.
Note:  I have cut up already cooked rotisserie chicken that I get at Sam's/Costco and put this in the pot pie to replace the chicken breast.  Sometimes, I  put a pie crust on the bottom of the baking dish, filled the crust with the mixed ingredients and then put another crust on top.  Oh so yummy (and lots of carbs too, which is yummy, but not very healthy!) 

So here is my chicken pot pie when I got it out of the oven:
Enjoy!

I caught our little one hiding behind this little tree at Grandad's Apples, the apple orchard we just visited on our trip to the NC mountains.  Peek-A-Boo! I see you!

My Fall and blog break was short, fun, and full of adventure!
The day before we left for our camping trip to the NC mountains, our 6 year old was up all night vomiting, but everyone was well enough to travel up to the mountains on Thursday.  When we arrived at our camp site, my hubby got sick and we did not pitch our 8 person tent because he was getting rid of all the contents in his stomach (Yuck-O!).  We were thankful to be able to stay in the camper that my in-laws own and this was our saving grace Thursday evening because we were able to sleep, cook, and use the bathroom facilities in the camper.  Here is my hubby on Thursday evening (10/7/10) not feeling too good:
We finally made it to Emerald Village in Little Switzerland, NC where we explored the NC Mining Museum where the historic Bon Ami Mine is located.
We explored the Bon Ami Mine (Bon Ami is French for "Good Friend") with this self guided tour book.  "Feldspar (white) was the primary product of this mine, and was used by the Bon Ami Company as an ingredient for their polishing cleaner."  I had never heard of Bon Ami cleaning product, but it was advertised from the early 1900s to the 1960s before the mine shut down.  Bon Ami was a natural cleanser and did not scratch surfaces.  The product is similar to Comet, but it's all natural.  Bon Ami Company used a baby chick coming out of an egg for its mascot because the woman in the museum told me that a chick does not scratch during the first 2 or 3 days after coming out of its egg.  Here is a 1905 ad:


We are walking in the mine here.  It was like a big cave with lots of mine equipment and tools.  The black line on the wall is where the water level used to be before they started the preservation process and museum.

After we explored the Bon Ami mine, we went across the street to find gems at the Gemstone Mine.    Our kids always enjoy gemstone mining where they get to keep what they find! We got a 5 lb. bucket of ore, put them into square pans with a mesh net and then we put the pans into the cool water flumes where the kids found some of the 52 gems and minerals that are mined in this area.


It was during this part of our day that our littlest one started emptying her stomach contents and she wasn't feeling well so my hubby and her are resting while I attended to our other children.  Cupcake #4 eventually felt better later in the evening, but we were not sure if we should cut our trip short and head back home. We didn't know if all our family members would get the flu bug.  We decided to stay, hoping for the best.

In the evenings we lit campfires and roasted marshmallows and made S'mores.  This is always a peaceful time with my family as I sit holding our sick one and rest my eyes praying that no one else in our family will get sick!

Saturday (10/9/10)
We make it through the night with no one getting sick.  Praise God!  Although, our 10 year old did wake me up to tell me she was cold and her tummy hurt! Oh no! But, everyone was fine and we were off to meet my brother-in-law and his family at an apple orchard about an hour away from where we were camping.  We went to Grandad's Apples in Hendersonville, NC.


Each of the 5 markers were names of different tractors.  Here we found the International marker.

Then at each marker, we hole punched our card until we punched all 5 tractor names.  When we found all 5 we had to find our way out of the corn maze.  It took us about 40 minutes to walk through the maze and find all 5 spots and to find our way out.

My brother-in-law had his handy dandy Garmin to tell us which path we had taken.  When we came out of the maze we saw that we made a tractor pattern!  Cool!

Cupcake #4, #1, and #3 have fun with the cutouts and my Cupcake #2 in the green shirt in the background observes the llama.

What a fun, adventuresome weekend we had with our family!  It was definitely memorable for not exactly the best reasons, but we were all together enjoying this Fall season and for this I am thankful!

PS:  Happy 10-10-10 day! I would give our trip a 10 out of 10, despite all its craziness!

Right now, I am camping in the beautiful NC mountains again with my family so I am taking a much needed blog and Fall break.  The last time we visited here, it was in June 2010, so we are excited to spend some time this Fall season enjoying the beautiful mountain scenery.
I wrote this post a week prior to our camping trip and scheduled it to be published for today.
If you use Blogger for your blog, did you know you can schedule posts to be published on a certain date and time?  This can save some time.   If you didn't know this, all you do is click on "Post Options" at the bottom of your post box.

Then click on "Scheduled at" under "Post date and time". (This will be on the far right side of your screen and looks like this:) 

Post date and time

Automatic
Scheduled at

You can then specify the date and time of day you want any future posts to be published.  Since I will be away from a computer this weekend, I was able to schedule this post prior to our camping trip.

OK enough Blogging 101 from me, who is stilling learning new things every day about blogging.

I hope everyone is having a happy and blessed Fall!  I'll be back to visit the blogosphere soon!
 

What a special day I had yesterday!  I met Anna-Marie at Life's Adventures in real life!  But how, since she and her husband and two children live overseas in England and I reside on the East coast with my family?

We both started our blogs this past summer and we have been following each other's blogs since then.  Anna-Marie's husband travels alot with his work and they are taking several weeks to visit the states in various locations.   One of these locations happened to be about 30 minutes away from where I live!  So yesterday we were going to meet at a local park, but we had to change plans (due to one of my daughters getting sick in the night) and Anna-Marie and her family met us at my home for a little while before they continued on their exciting vacation!  We had a lovely time chatting and it was great to hear Anna-Marie's sweet voice and talk to her in person.  She's as kind in real life as she is on her blog!   While we chatted, our children ran outside in my backyard.  It was a beautiful day!  The weather was wonderful and the company was even better!
Anna-Marie was so sweet to bring treats from England for our children.  My children love the very sweet Scottish Tablet candies!  They also have enjoyed playing with the 2-story bus pencil sharpener located just above the London postcard!  Thank you Anna-Marie!

Our visit was short, but it was just wonderful!  Our family was so blessed to meet her and her beautiful family.  I am so honored that they took time out of their busy vacation plans to stop in to meet us.  I look forward to getting to know Anna-Marie even more through blogging, especially now that I met her.  It really is a small world after all!  I never would have thought when I started my blog that I would have the privilege to meet a blogging friend who lives overseas in England!  Anna-Marie, I hope you continue to have safe and fun travels with your family!  Thank you so much again for your visit!

My family is leaving today to go camping in the NC Mountains. I am looking forward to a nice Fall and blog break.  I do have a post scheduled to be published this Saturday while we are camping so be sure to check it out on Saturday :)