Mountain Hike {Photo Dump}

May 18, 2017 | Allison

Yesterday we went on a beautiful hike in the mountains with our friends. It was tiring, but so fun! Plus there was a stream and a waterfall, so that automatically makes it a good trail. 🙂 I took ~~quite a few~~ absolutely TONS of pictures, so do some finger exercises, get comfortable, and start scrolling. 😛

Such a beautiful view, don’t you agree?

Ahh, so sunny. ♥

Beautiful ferns…

We’ve seen these weird corncob-like fungi before, but I don’t know what they’re called. We probably looked it up but then I forgot. XD

There were a bunch of mini cascades and waterfalls like this before we got to the big one.

A few people pictures: 😀

The kids were splashing rocks into a little pool and I got some really neat pictures with fast shutter speed. 🙂

I love how clear the water was!

Ahhh isn’t this waterfall GORGEOUS?!

I love the next picture, even though it sort of looks like Megan’s holding up the fallen log with her head. XD

Ha ha, my brother Jeff was climbing all over the place.

The fallen log kind of got in the way of the pictures, although it looked neat, too.

If you wade to the other end of the waterfall you find another, much steeper and narrower one. It’s basically just a shoot of white water.

BOKEH!

Aww, look at the cute little millipede. XD

Trying out my new lens on some flowers here…

Ohhh it was a gorgeous day, and the sun shining through the new leaves was just too pretty!

My little sister and her friend are so cute together. ♥

As we were driving back, I got a few good shots out the window. (Surprisingly, it worked a lot better when I rolled the window down. 😛 XD )

AHHH I absolutely LOVE this next photo! I love all the layers and shades. ♥

*Gasp* Okay Allison, maybe you went a bit too far this time. O.o I applaud you if you persevered to the end and actually looked at most of the pictures. XD I hope it wasn’t too strenuous of a journey. But wasn’t the waterfall gorgeous? And the mountains? Ahhh, it makes my heart happy. ♥

Have a lovely day, lovely people!

***Allison***

Birthday Harvest

May 16, 2017May 17, 2017 | Allison

HA HA do you like my title? XD I don’t really like the term “birthday haul” because it seems kind of greedy or something, but that’s just my weird opinion. So anyway, I looked up synonyms for “haul” and found “harvest.” 😛 And there you have the story of my title.

Ahem. Let’s move on, shall we? Oh wait, before we start, I must say that I just really wanted to brag about my presents and how many I got and how great they were and… I’M JUST KIDDING I’M JUST KIDDING! Goodness, don’t look so shocked. XD Heh heh, but no, I am not trying to do the aforementioned, just in case you were wondering. I’m posting this because I personally like reading birthday posts myself and because I thought you guys might enjoy one too. 🙂

Okay, now we can start! 😀 By the way, these gifts are in no particular order. I just put them all on the table and grabbed what was handy first. XD

Ooh look! It’s a bullet journal! My mom and dad gave me this and it’s so pretty! I’ve actually only heard about them recently, but I thought a BuJo would be quite helpful. I’m still getting the hang of it, but I really like it so far! I think it’s more of a system than a thing, which is nice because you can customize it pretty much however you want. Do you think I should do a bullet journal post sometime?

My friend (who has a blog here) gave me a bag of luscious chocolate truffles. OHHHH YUMMINESS! Enough said. XD

My cousins gave me these lovely watercolor brush pens. They’re so neat! They’re kind of like a marker but with a paintbrush tip. They actually color more like ink than watercolor, but if you use the waterbrush that comes with it (see it there on the right side?) you can get a more watercolor-y effect. What I really like about these is how fine the tips are.

I thought maybe I should show you an example of how they work…

My Grammy and Grandaddy gave me this wonderful sketchbook. I love it! It has 128 nice, thick pages. I used the watercolor brush pens on it and they didn’t bleed through, although you could kind of see the drawing on the other side. I can’t wait to fill it up! 😀

Another thing I really like about the sketchbook is how flat it is when I open it. Some sketchbooks are always wanting to close up on you, but this one doesn’t!

This thingy came along with the sketchbook. It’s rather neat and pretty, but I have no clue what it is. XD It’s obviously a ruler, but it looks like it’s meant to be something else too. I thought maybe a letter opener, but Dad says it’s too blunt on the end. Guesses, anyone?

My sister Megan and my grandparents both got me several skeins (is it skeins? balls? fluffy squishy things?) of beautiful felting wool. Have you heard of needle felting? You should look it up online or on Etsy. People make absolutely amazing things from felting wool! A sweet lady at church recently gave me a felting kit and I’m having fun experimenting. I’m sure felted things will show up in a later post. 😉

Two of my friends gave me Hobby Lobby gift cards. YAYAYAY I LOVE HOBBY LOBBY! *Happy sigh* I think I’ll buy a tri-fold poster board so I have a better photo background for things like this. Heh heh. And I can’t wait to see what other fun things I find!

Awww! My littlest sister Carmen gave me a rock she had found and quite a few coupons for setting the table. ♥ It was so funny, but so sweet! (Don’t you just love little kids’ spelling and handwriting?)

AHHHHH YAY! My parents got me a pack of 72 Prismacolor colored pencils! I am SO excited because I only had 24 before and I absolutely love Prismacolor brand colored pencils. They color so smoothly and with such rich, brilliant pigment. I’ll definitely show you some of the drawings I’ve made with them in my next art post. 😀

Okay, I spent WAY too long arranging the pencils in rainbow order and then trying to get a good overhead shot of them all lined up. XD But it was worth it, right? Ahhh, they look so pretty. 🙂

My grandparents gave me these helpful little colorless blender pencils. They’re for blending the Prismacolor colored pencils, and they work brilliantly!

My Grandpa and Grandma gave me these gorgeous ferns. ♥ Ohhhh I love plants in general and ferns especially!

And last but not least, Grammy and Grandaddy gave me a renewal of PicMonkey Royale. (Which I don’t have a picture of – sorry!) I really love the PicMonkey photo editor and Royale gives you access to tons of extra features, so I’m quite happy about that!

Well, I hope you enjoyed this fun little post. 🙂 Do you like Birthday Haul *ahem* Birthday Harvest posts?

As always, thanks for reading, my dears, and have a lovely day!

***Allison***

Beautiful Blossoms

August 8, 2016August 11, 2016 | Allison

Hey, it’s an alliterative title!

Wohoo.

Great. XD

Annnyway, I took pictures of these pretty flowers on our trip. The lighting and everything was perfect, so these turned out really well!

-Allison(Vacation) 162 (1280x960) — I really like the composition of this one.

-Allison(Vacation) 167 (1280x960) — I LOVE THIS ONE!

These aren’t exactly flowers, but I wanted to include them too. 🙂

I’m so glad God made flowers. 😀

***Allison***

Birthday Hike

May 29, 2016May 29, 2016 | Allison

Hey guys! I took gobs of pictures on the hike I went on for my birthday. Lots. Of. Pictures. I’m going to be showing you only some, but still a ginormous amount. 😀 Are you ready for this? Okay. Blastoff in 3… 2… 1… 1/2… 1/4… 1/187,990… okay, okay. XD Now!

When we went on the first trail, it was really foggy and rainy. We decided to come back to it later when it was sunny, but I got some neat pictures before we left.

hike (2) (1024x768) — Ooh, spooky. Just kidding! 😀

Doesn’t the next one seem sort of like a writing prompt? (I edited it.)

Next we went on a hike that was lovely and beautiful on the way down, but exhausting on the way up.

Flower pictures. 🙂

I love this dewdrop picture:

I have no idea what these weird corncobby fungi things are, but they’re neat looking!

One tree had all kinds of different fungi on it.

Millipede!

The next trail was really rocky and mossy. I love rocks and moss! 😀

hike (53) (1024x768) — This looks like an action shot even though it isn’t.

Sometimes you had to climb over boulders like this:

I made collages of the many pictures of moss and fungus I took, because otherwise you would be here all day. XD

Aren’t they so pretty? (And sometimes weird?)

Views from an overlook beside the path:

I really like the rocky ones.

At the top it was kind of scary because there were drop-offs on every side of you, and the path was really narrow. You had to climb over boulders that were less than two feet away from the edge to get to the top! *Shiver* 😛 But the view was amazing!