Shew's Life Adventures

So I have been following where my blog is usually read and surprisingly there are several readers in other countries. So I thought I would put together a list of my favorite and least favorite US destinations I have traveled to. I will split this into a several parts, because frankly I have a lot to say. I have traveled a great deal in my life and feel like I have good insight to share. My family is huge traveling advocates. I could stand on my soap box and tell you all the reasons you need to travel, but if you are reading this I am going to assume you already unstand the value of traveling. Take the trip! So my go to first suggestion to anyone and everyone who asks where I suggest is always and will always be a national park. This one is almost too difficult to include in this list because there are sixty-three of them. Now I haven't been to all of them but the ones I have been to have all been mind blowing and beautiful in their own ways. When in doubt, just visit a

My house was built seventy years ago. Well, seventy years ago home floor plans were much different than the open concept most enjoy nowadays. Having a ranch style home in the Midwest equalled a home that was small and cut up into several small rooms. Several years ago we added a huge addition onto our house. The addition included a garage, 3 bedrooms, laundry room, family room, and three bathrooms. After completing the addition we were tasoed with how to tie in the old part of the house with the new addition.  The worst part of my home would be my kitchen. The original kitchen had no room for a table, no counter space, and barely enough room for more than a few people to be in at once. Having everything else new and big in the addition drove me nuts that the kitchen was still unacceptable and barely conventional part of the house.  Over the years we added more cabinets and counter space, added a small room off the kitchen room to place a table, and kept things t

To say I love Christmas and gifting is an understatement. My children are young adults now so I have many years experience under my belt. Add in the Type A personality that drives my brain crazy to over analyze gift giving and success is the only achieveable destination to end with. I am one of the most organized Christmas shoppers you will ever come across.  I had a few young adults ask how I pull off great Christmases for my family year after year. So here is my steps to having a great Christmas: 1. Save all year, Yep your read that right. Start now or even better yesterday. I have $50 taken from my bi-weekly check and deposited into a Christmas savings account. It has to be a Christmas savings account so you don't have the option to spend it early. Now to clarify, the money in this account is only what I saved. Even though our money is joint, I feel accomplished having saved my share for Christmas. My husband has money set aside with his union and receives a seperate

We visited Mammoth Cave National Park during the pandemic. We needed a place we could drive to on a quick weekend trip. Traveling from Missouri made this destination easily accessible. Mammoth Cave is the world's longest known cave system.    Much of the cave was closed due to the pandemic. We were only allowed to take the Discovery Tour. We did have to pre-purchase our tour tickets for a cost of $8 per adult. This national park doesn't have a fee booth that you drive through like many of the other parks. So though we had previously purchased an annual park pass eariler in the summer, it didn't do us any good at this particular park. We were still required to purchase tour tickets.  I wasn't extremely impressed with the condition of many of the buildings we passed as we traveled to the visitors center. My husband made the comment that one could tell this is a neglected and not as visited park as the others.  The drive in is scenic. You drive through a forres