Reminiscing in North Carolina

My great-grandfather ("Pop-Pop") built a house on a mountain in a little town called Etowah, North Carolina.  When he passed away, my grandparents inherited it.  I remember visiting this place probably once a year for almost every year of my childhood.  In 2004, my grandparents were no longer able to maintain the house as they aged so they had to sell it.  I didn't meet Curtis until 2005 so he never had the opportunity to experience it.  Here's some of the pictures that I snagged as I shared my childhood memories with my husband:

This is on Folly Road - right before you get to the mountain.  The colors were gorgeous!

I used my panoramic camera to take some of these pictures.

My grandparents lived on a private road where there were only 1-2 other families living on that stretch of the mountain.  I walked this road so many times picking blueberries!  My brothers and cousins always loved to ride (or drive) the 4-wheeler whenever we'd visit!

My grandfather would take care of this water wheel.  There used to be a fake duck with little ducklings walking towards the stream.  I was happy to see that the neighbors were still keeping the water running!  

Here's a panoramic view of the area around the water wheel.

This is the house that my great-grandfather built.  I was warmly greeted by the new owners of the house, which was very kind since we showed up unexpectedly.  They gave us a tour of the house.  The new owner is an interior designer and she re-did the entire house.  She did a great job and the house looked great, but a lot of the memories that I would have felt inside the house weren't there.

This is the view from the deck of the house!  It is just breath-taking!

So glad for the panoramic ones - I think I'm going to have to try to develop some of these!

This one was pretty cool - it shows me taking a picture and gives you a little bit more of the deck than my pictures do.

Curtis really enjoyed the view!

Some additional angles of the back of the house (which the neighbors now consider their front of the house)

It was so beautiful.

Next up...I took Curtis to the Pisgah Forest and showed him Looking Glass Falls.

We would come here often with my family and I was happy to share this with Curtis.

We also stopped by Sliding Rock, a naturally occurring 60-foot water slide.  I only got the nerve to do it one time with my grandfather when I was younger.  I have this picture with my mouth open as wide as it's ever been as I slid down!  As for this day, it was too cold to slide (or so we thought), but there were a few people that had to slide down because they lost a bet.  Notice that one of them doesn't even have legs!  I was impressed.

Our trip also consisted of visiting Charlotte to spend some time with one of Curtis' roommates.  We had a wonderful time with them.  We spent our evenings in downtown Asheville, which was really fun.  We ate at some amazing restaurants - Asheville Pizza & Brewing Company and Tupelo Honey Cafe.  We went to Greenville, South Caroline to worship at Downtown Presbyterian Church.  It was such a delight!  

We even found gas for as low as $2.97 in Greenville.  That is so low!

We also went to the Skytop Apple Orchard in Flat Rock, NC.  It was really beautiful there, but it wasn't really the season for apples so we just enjoyed the view.

It was really nice to get away for about 4 days and explore North Carolina.  This will be one of our last trips before I am unable to travel for a while now that I'm getting farther along in my pregnancy.  It was definitely worth the trip!

Relief in Trenton

Last week, I had the privilege to be a part of a disaster relief mission team that traveled to northern Georgia (Trenton).  It was a difficult trip for me because I had started feeling sick about 4 days before we left and battled my sickness the whole time!  I went to the doctor afterwards to find out that I have Acute Bronchitis.  Even so, the trip was well worth it.  I definitely recommend going on a mission trip to anyone who has the opportunity - even if it isn't out of your own state.  

 

We had a really fun group of people!  Pictured above is our entire team plus Jim (on the left).  Jim Boyd is the founder of Rebuilding Hope, a non-profit ministry.  To learn more about this ministry, you can visit this link.  We worked with him last October when took a group to Dalton.

 The next few pictures show some of the devastation that took place when the tornadoes hit.

It's hard to believe it was almost a year ago - April 27, 2011.

One of the local churches, Trenton United Methodist, graciously offered to host our team while we were working there.  We could see that they had a real heart for tornado victims.  Look at this sign that was in their kitchen - they served meals to 13,763 people within 2 weeks of the tornadoes last year!

On the first day, Zack, Becca & I split up from the rest of the group to work on installing hardwood laminate flooring in a woman's Master Bedroom.

 Zack was very skilled in this area and he did most of the work.  Becca and I just tried to assist him in whatever way we could!

Becca and I got to know Charlene, the homeowner, while we were working.  She told us that she had lost several shady trees plus five rooms of her house.  She was underinsured so she was unable to afford fixing her house until she heard about Rebuilding Hope.  We were so glad we had the opportunity to help her!  She shared with us how it was nice to see young people serving the Lord. 

 When our task was complete, we traveled over to the job site where the rest of our team was working.  I helped clean up tornado debris in someone's backyard.  I even held a little frog in my hand!

Not only were frogs found, but also a snake!  Chris was fearless enough to pick it up!

A local news crew came by and interviewed two of our team members.

 The rest of the team worked on finishing the deck.  Here's a before shot! 

Here's the after!  Wow!  What a great job they did!

The next day, we spent our time leveling out the crawl space of a house that hadn't been built yet.  There were lots of rocks and debris and it took a long time to finish this task!  

Then, we had 3 small teams that nailed pieces of wood together.  One of the teams was Lisa (right) and Jean (middle).  Pictured above is one of the patterns that I worked on with Joan (on the left) and Robbin (not pictured).  We helped make 28 of these C-shaped pieces!

Every day, we would take showers after working 9-10 hour days.  This particular evening, April 13, was Becca's birthday!  We made sure to celebrate with her throughout the day.  Here we are having a drink at Pizza Hut!

Last day of work - Bobby (left) and Chris (right) continued making specific shapes with the wood for the door frames.  You can see the progress of the house behind them.  The floor joints were being completed.  

Here's a better picture.  We are creating the floor of the new house!

I was making marks so the boys knew where to align the next floor joints.

Lisa got to use the power tools as ply wood was laid on top of the floor joints. 

 Joan and I tried to make the ground more leveled so that there wouldn't be any accidents as people carried wood towards the house.  Joan really knows how to use a Pick Ax!

All of our wooden shapes are now coming together to make the outside wall of the house.  

 It was a team effort to lift it up! 

 Nice poses!  If you were wondering where I was though... 

I was actually below them in the crawl space with Robbin.

Here's a picture of me, but it's kinda blurry.  I thought I was slightly claustrophobic, but I guess it wasn't that bad considering how far away I was from the opening of the crawl space!

This is how far we got before we left.  Those long pieces of wood are the ceiling! 

We finished the evening with observing the beauty of God's nature.  We went to Cloudland Canyon - it is the western rim of Lookout Mountain.  It was gorgeous!

I wish we could have spent more time here!

Later in the evening, we went to downtown Chattanooga for a nice dinner at a restaurant called Public House.  It was really good!  Before we traveled back to Savannah, we worshiped at the United Methodist Church.  I really enjoyed their service!

We traveled back in 2 cars.  The car that I didn't travel in stopped in Dalton to see Mr. Arthur's finished house.  Mr. Arthur was the man that we helped on our last mission trip - you can read more about it in this previous post that I wrote.

I just love that Mr. Arthur put this sign on his house.  He gave all the glory to God!  What a great feeling it is to be the hands and feet of Jesus and serve those that are in need!