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!

One happy cat

We recently had to move Lion-O out of his room to prepare for the nursery.  We were concerned that this would be hard on him.  If anything, I think it's been harder on us now that we don't have a room we can put him in when he tries to wake us up early in the morning.

He has decided that my maternity pillow is the perfect shape for his sleeping needs.

We decided that he needed his own little bed since he lost his whole room.  I think he's pretty satisfied.  :)

My fun costume

For Halloween, I dressed up as a black cat that ate a goldfish.  The kids at our church were really interested in this.  "Does that mean that you dressed your baby up as a goldfish?" "Next year, I think that the goldfish will eat you up!"

  Even Lion-O loved it!

C Diddy's Bday

One of my very best friends, Catherine Mack, recently celebrated her birthday on October 18.  I hadn't seen her since last Christmas and I hadn't been able to spend extended time with her since before I was married (over 4 years ago), so it was about time for a visit to Boca.  I'd heard so much about her family, her church and her town that I just had to see it for myself! :)

On her actual birthday, we went shopping and to the beach.  It was a really relaxing day and there really aren't many places that you can go to the beach in October.  It was a little sunny so Catherine was having a hard time keeping her eyes open in this photo.

We went to P. F. Chang's for dinner with her family and a few of her friends.  It was really tasty and fun!  I had a great time talking and sharing stories with her mom each day.  She has such a servant's heart and I was easily able to see where Catherine gets hers. :)  

I really also enjoyed getting to know her sister, Paige, because we have very similar taste buds.  We had the most amazing dessert there called Flourless Chocolate Cake.  It was heavenly!

Catherine's mom even made her a cake!  We were so stuffed from P. F. Chang's that we had to wait until the next day to actually eat some of it.  Catherine was able to blow out all of her candles in one breath.  I was seriously impressed.

I spent about 5 days with her - we had amazing food, lots of shopping, great conversations, and I was able to worship at her church.  I had a wonderful time and it was definitely well worth it to get away.  I left at a good time because it was right before the presidential debate took place in Boca!

Wedding Número 3

Curtis and I have had the honor of counseling and preparing David and Amanda Brodmann for their upcoming marriage for the past 9 or 10 months.  Finally, the big day arrived on October 13!  Every year since Curtis has been ordained, he has had the opportunity to officiate for one wedding, which makes this wedding #3. :)

The wedding was gorgeous - they had it at the Mackey House in Savannah.

I got a pretty good picture of Amanda and her father walking down the aisle.

You may now kiss the bride!

Amanda & David released doves after the ceremony was complete.  I thought this was a pretty good capture from my phone!

Curtis and I really enjoyed being able to celebrate with David, Amanda and their families.  I'm sure the Brodmanns are feeling relieved that both weddings went smoothly this year - (A Beautiful Beach Wedding in May and this one in October)!

It's a Girl!

We found out on October 8th that we will be having a little girl!  We were happy to hear that she is doing just fine and is healthy.  Praise the Lord!

I love that she looks like a little chicken wing!  I've started to feel her move and kick now, so I'm sure it's because of these awkward positions that she likes to lay in.  It took 30 minutes for the ultrasound tech to figure out if it was a girl or a boy because she was curled up in a little ball sitting Indian-style.  Haha!

Let the celebrating begin...

We had a sweet couple from our small group bring over this chocolate chip cookie cake, balloon and sparkling cider to celebrate!  Thanks for sharing in our joy with us, Laura and Miguel.

Curtis and I went to our new Kohl's store to get our baby girl's very first outfit.  Here's the outfit we decided on:

It says "Daddy's Princess" and it has a little cat on it with little leopard pants to go with it. :)

A Quick Getaway to St. Simons

Last week, Curtis and I traveled to St. Simons Island to visit our friends, Jenna & Dan.  It was nice to get away and be refreshed, even if our trip was less than 24 hours in length!

Jenna and Dan have the beach literally in their backyard.  Here's a good shot of Curtis and I in front of the dunes.  It was really really sunny!

You can see my baby bump starting to show -- I was 19 weeks in these pictures. :)

Jenna and I have been good friends since college when we met in RUF.  She and Dan recently moved to St. Simons Island and we are happy to have friends not that far away.

They took us downtown and showed us the pier, the lighthouse, and we even saw a little bit of an antique show.  We had some fabulous sweets from a little shop downtown while we played Rummikub (a really fun game!)  Jenna was an amazing cook and she even taught me how to make some homemade guacamole.  We also got to walk around Christ Church, its cemetery and the Wesley monument.  St. Simons is a beautiful area and we look forward to visiting again in the future!