North Carolina Vacation

We spent the first week of spring break at my aunt and uncle's in North Carolina. We couldn't have asked for a more peaceful or restful place to be! Nor a more beautiful! Look at the view!

My aunt and uncle have a guest cabin which is where Michael, Laura and I got to stay. It is the most adorable, out of a magazine, place to stay! (Guess what?! You can actually rent this place yourself! Check it out here.)

I LOVE the kitchen in the guest cabin with the vintage sink and the white and especially with the painting by another of my uncles.

The great room in the cottage has a fireplace that turns on with a remote control! I kept feeling like I'd jumped into one of my British Country Living magazines.

 The day after we arrived we headed straight for the Biltmore in nearby Asheville.

This place is incredible. And, they now allow photos inside. That will have to be a separate post all on its own!

All through the week we spent many moments reading, chatting, and enjoying tea in the beautiful surroundings!

 The kids had a yard work day on Saturday which included a bonfire.

 And more tea and views.....

Then the fire was re-stoked for an evening of s'mores.

There was plenty of time for playing games. Andrew beat several family champions in the Scrabble game.

The colors of the views were the colors of my house. I couldn't get enough.

On Sunday we attended church with my aunt and uncle and enjoyed the church lunch afterward at which they were celebrating the one year anniversary of this church campus.

I found a few moments on my own for reading.

Uncle Bob took the kids up to Triple Falls one day. Now they can't wait to go back, especially during swimming weather!

Laura was ready for anything!

Everyone fell in love with Frodo the dog. And several people enjoyed walks around the historic neighborhood with Uncle Bob.

There was a beautiful moon one evening.

Aunt Georgie organized special times of family worship (devotions) for us. She utilized the methods of Simple the Story. This was my first time to experience this method of oral Bible study and felt that it was a very good method for using with children (or, really any age!).

One day we drove over to the historic home of Carl Sandberg and his wife. Carl Sandberg is famous for writing a biography of Abraham Lincoln.

The grounds were just beautiful and there were many lovely trails.

 Carl Sandberg's wife was a pioneer in goat breeding and in pushing the merits of goat's milk for people who couldn't tolerate cow's milk. We all enjoyed petting the goats. David and Uncle Bob looked like alpine hikers and we all couldn't help making comparisons to Vermont where we share so much history.

The kids loved hanging out with Uncle Bob and Aunt Georgie. In fact, Rachel already has plans to fly back for a visit in June! Lucky thing!

Tuesday afternoon we drove over to Charlotte to meet up with Michael's sister, Nicole, and her family. Yay for cousins!!!

IKEA seemed a good meeting place so we walked (or ran) around IKEA and visited for a few hours.

And had dinner together before we headed back towards the Asheville area.

We found time on vacation to paint Laura's finger nails.

The nails didn't last long because that afternoon we went to the Gem Mine. This turned out to be Laura's highlight of the whole trip. An entire store of beautiful rocks and gems. Laura LOVES stones.

The kids had a blast "panning" for stones and each came away with a hefty bag of beautiful pieces.

Then we drove up to Jump Off Rock and admired the view which stretched for many miles and was hard to capture on camera.

Laura had a few life changing events on vacation. She lost her very first tooth on the car drive down. Secondly, she overcame her incredible fear of dogs and discovered how much fun it was to feed Frodo each day!

The boys had their own cabin all to themselves!!! How fun is that?!!! Oh yes, they had a marvelous vacation!

We ended the vacation by watching "Richie Rich" because guess where it was filmed?! That's right, The Biltmore! 

And so ended a marvelous week of family rest and fellowship. We are so very thankful for all the special memories that were made!