North Carolina and Flying Home

We stayed at Lake Lure, NC.  We had a nice cabin close to the lake.  The cabin had a pool table and a dart board.  I think Henry could have played pool all week and had a blast.  He was pretty excited when we went down to the lake and found some peddle boats.  Daddy, Henry, Nate and I went on a peddle boat tour around a tiny section of the lake.  We saw a ton of turtles, got some sun and 3 pairs of sore legs.  You can guess which pair was totally unaffected by a new form of exercise.  (Hint: It's the pair that couldn't really reach the peddles.)  

  Later that night, we went on a real boat tour of the lake.  It took us around the whole lake in half the time.  It was a lot of fun and beautiful!

Our very first morning at the cabin Henry practiced fishing off the back porch.  That very same morning he had liver pudding with eggs and toast for breakfast.  He loved liver pudding!  Even stole mine off my plate.  The boy is part Southern!

We spent two days at the Biltmore House, or the "castle".  I thought Henry would think it was boring, but he really enjoyed it.  His favorite part of the house was the swimming pool in the basement.

The first day, we did the self guided house tour then got to the shops just in time to get some ice cream.  After the ice cream, we walked around the gardens.  I cannot imagine having a yard like that!  So beautiful!  I don't know if I like the gardens or natural spaces better.   

I would not have guessed that Henry would want to go through the house the second day, but he did!  The second time around we had to go to the basement first to see the swimming pool.  I thought that after the swimming pool, he would be done and want to go outside and see more of the gardens, but we went back upstairs for a second time.  After the house, we went to the village that we missed out on the day before.  They had some cool demonstrations and things to play with or on.  We got to watch a wood worker turn a log into a box.  We watch the blacksmith work for a while and give some lady a bottle of the cooling water for her kids poison ivy problem. 

We went graveyard hopping/genealogy doing.  This meant driving all over to find teeny cemeteries hidden up in the hills.   We spent some time at Round Hill Cemetery, looking through our Johnson family graves and finding tombstones we had not noticed before.  While we were looking around, Clara got to hang out with a Johnson tombstone.  Henry spent his time taking pictures of all of the tombstones.  My phone is FILLED with his pictures of this cemetery.

At one point we were searching for this teeny graveyard.  We went around a lot of mountains and down a couple driveways that were not so welcoming.  Nate was pretty sure we were going to happen upon a some moonshine-ing, feuding family fight and be disappeared forever. 

We spent part of a day at a Seawell family reunion.  I have no pictures, but we got to visit with our extended Seawell family.  Henry made new friends and Clara met her very distant cousin, who is also named Clara and is basically the same age.  Afterwards, we found an apple stand so that Grandmother could take apples back.  Henry got his very own peck of apples.  I got some sourwood honey!  Oh the things I wish we could find in Utah...

There are a million pictures that I want to put in our blog book when I make it some day.  There are pictures that I need from Nate and Daddy, but I got some good ones too.  By the end, we were all pretty pooped.  Nate had to fly home early to be at work first thing Monday morning.  We drove Grandmother back home to Georgia and got to visit some old friends on our way.  I took this picture of the pines to show Nate.  He liked southern Georgia but didn't get to see this little town that I lived in until I was 8.

My pooped little children and I flew home all alone.  Mama and Daddy flew out about the same time.  I don't know if I would have made it without them!  The kiddos and I had a layover in Denver.  Both flights we got all kinds of horrible looks.  We occupied 2 of the 3 seats in the row so I did not settle everything in until we found out who was sitting next to us and offered them their choice of seat.  One lady that was sitting a row or two back (who was initially GLARING at me) nodded in obvious approval when I told the flight attendant my plan.  After a very good flight for the kids, I'm pretty sure she even cracked a smile at me on the way off the plane.  While we were waiting to board the next flight, there was a group on their way to a health drink conference in Salt Lake that complimented the kids on how well they did.  I was WAY nervous about being alone with the kids for these flights, so I was happy to hear that I was not the only ones impressed with how wonderful my babies are.

I am so glad we were able to go on this vacation!  We needed the break and it was wonderful to get to the South again!  It was fun to spend time with Grandmother, Mama and Daddy and make some great memories!