Catching up - August

Hmm...what happened during August? It is mostly a blur. I remember what I have pictures of. This is why you don't want to get behind on your blog folks, lol.

We have a lovely family in our ward that invited us to visit their cabin in the mountains in the town of Seven Devils, NC (just a few minutes from Linville) and stay for a few days in exchange for taking pictures of it so that they could post it on a rental site. We said YES PLEASE! It was just beyond beautiful and lovely and taking pictures of it in no way compensated for the wonderful time we had.

Here are just a few pictures of the cabin. The downstairs had a pool table, large TV, and a cabinet stocked with games to play with the kids. Just awesome.













































Walking down the road from the cabin is a lake where we had a picnic. Again, lovely. I thought about how hard it would be to leave this place if we owned it.




























































About 5 minutes from the cabin there is a catch your own trout fishing pond stocked with trout that swim in from the nearby river. They were huge! The water was so clear and the kids were mesmerized just watching them swim around. They could have stayed there for hours just watching. "Look at that one! Look at his spots!











































Then we had some fun with the classic mining for gemstones. Parker has been talking about rocks in school so this was a perfect opportunity for show and tell once we tracked back into school.













































Greg's parents live just an hour from the the cabin so they drove up on Saturday and we went to an old country store/restaurant for some hard to find candy and good bbq. :D There was a local band made up of three teenage boys playing bluegrass and singing. They were really great!




































Then we took the kids to a local park to play on the playground and swim in the creek. The water was pretty cold but they didn't care. :)
















































































We heard about an alpaca farm so we had to go check that out. It is located on a 40 year old apple orchard. The farm raises the alpaca which are sheared once or twice a year and the fur is shipped to places that manufacture expensive hiking gear and socks. Alpaca is one of the most sought after fibers because it stays dry kind of like wool, but is breathable and warm and lightweight, and soft. What an interesting looking creature. They are in the camel family and are smaller than lamas. These alpaca are recently sheared. The farm was so pretty and also had horses, donkeys, goats, chickens, etc, that the kids had fun looking at.




























































































Next on to Linville Falls. The kids did a great job on the 2 mile hike to the overlooks and back. Meadow was pretending she was a Saltopus dinosaur (Saltopus means "leaping foot") and she would leap over roots and rocks and holler "Saltopus leap!" It was pretty funny. Parker was a velocitaptor that could run really fast in the same picture.
































































Parker is wearing this expression because a bug flew up his nose. He did not like that but he cheered up after a few minutes. :)