North Carolina Camping

Well, it has been two months since I posted anything--shows you how exciting my life is right now. All I do is work. We finally did something fun--we went camping. We went with the Lerchs up to Brevard, NC. The first night we got started late, so we stopped at a hotel in Greenville. Then we got up in the morning and drove up to our campsite. It is in Pisgah National Forest, which is beautiful! It was about 10 or 15 minutes away from sliding rock, and about 10 minutes from downtown Brevard. After we got settled in the campground, we went to sliding rock. I was all for it until I stuck my toes in the water. It was soooo cold! I chickened out and just watched everyone slide down. They had a great time. Then we went back to the campground and cooked dinner and sat around the fire and made smores. Instead of having plain Hershey's chocolate, we used Reese's peanut butter cups. That was delicious! It started raining, but we still sat around the fire making our smores. Finally it started pouring and we ran into the tent! I didn't mind though. It made it more memorable. The next morning we got up, ate breakfast, and packed. Then we drove into Brevard and walked around downtown for a little while. It is such a cute little town. They have the coolest toy store there. It was two stories and pack full of every toy you could imagine. Then we drove over to our rafting place. We got there just in time for the last rafting trip. They dropped us off at the river with our tubes. At first the river was freezing, but then after a few minutes we got used to it. It was a pretty calm river--I thought there would be more rapids--but it was still fun. It was raining that day too, so we debated going on the rafting trip, but we decided we would get wet on the river anyway, so we did it. Right after we got started on the river, the rain cleared up and the sun came out. It turned out to be such a beautiful day. By the time we got done, it was starting to get late. We started heading back home, but stopped in Sapphire Valley and had a picnic dinner. That place is beautiful! I love the mountains in North Carolina. They have such a unique beauty about them. We had such a good time on the trip and can't wait to do it again. I posted some pictures of the area and will post my own pictures soon. Troy and I decided not to bring my camera because we didn't want it getting messed up, so we bought a little waterproof disposable camera that we didn't care much about. As soon as the pictures are developed I will post them.

Porter Benjamin Atkins

At the end of April I was able to go out to Twin Falls to visit Melissa's family. She had her new baby, Porter Benjamin Atkins, on April 11. He is so adorable!!! I loved it. She had him about 3 weeks early. She actually was beginning to go into labor 6 weeks early, which is when she had Will. Luckily, they were able to to hold it off for a little while. He did have to go to the NICU, but not for very long. I had so much fun with the kids. I also went to Shoshone Falls, which is about 10 minutes away from their house. It is beautiful!!! It is actually taller than Niagra Falls, but not as big across. It is huge in the spring because of the snow melting from the mountains. I have been before in the fall, but was not impressed. When I saw it this time though, it was awesome! I couldn't get very good pictures because it was so misty there! I got soaked--not from rain, but from the mist that comes up. It was so good to take a little mini vacation.

Pictures

The other day Tanner took us out to take pictures. Normally Troy and I both hate getting our picture taken, but we had a lot of fun this time. I think they turned out awesome. Here are some of our favorites.

Men Can Be So Prideful!!!

So, we got our kitchen cabinets in. They are absolutely beautiful!! We got such a good deal on them because we bought them "ready to assemble", meaning we had to put them together ourselves. They are all hardwood, no particle board or MDF, so they are really good quality. For the most part, they are really easy to put together. They just snap together and then you put in a few screws and you are done. Well, we decided to put together the hardest one first--the lazy susan. Before we started, I asked Troy if we should watch the instructional video on their website on putting that piece together. He said no, he could figure it out. So we started, and 2 hours later, we still weren't done. We stopped for a few minutes to get something to eat, and started again. This whole time, I kept saying we should just go watch the video and he wouldn't hear of it! Finally, after working on this stupid thing for 3 hours, we got it put together. Guess how long it takes in the video? ........9 minutes! Haha! The whole thing was pretty funny. But now I have to bragg on Troy. It might have taken him a while to put that piece together, but he is doing an amazing job on this house. He built a half wall between the dining room and living room, braced the ceiling to we could tear out the wall in the kitchen, patched the ceiling, put up new drywall, put in new french doors, and numerous other things. Everyone who comes to see the progress is amazed! I am posting a few of the "work in progess" pictures. Next week I will put up a picture of the kitchen. We have almost all of the cabinets up now.

The Rapids

It has been pretty warm here, so Troy and I decided to enjoy it. We went over to the Savannah Rapids. Unfortunately, it cooled off the day we decided to go. Poor Tory--he was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Anyways, I love going over there. It is peaceful and just a nice place to go take a stroll. We enjoyed our afternoon and hope to go more as it gets warmer.

The House

So back in January Troy got a house. We will live in it once we get married, and I can't wait! It was a foreclosure, so we got an awesome deal on it. It is 1540 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2 car garage, and a pool. It was not in very good condition, so we are going to fix it up. It will be beautiful when we are done! The previous owners were such big smokers that nicotine covered the walls. You could see the outlines of where the pictures hung! Pretty much everything will be new. We put in a new pool liner already, but I don't have a picture of the new one yet. We will also be replacing all the siding, the decks, the floors, the bathrooms, and the kitchen. We have already ripped out the kitchen and floors. We took out the wall between the kitchen and the dining room to make it more open. We will put an island there in place of the wall. I have put some pictures up of the "before" and the "destruction"! You can see how dusty it got in there when we were ripping everything out. Hopefully it won't take us too long to complete, but since we are doing it ourselves I have a feeling it may take a while!

Will

For Christmas, Mandy, Melissa, Lance and Will came home. Lance and Mandy had to go home early, but Melissa and Will were able to stay for 2 weeks. We had so much fun and I was so sad to see them leave. Will is such a little character--he loves to entertain people, and if he sees that someone is laughing at him, he will keep acting like a clown. He also had this hilarious face he would do whenever there was a noise. I included a picture of that! He also loves to get his picture taken, and will sit there and pose for you. I pretty much followed him around the whole 2 weeks taking pictures. I took tons and tons! Here are a few.