Sold!

In preparation for our move to New Jersey, we sold our home (For Sale by Owner in just two days!). Today we had the closing and will be only renters for the next month before we officially move out.  The King Palm in our backyard sprouted just after the closing, symbolic both to us and the buyers of a new beginning.

A few days later it opened up even more and was strikingly beautiful.

Moving and selling this home is definitely bittersweet. We are super excited to move to the northeast and be so much closer to our family and friends but at the same time, we have made a life in Charleston that we will greatly miss, especially our home.

We choose this home together before we were even engaged. Although Tim picked out all of the furniture himself (way to go hubby), he allowed me to decorate it as merely his girlfriend. We shared our first years as a married couple here, endured two deployments, had our first knock-down drag out fights here, brought both our sweet babies home to this house and our little puppy dog...but most importantly we learned how to be a family here. I'd like to think that we are not leaving these memories behind but taking them with us as we continue on this journey of life.

I am ever so thankful that baby girl stayed in mommy one extra day so that we could take the time to capture these beautiful photos of our first home (before it got overrun with baby stuff). We are really going to miss this place!!

Riverwalk Vacation

Back in April, we discovered we had two weddings to attend in Mount Pleasant on consecutive weekends. In order to assure that Daddy would be able to make it to both he decided to take leave for the week in the middle.  We had five days to go anywhere we wanted.  We were pretty sure we didn't want to go to a beach since we have one right down the street although we did look into Hilton Head since we have yet to visit.  Disney was a consideration as well but the kids are just way too young for that right now.  I'd been craving some mountain time so after hours and hours of searching for just the right cabin I finally decided on the perfect little place in Burnsville, North Carolina known as Riverwalk Vacations.  It was about a five hour drive but totally worth it.  It had everything we wanted and then some...my list was long, I wanted:

• Two bedrooms and at least one of them needed to have a door for our difficult sleeper, Colin. Trillium, our cabin, had a great dark bedroom for Colin complete with a painting of three horses, his favorite.  It also had a loft upstairs with a king size bed and a corner perfect for Genevieve's pack and play and sound machine.  
• Fully equipped kitchen with a nice dining area and an open floor plan.  Trillium had this and than some. It had everything we needed for our meals.
• Nice tv and internet for Daddy (although Mommy would prefer a cabin that was totally unplugged! Especially since I dont have the best self control when it comes to technology!)
• Hiking trails right outside our door - we didn't want to have to wrangle Colin in and out of the car each day
• Place to swim
• Park/playground
• Firepit
• Hot tub on the deck that we could enjoy after the kids fell asleep
• And most importantly ~ tasteful cabin decor...no giant bear and dear paintings everywhere you look

I was able to check off every single thing from my list with Riverwalk.  As an added bonus, they allowed pets so we could bring Lilly, had horses and donkeys on the property, provided all the linens, and so much more!!  We couldn't have been happier with our stay.

We had an incredibly easy drive only stopping once with an infant, toddler, and dog with a bladder the size of a pea.  It was Monday so we took advantage of Moe's Monday which happened have the perfect space for us to enjoy lunch with our gang.

First sight of mountains:

Once we arrived we quickly unpacked and headed down to the Riverwalk Pavilion. You'll have to take our word that it was an absolutely gorgeous afternoon since we forgot to bring our cell phones and camera.  As we were walking along the river Dad said, "I bet you can easy get ticks here..." then we both looked down at his leg and wouldn't you know - there was a tick!  Daddy hates spiders so he was not very pleased.  Luckily the property was so beautiful he didn't care too much.  We should have done a more thorough check on the kids because hours after we got back to the cabin we found one on Genevieve's head.  Fortunately, it was not attached and that was the last of the ticks we found until we returned to Charleston where we continued to find them on ourselves and Lilly! (Yuck!)

Genevieve checking out the place.

We made sure to have Colin's favorite meal the first night, lasagna!

We spent the next morning exploring the other side of the property where they have an event venue.  Daddy got Genevieve good and asleep before we headed off (he always has the magic touch!).

It was a fairly long walk, or at least seemed that way with Colin.  We decided he is even more distracted when walking than Lilly and that is saying something!

Checking out a stream...

...a leaf...

...a blade of grass...

and, of course, the camera.

Throwing rocks.

Up to no good...

All with an adorable smile.

While big brother explored, Genevieve stayed snuggled up with Mommy the whole time.

And as for our furbaby, she loved the walk and besides getting totally frightened by a much bigger dog and trying to race back to the cabin she did a great job keeping up.

Colin finished up the walk with a little help from Daddy...

Lilly could not have been happier! So glad we could bring her along.

Colin headed back inside after our walk...

but not before finding a bucket of dry ice which we promptly placed out of Colin's reach for the remainder of the trip.

Daddy and Genevieve relaxing.

While lil sis took a snooze, Colin enjoyed his favorite pastime, water play!

Watch your feet Daddy!

Making "rock" pies

As usual, as soon as brother went down for his nap, lil G woke up ready to play.

Genevieve does a great job at tummy-time.  She managed to army crawl over a foot!  She's not even two months yet.

Lilly just adores when Genevieve does tummy-time.

That evening we headed back down to the Riverwalk Pavilion, this time with camera in tow.  Could it be any more gorgeous?

Genevieve fell asleep on our walk and continued her nap in the tent....for about two minutes before big brother woke her up.

Mommy and Daddy took turns swimming in the river with Colin. He was elated and thought it was hilarious when we dipped our bodies under the freezing water.  These were probably some of our favorite memories from the week.

Relaxing after our swim

It's rare that Colin just sits. He almost fell asleep in the swing. That water must have taken a lot out of him!

The next morning we went on an "adventure."  To get Colin get excited, we told him we would be going on a journey to find horses.  Colin loves Dora and has learned a lot about maps from the show.  I made him his very own map that he clenched until we finally made it to the horses.  Throughout the hike, in my best Dora voice, I told Colin "We have to go past Lower Pasture, up Ewig Road, and then we'll get to Upper Pasture!"

We made it!

On second thought, perhaps I should have made the map to the tractor instead...

I love how you can see me lifting Genevieve out of the wrap in this shot.

Colin fell asleep the last few minutes on Daddy's back, unfortunately we didn't get any photos of the second half of the hike since the camera was trapped under the carrier.

As soon as we got back, Colin woke up and his normal afternoon nap was then doomed.  He spent some time bonding with Genevieve instead.

If you know Colin, you know that you can not keep him indoors when he hasn't had a good nap if you want to keep your sanity so hopped in the car and drove to the playground in town.  How cool, right?  The mountains made for quite the backdrop.

Genevieve catching flies.

The skies opened up while we were at the playground so we spent some time in the library around the corner.  By this point, Colin was absolutely exhausted so we drove through the mountains for a few hours (literally) to give both kiddos a good nap.

We had a quiet evening in the cabin while storms rolled through.  On our final day, we took a drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway to The Orchard at Altapass.

While there we listened to some Blue Grass music...

Ate some ice cream and apple pie...

Took in the beautiful sites...

Explored the Choo Choo Train...

And got into a little trouble.

We were glad to have good weather for our final night so we could have a bonfire.  A trip to the mountains is never complete without roasted marshmallows and smores.

Trying, unsuccessfully, to convince Colin to roast marshmallows with me.

Roasting marshmallows by myself...

while Colin chowed down on the graham crackers.

Considering a bite of the smore....

...nope its just a little too different for our picky eater.

"I'm just gonna sit over here on my tractor and enjoy my graham cracker instead."

Getting closer to the fire but still keeping a healthy distance.

It was nearing bedtime and our little man was looking a little dazed (note: that still did not stall the massive intake of graham crackers):

Little Miss G still has happy as ever.

We attempted a few family photos to conclude a great week:

Someone loves her Daddy...

Momma trying to get the same smile she got with Daddy. Genevieve loves her razzes!

A self-timer shot on the first try...impressive! I love Genevieve's sweet smile looking at her adoring brother and the wide grins on our faces.  What a perfect representation of our trip.