House Pictures

Here are some inside photo's of the house we are leasing in Champion Hills. We started reexamining contractors this past week, with the plan to select one by the end of next week.

First Visitors

Ed and Cindy came for a short visit this weekend. Ed was in Columbia, SC doing some remodeling work for his daughter and son-in-law, Heather and Eric. We had a nice dinner, watched the Detroit RedWings win in hockey and then went right to bed. All were tired.

Today they left around 10:00am and are driving to Detroit, MI. We will see them again at David's wedding in July.

Here are some pictures of the house and of Ed and Cindy.

Unpacking

The mover's finally made it last Friday, 2 hours late. They followed their GPS which tried to take them on the back roads. It took all day to unload the truck. Ralph would check off each box on a sheet and direct where the boxes were to go. We started to unpack boxes that night and on Saturday I got most of the kitchen out of boxes. Ralph unpacked clothes, set up the office and sorted out the basement storage room. When he's done it will be very well organized. Sunday we went to church and kept unpacking. Monday we played in a golf tournament at Champion Hills. The team I was on placed 2nd!! They were very consistent golfers and I was so nervous I paid close attention to what I was supposed to do which really helped my game. Ralph's team placed 2nd to last, but he said they had a good time. There was a party that night and we got to renew acquaintances and meet some new people. Tuesday and Wednesday more unpacking, rain all day. Golf on Thursday, Ralph with the guys and me with the ladies. My game was back to normal. Today Ralph went to a chipping clinic at the practice range and I puttered around in the kitchen, lining shelves and moving things around. We made another trip to Lowe's and now Ralph is putting together a shelving unit for the storage area. That's it for now.

New Adventure

Looks like a new adventure is about to start. I woke up dreaming of mountain laurel and golf.

Mom

Christmas 2008

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Here is photo of our tree this year. It has to be one of the best shaped trees we have had in years.

This weekend we received another six (6) inches of snow and now have extremely cold and windy conditions. This is on top of the eight (8) inches we got last week. Our backs are sore from all of the shoveling!

We are looking forward to the Christmas season. We had a dinner party in Minneapolis yesterday with our ANG friends. On Christmas eve we are going to Russ and Janice Frys followed by Christmas day at Michelle's. Andrew arrives for a week on Christmas and we are looking forward to seeing him and hearing about his new position.

We wish everyone a save and joyous Christmas and New Year's!!

Panther Valley Hike

Monday was beautiful day in North Carolina for a hike. The group consisted of Ralph and I and six other guys. The hike leader, Chan was very familiar with the area as he had hiked in the valley many times before with Carlton, an older man who had lived in the valley and made many of the trails. We parked at Carlton's house and took a few short cuts to start the hike. Panther Valley has a very primitive trail system, there are some logging roads in the area that you can follow, but we followed Carlton's trails. The trails looked more like deer paths to me. We followed them through Carlton's Field of Ferns to Devil's Elbow where we crossed a stream. Ralph and I had to go barefoot. Brrr!!!! We hiked back upstream and up hill to Camille's Falls where we had lunch. Each time we went down to the river we had to find a trail through the rhododendrons and mountain laurel bushes, no cut branches to make it easy for the tall guys. Chan took us to Green Creek Falls, Warren Falls and the most well known falls in the area, Schoolhouse Falls. You can walk behind Schoolhouse falls if you are careful. It was a great ending to the hike with a fairly short uphill climb back to the start of the hike.

Perfect Fall Weather

Today was a perfect fall day. Cool evening temperatures ( around 30 degrees ) followed by blue skies and temperatures reaching 68 degrees around 3:00pm. The photos do not capture the how vivid the colors are in the area. This is the peak week for colors and what surprises us is how long the leaves stay on the trees, compared to Minnesota or Wisconsin.

Tomorrow we are going on a long hike in western NC. We are going 40 miles west to a lake region where everyone tells us we will see around 15 waterfalls. We will publish another post later this week with some pictures of the hike.

With one week to go, we are looking forward to seeing family and friends, but will miss this area.