Crabtree Falls and SHEET-ROCK!!

Yes!! SHEETROCK! About half of it was mudded, the other half was being taped while we were there. We stopped by after church yesterday to measure for landscaping and deck design, and were surprised when we saw the sheet-rock...ours was done before our neighbors. YAY! The girls were sad because we wouldn't let them out of the car to see it. They were inside working and it rained the night before and that red dirt was a little wet. We measured and I took pictures from the outside looking in. Hopefully we can go in next weekend and check it out. I was so excited that I hardly slept last night! Also...HVAC was installed...my dumb self was looking up instead of down. We have floor vents, not ceiling vents. I don't know why I didn't realize that until I saw the tube in the crawl space and then Michael said it was under the floor. Genius over here. I emailed the lady who answers questions I have for the builder and asked if the 11/30 was still the deadline. Every time I ask they won't answer me. We are planning on having no turf in the backyard, all deck. We also realized that the mound of mulch is our backyard as well, so we are planning on putting stairs up to the top and terracing the hill. That part will be in the future. The deck and the front landscaping will be priority as those need to be approved by builder to move in. We will do the hillside and side landscaping some other time. So the only part that will have turf is the front yard.

This is the garage, the little nook in the back will hold the hot water heater and is storage as well. I didn't see a pull down in here yet, so we still aren't sure where the attic will be. The walls are very tall here so we will use the gorilla shelves and probably build some type of shelves on top of those.

This is looking in through the dining room into living room. The ledge on the right with the stuff on top is the bar.

Ella Kate wanted me to take a picture of her room so she could see it...it came out to dark to see...that is her closet.

Dining into kitchen. Bar on left with sink, the stove will go on the back wall...the gas pipe can be seen on the floor, fridge located next to pantry and pantry. So as mentioned with taking the microwave out...that would look weird with the oven and fridge next to each other...then that whole back wall would have been cabinets and counter-tops... messing up the kitchen triangle. The living room is on the left with a hallway leading to the girls rooms. That door on the left is the garage door.

Anyway...that's exciting!

Saturday we hiked Crabtree Falls off the BRP. It was about a 3 1/2 mile hike. The girls got a lot of compliments on how far they hiked...shoot they did 6 two weeks ago! The waterfall was huge, and windy and cold! We will have to start bringing long sleeves with us. I was cold until we started moving good. I also didn't have any trouble with my knee on the downhills. I am thinking its just the amount of distance I put on it...don't quite know the limit of it, but the 6 we did with the girls didn't hurt at all. Plus it could be a number of things, we take a lot of breaks with the kids...and just the two of us, we book it. Anyways, beautiful hike and the falls weren't crowded.

Hiding behind a tree.

For those of you who don't know what the piles of rocks are when you hike in nature...they are called Cairns...and have many different purposes. Most of the time they are just for fun. Usually someone starts one and you add a rock to it when you see it. We added the orange rock on top.

I just took a picture of this one, didn't add to it as we would have had to take our socks and shoes off and be near waist deep to get to it!

Not much going on this week. Ella Kate is going to start up violin lessons in two weeks. We are headed to Black Mountain to rent her a violin/fiddle on Saturday...so we might do some hiking around Black Mountain. We also have to do some weatherproofing on our tent, the seams tape has come off. We are heading to Linville Gorge and Falls for Labor Day weekend...I am glad I reserved a spot as they are all gone now! Addison starts swim lessons the week after Labor Day. I am trying a bribe with her...if she ends up being able to swim, I am going to get her a little Princess Palace pet she has been eyeing at Target. So now she has changed her tude and said she is going to learn to do it. This has been a battle!