puppy love

tubing at cataloochee

so last monday, (mlk day), we decided to drive to maggie valley and visit cataloochee ski resort. jay tried to talk me into skiing, but i declined. just not quite ready for that yet. so we went tubing instead. and not like we tubed the previous time. it was well organized and a much longer run than the previous place we went to. so here are some pictures of our fun in maggie valley.

here is an upclose view of the tubing run. there are four "slides" and someone up top making sure the bottom is clear before the next 4 people have their turn.
here is the picture of the full run. and you can see in the left of the picture the "magic carpet" to take everyone back up to the top.
ok. here is stacie, kneeling behind her tube, ready to go. jay was a very good photographer that day. much better than stacie. (you will see soon.)
she is going, going....
going... going.... going...
and she made it to the bottom.
so right when it was almost jay's turn, they turned on their snow-maker. so not only did the sun make it hard to see who was up top, the "snow" didn't help much. but he is over here in the left lane, on his way down.
he made it midway... this lane was fairly slow. (the far lane on the right was the fastest.)
and he finally makes it to the bottom. we had a ton of fun that day and the dogs did too (they spent the day at sparky's.)

it's beginning to look more like a house (could be built here)

ok. so we are getting way excited about the progress being made on our house. before our last big snow we had our footing and pipes and were waiting on the weather to cooperate before they could pour the concrete. well, i guess that was last week because now we have concrete! woo hoo! next step is a frame, so life is good. here are some pictures of the slow and steady progress. and as soon as there is more, you know i will share them.

so this was when the house just had some lovely plastic and some snow inside.

and now we have concrete! yeah! a foundation!

b is for barley's 1st birthday!

ok. barley officially turns ONE tomorrow, the 15th. but we don't have the luxury of both being home tomorrow so we celebrated a night early. like she even knows what is going on! but we do. and we celebrated cotton's first birthday, and will enjoy her second one coming up, so barley got her turn tonight. so, in celebrating, here are a few pictures of barley's first year.

barley has always been one to not look at the camera. and she has always had huge feet.

sweet baby barley sitting in her mimi's flowers. she is as big as the lillies!

hanging out at mimi's feet. sweet little barley blended in with her pants.

cotton and barley sharing barley's baby bed. cotton always kept trying to lay in it.

finally... a halfway decent picture of our little sweet brown bear.

she loves to stretch out on the bed. this is after we moved as she "helped" unload boxes.

barley now sharing her big bed with little dave. such "good" friends.

christmas barley! she wears more than antlers, these days.

watching for squirrels.

happy birthday, barley!!!!!!!!

pre-start orientation

it won't be long now before our new house gets started! yeah! the sooner it starts the sooner we (feel like we) get out of this apartment. anyway, we met with ryan, our field manager, today and went over how the house will sit on the lot and drainage and that sort of thing. basically we should have a foundation poured in about 1-2 weeks and then it is no holds barred on the mexicans who frame it so... anyway, nothing new to report with pictures but as soon as something starts to change i will be sure to post them. thanks to everyone for asking about progress. progress is about to begin!

knitting projects

i should be taking pictures of everything i have made, but i have not. so maybe those of you who have received gifts (erin, samantha, lindsey, and haley) can send pictures of their scarves. even maybe them wearing them... when it gets cold again. but here are some things i have made recently. most of them will be hopping aboard an envelope or a box and heading to tennessee or south africa. but i thought i would share what i have made so far (since the title of this blog is knit3purl1.)


my scarf that has kept my neck very warm already this winter.

a sweet, pink chenille baby hat that will hopefully fit sweet (cousin) bailey. it will soon be headed to knoxville to find out.

a lovely yellow (lemonade) scarf that will be travelling overseas to south africa, in time for winter in cape town. it will be keeping ashley toasty when the winds blow.

mom/anita/mimi's scarf. (she has many names.) it will be heading to franklin soon... in time for the cold weather that is coming the end of this week.

my first patterned dish cloth. these knit up quickly and i am making them and taking a break on scarves.
but if anyone would like a scarf or dish cloth for gifts or for any purpose, with enough time and planning, it can be arranged. i am taking orders for christmas already! :) (just ask regina to show you her blue scarf come december!)

back on the diet train/ house update

hey there. jay and i are back to weight watchin'. literally. we took a very long break from weight watchers over the holidays. i have gained one pound in 2 months. i don't think jay is so lucky. but he says his pants don't fit very well. so we are back to counting points and making sure we are getting in all the exercise we can. i may not update this portion of our lives very often, but when we hit big milestones, i will be sure to inform!

and our project manager finally called us. we meet with him for the pre-build orientation tomorrow at 1pm. yeah! more progress!

ok. well, i am about to take the girls for a walk. we have all discovered the park in fletcher and it has wonderful walking trails so we will be enjoying the 60 degree sunny weather while we can. :)

let it snow! let it snow! let it snow!

after we made it back, we decided to play in the snow a bit. so we drove north a bit and went snow tubing at wolf laurel (one of the ski resorts up here). now, this area wasn't so resort-like, but this is where their tubing is, so we had a good time freezing our rear ends, and the rest of us, off. it was only 13 degrees outside... in the day time! and with the natural snow and the freshly made snow, there was plenty for playing!



waiting to get checked in! it was so cold and i can't even count how many layers i had on.
jay, waiting. that is obvious, huh? just look at all that snow!
on the way down! you go much faster sitting than lying down. but either way you have no control on your direction.
climbing the hill the easy way.
jay's turn down the hill. he moved so fast it was hard to capture.

there he goes. the hill isn't long, but it was extremely fun just the same.
the "easy" ramp wasn't running this time. jay (and others) had to walk up.
stacie trying to pose in her tube at the bottom of the hill... but the snow machine and the wind were causing some problems!

needless to say, it took awhile for our bodies to rewarm. but we finally did thaw out. just in time to pick up the girls from sparky's. they had a great time playing in the snow, too. but we wanted to see for ourselves so we went for a drive the next day, back up north a bit to one of the rest areas and overlooks to get some great pictures of mountains and to let the girls play in what snow was left.








the girls had a great time running and playing in the snow. although don't let the pictures of barley fool you... she really doesn't seem to care one way or the other about the snow. cotton was very excited and barley just followed her. on her own... it was just something cold on her feet. haha typical dogs. but jay and i enjoyed playing in the snow and the views of the mountains that the snow seemed to transform. it has been a lovely scene over here.

new year's in gatlinburg

jay and i were able to spend our first new year's together this year. (yes, we have been together for 4 years now, but this is the first new year's that neither of us has had to work one of the days so we took advantage!) we booked a room at the fairfield inn in gatlinburg and rang in the new year in downtown gatlinburg. the day before we left i discovered that my cousins (melynda and willie, and their kids lauren, wesley, jesse, and taylor... and a few extras) were also going to be in gatlinburg for the holiday. and they were one light down from where we were staying, in a fabulous cabin. so we spent some time with them having lots of family fun and we had some good time to ourselves. we decided to play some mini-golf on new year's eve; the course shared a parking lot with the hotel so we enjoyed a chilly round at ripley's davy crockett mini-golf course. there were many fun characters and much piped-in commentary that we enjoyed while we played.






then we caught up with my cousins and played a rousing game of (cut-throat) spoons and enjoyed some homemade hot chocolate, courtesy of melynda, until it was time to head downtown for the "ball drop" and fireworks. in gatlinburg, they drop the ball from the space needle and shoot fireworks from there. and we were lucky that it was still decorated for christmas, so we were able to enjoy all the festivities in one night.











we shared a lovely caramel apple on the way to the parking garage after the fireworks were over and good thing we had something sweet to keep us awake. it took forever (b/c of poor city planning) to get out of that garage. at least 45 minutes. it would have been faster to walk to the hotel. but we waited it out and finally made it to bed around 2am. but it was all still lots of fun.

later on new year's day, we drove up in the smoky mountains nat'l park to enjoy the scenery (and to not enjoy the freezing cold temperatures!). but we got some wonderful pictures of the smokies from up there. and we even got an updated picture of jay's truck, now that he has added a few new things.







and later on that evening, we spent more time with the cousins! we played some pool and then jay and i went out to eat with lauren and josh and walked around downtown a bit until we were about frozen solid and then went back to their cabin to enjoy some rewarming in the hot tub. but, of course, there was time for a few more pictures, thanks to melynda.







that night it snowed and we had a ton of fun driving back home through the mountains. but, we had a delicious breakfast with the gang at the pancake pantry. we didn't need to eat anything until dinner time. so, much fun was had by all and it was the best new year ever.