fall beauty and land cruisers

yesterday was the annual Blue Ridge Parkway Cruise.  members of the upstate cruisers meet at mt. pisgah at the pisgah inn and then we drive/cruise from mt. pisgah to mt. mitchell on the brp and enjoy all of the fall colors.  saturday was a beautiful day and i am so glad i didn't sleep the day away (which still would have been fantastic) and joined jay and the others up on the parkway for the lovely day and drive.  the dogs came along, too, and we made it a "family" affair.  we couldn't have asked for better fall weather.  in fact, all we could have asked for were less people and traffic up on the parkway.  (we blame the local news channel for telling everyone to go to the parkway on saturday.  because they listened.)  anyway, here are some pictures, a little something for everyone- views and trucks- from our day.)

at Pisgah (pre-crowds)

 all the trucks together in one pic

 the view from mt. mitchell

 the view of mt. mitchell

 see the white dot in the center in the sky?  it's the moon.

sweet babies.  both looking at the camera, thanks to jay and a bribe.

sweet sleep!

I’ve shared with you before about Sweet Sleep, a nonprofit ministry based in Nashville which provides beds, bedding and Bibles to orphaned and abandoned children around the world (www.sweetsleep.org) . Thanks to you, Sweet Sleep has done amazing work in northern Uganda. And, with your support RIGHT NOW, we can do it again.

Here’s the situation:

Sweet Sleep and their partner, American Refugee Committee (ARC), is working with hundreds of thousands of children living in child-headed households in the IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camps in northern Uganda. 20 years ago, the government of Uganda placed every person in every tribe into these camps to protect them from rebels which were attacking the North over two decades. A few years ago this area finally began to experience peace, however today, more than a million people are still living in these camps. An estimated 750,000 of these people are children who are orphans with no place to go. ARC is working to trace each child by their family name back to their home tribe. They then work with village leaders to determine what land their family owned and reclaim it for them. As part of the process, each resettled child receives a new hut from ARC.

Being resettled gives a child hope and a chance for a new life. There’s just one problem: the children have been afraid to leave. Until now.

Even though the Ugandan Government has closed these camps, it is very difficult to get all of the children to leave. The children in these child-headed households were born in these camps – it’s simply all they’ve ever known.

In January of this year, as Sweet Sleep’s partnerships began in northern Uganda, ARC hoped to resettle 600 children. This was more than the number of children they resettled in 2009, but they were hoping the children would have a good response to the opportunity of being provided with a bed, net and Bible.

By the end of this June, Sweet Sleep had already provided ARC with the full amount of beds, nets and Bibles they’d requested for the entire year! Much to the amazement of ARC leadership, the children are now lining up to leave the camps to be resettled into their home villages. The children are sharing with ARC and Sweet Sleep that they never imagined they could have such a thing as a bed, mosquito net or a Bible of their own. Many other organizations in northern Uganda have come to ARC to ask how they’ve been able to get so many children to resettle. Who would have known something as simple as a bed, mosquito net and Bible could be so completely profound on a child’s life? Amazing. Simply amazing!

So, my friends, here’s where you come in. ARC recently asked Sweet Sleep to provide 700 more beds to the additional children they’ll be able to resettle this November -- in just 25 days! But we can’t resettle these children without you. A resettlement kit with a straw mat, new mattress, blanket, mosquito net and Bible is just $50! 
$50 to help a child find hope, peace and comfort in their new home. And thanks to some wonderful friends of Sweet Sleep’s, any gifts given to help resettle these children in October will be matched 100%! We need just 350 friends to give $50 or 175 people to give $100 – we can do this, right? So take a moment and think – how many beds can I provide? I know you’ll sleep sweeter knowing a child has come home and will sleep sweetly because of your gift. Just go to www.sweetsleep.org to donate any amount and be sure to write “Gulu” in the comment box. 

One more thing….read this letter from a child Sweet Sleep resettled in June. Let’s work together to help more sweet orphans like David finally come home.

Dear Sweet Sleep,

My name is David. I am 14 years old and am in primary four. I would like to thank you, Sweet Sleep for giving me the mattresses and mostly the Bible.

Now days I know more about God than I did before because I read my Bible and after I go for a sleep on my soft mattress. Am very happy this days because I start sleep right when I got on to my bed till morning without feeling any pain. 

So I again thank God for that special gift which I was not even expecting in my life and not forgetting to pray for you and also the organization called Sweet Sleep.

Thank you so much from David.

God Bless You.

sweetness. sweet-niece.

my niece, courtney, is getting so big.  i must say that one of the things i dislike about living in asheville is not getting to see my niece grow up except mostly through pictures.  here are a few of her doing what she loves- swimming.

end of the rainbow.

alternately titled:  i do.

alternately titled:  happy 4th anniversary.

where to start?  4 years ago today jay and i walked down the aisle in front of family, friends, and God and became husband and wife.  what better way to spend an anniversary than on vacation?  it wasn't intentionally planned that way, but we lucked out for sure.  (last year, i believe, we both worked.)  so today's been a good day.  low-key.  relaxed.  who can complain?  not us for sure.  or the dogs for that matter.  the video below is from this evening.

i am usually on top of things when it comes to hallmark and having a card for all occasions.  well, maybe not all occasions.  but birthdays and anniversaries of those close to me, for sure.  but i did not get one to bring along.  so i made one.

i finished making my "card" and sat down to relax in my chair.  we'd probably been on the beach about 15 minutes.  and then the rain started.  and the sun was still shining brightly.  and then it started raining harder.  well, there was a beach house that had a large deck and had been unoccupied all week, so we ventured underneath the deck to wait it out.  i'm so glad we did.  i have never seen the end of a rainbow until today.  and now you can, too.

it ended right in the middle of the ocean.  beautiful.

and just for a little nostalgia and looking at jay and i in our fancy clothes (as my little second cousin calls them), here are some of my faves from our wedding day.

seeing each other for the first time that day.

officially married!

relieved and ready for the reception.

yep.  he did that.

unleashed.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

so we cheated and let the dogs off leash this evening so they could freely romp and run through the waves.  as you can see, they loved every second of every minute.  

highs and lows.

Q:  what leaves as soon as it comes in?     A:  the tide

and that's no joke here.  when it's high, there is no beach left to walk on.  and when it's low, there is almost an entire football field's length of room to choose your spot.  now that the long holiday weekend is over, there aren't many people on the beach.  i am not complaining either.  :)  i'll let you see for yourself.

high tide + sunset

mid-afternoon low tide, looking in the same (hazy) direction

looking straight down to the water (yes, that's jay)

same vantage point for all three pictures.  just different days.  ebb and flow.

dogs meet the ocean.

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

the girls weren't sure the first day when we took them to the beach but quickly decided they did, in fact, like the ocean.  after all, it's water and labs love them some water.  but the second morning (when we filmed this snippet) we took them back, and they knew that putting on their collars meant we were going back to that "place" we took them the day before.  they were so excited.

they have rules down here, though.  they aren't supposed to be off their leashes at all and can only be on the beach before 10am and after 6pm.  makes sense, really, as it is still quite hot during the day and the beach is usually crowded during the summer months.  (the time limits are only from may 1- sept. 30.  the rest of the year they can be on the beach all day long, but still have to be on-leash.)

now that the long weekend has passed, it isn't really that crowded down here.  one of these remaining mornings we plan to cheat and let them run off leash.  just for a few minutes, anyway.  :)  we'll try to get some more pictures, but honestly, it's not easy staying dry and keeping their leashes untangled while trying to take pictures.  hopefully this video will keep you satisfied for now.   enjoy!  they did.

(mom, you may not want to enlarge it.  it may make you a little dizzy!)

(and i'll get around to uploading pics and video of the first outing to the beach.  it's on a different camera and has a little bit more of barley in it.  this video is courtesy of jay's iPhone 4.)

morris island lighthouse.

we took a short walk after dinner tonight to the edge of folly island to see the morris island lighthouse.  it happened to also be high tide, and when i say high tide, i'm not kidding.  there literally is about 3-5 feet of walking space on the beach during high tide, where as during low tide there is about 50-60 yards.  big difference.  we've been enjoying the sun and sand and the dogs have too.  they enjoyed it a little too much on monday so they had a rest day today.  we do have video, which i'll get on here one day.  when i figure out how.  anyway, here's a few pics from our evening walk.

picturesque, yes?  (i also love iPhoto and i think i would absolutely go crazy if i had photoshop.)  anyway, it was beautiful, as you can see in the pictures.  

finally...

Ready to spend my days here.  All week.  Will post better pictures later.  And a video of the dogs.  :)

happy birthday to you!

(yes, it's a day late.  technically just an hour-ish.  it would have been done on his birthday but he beckoned me to run errands while the picture was slowly uploading.  so, i guess the title should be happy belated birthday!)

5 days, 2 hurricanes & 1 tropical storm, 32 hours of work

that's what's left in the countdown.

i am less concerned that our vacation is only 5 days away and i have packed not-one-little-thing or the fact that i work tuesday and wednesday night and then will be heading to my new part-time job only after 5 hours (if i'm lucky!) of sleep on thursday.  (more about this later).

i am definitely most concerned about the hurricanes in the atlantic.  yep.  hurricane danielle seems a small threat now and most likely just stirred up the waters near folly beach.  hurricane earl seems the biggest threat right now, but they say should make land fall on the north carolina coast thursday, so we'll at least know what we're dealing with before we leave on saturday.  and now fiona is a tropical storm.  and who knows where she might go.  let's hope she goes elsewhere, too.  don't these storms know i/we need a vacation?  can't they wait a week?  but these are the risks one takes when planning a beach vacation in september, in the midst of hurricane season.

fiona is the little read circled area behind earl.  maybe she'll fizzle out.  one can hope.  :)

back to the aforementioned part-time job... i have taken a part-time job at Christ School, which is a all-boys grades 7-12 boarding school, about 10 miles down the road from our house.  my job is in the wellness center as one of the nurses.  i will be working every thursday from 2-10pm and then take call from 10-7am.  i can do this from home because i live so closely unless we have a sick student or students, in which case i would have to stay there over night.  i would love for it to develop into more there and less at the hospital, but we'll see.  i will be going to work day shift at the hospital.  most of you know i am not a morning person (super huge understatement!) so we'll see how that works out.  no one seems to be able to give me an answer as to when that will happen so now you know as much as i do.

and that's about it for changes around here.  not much going on. ready for vacation.  come hell or high water or hurricanes, we will make it to the beach!

24 days and counting.

that's right, friends.  24 days.  or 3 weeks and 3 days as the counter to the right lists.  until what?  VACATION.  yes.  i have not typed such lovely words in the last few months.  i cannot wait until my toes are in the sand.  even better?  we will have sweet doggy toes in the sand, too.  cotton and barley also get to go to the beach for the first time ever.  we cannot wait to see that- we are placing bets on which one, if not both, bark and run away from the crashing waves.  we hope to have a little video recorder by then so we can share with everyone.

the timing worked out perfectly that we will be leaving the day after jay's birthday and will be there on our 4th anniversary.  and, of course, on the way we'll be stopping at the annual meeting for the upstate cruisers at aunt sue's.  (i.e. we'll have a good meal before getting on the road, however, it only takes 3 1/2 - 4 hours to get to the beach from here.)

yes.  we are going to folly beach, sc.  we spent a morning there during last year's beach trip and enjoyed the seclusion that day.  of course, we realize that the beginning of our trip does include labor day weekend, but kids will be back in school after that and that was what we enjoyed last year- the beach was almost empty until school let out.  dogs are not allowed on the beach from 10am-6pm so the girls will get to enjoy morning and evening walks and play time.  we found a house to rent that is across the street from the beach and just a short walk to the beach access.  the back yard doesn't back up to anything so we won't have anyone immediately behind us, just perhaps to the sides and across the road (which are the beachfront houses).  can you smell the ocean breeze yet?  i almost can.

here's where we'll be staying...

cannot.  wait.  but i think i said that already.  ☺

summer memories.

smile.

summer tourism at its best.

jay's little sister erin

came to visit us this past week.  she's 19, just finished her first year of college at UTC, and didn't have much on her agenda this summer.  i needed a super good reason to reorganize and clean our guest room so i asked her to come visit us.  (that's not the only reason i wanted her to come and visit.)  she obliged.  (i'll post pictures of the "new" guest room soon.)

we joined the rest of the tourists on wednesday at the biltmore estate.  erin had never been and i haven't been in almost 2 years, so we spent most of the day there.  it was hot.  very hot.  i can't imagine living in that house, well, that's a statement in itself.  i also can't imagine having to wear the clothing of that time period without air conditioning.  velvet dresses just for sitting and reading or sewing.  no thanks.

the view from the front lawn

the ponds in the italian garden

all the water lilies needed were some frogs

shade!  the wisteria covered walkway to/through the shrub gardens

George Vanderbilt picked the perfect spot on his land (totaling 25,000 acres at one time) with perfect views

the side of the house

we had just passed through the shrub garden and took in the above 2 views before heading down to the walled gardens and conservatory.  the gardens are mostly filled with summer wild flowers at this time.  a few of the roses were still in bloom, well, enough so that when you walked into the rose garden you could smell them without having to actually "stop and smell the roses."  the air was fragrantly pleasing and the roses were still quite lovely.  we then headed down to the conservatory and enjoyed viewing the plants and flowers there.

grapes aren't just in the vineyards

inside the walls of the gardens

pretty black-eyed susans

pretty, fragrant roses

the conservatory

i loved this creative wine barrel fountain.  look around the bottom for the corks.

and this one, too, with the water coming from the bottles in the wine rack.

loved this shot on the way back from the gardens.  if you click on the picture to enlarge it you can see the flag on the roof, too.  

it was hot.  but it was also a beautiful day and i'm so glad i got to spend it with erin.