Stonehill

It was a very special treat to have Randy Stonehill in town this week. I had gotten an email that said he would be at the Feed and Seed today at 11am and 7pm. So, we took all the kids and had a great time. Mark is a long time listener. I knew it would be a special treat for him to meet and listen to Randy. It was a small setting, no more than 80 people. Randy sang some classics and a few I had not heard. I love his candor and his humor.

Mark went back to tonights meeting and took Abbie. Abbie enjoyed this morning so much. She got Randy to sign her jeans. He said to her "ok, I will sign your jeans, but not you chromosomes" (as in ...genes).

They just got back, and abbie had taken this photo for me. The lighting was dark, but she did get a nice shot. We are heading into a busy week with two ministry recievers. I used the evening to catch up on laundry, and get Hannah settled into the week ahead.

I am excited about this week. I feel like God is going to really bless two of his girls....and I get to watch.

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Back to School

Today was Hannah's first day of first grade. She was SO excited she could not stand to wait to get out the door. The kid loves school. She is such a happy kid, and enjoys people so very much. I should have known she would blossom in school.

Abbie has started composition and history. Avery is still waiting on his books and assignments.

We are spending three hours a day in the ministry room. It is a nice balance. Tonight, we took the kids up for a swim at the Inn and a BBQ to meet our ministry reciever. The kids always look forward to meeting these awesome people from all over the world. I love to see the interaction.

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Old Fort

We went to Old Fort today with the Bests. Abbie stayed home to enjoy a quiet evening to write without interuption. We sat down on a picnic table by the creek to have a picnic lunch. It was cool and relaxing there. After we ate, I grabbed a few shots of the kids while they were running about. Neither of them wanted to sit still long for photos, but I did get a few. Here is a sample.

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The Kiddos

My first attempt to blog from the cellphone :)

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Camping on the Creek

Our tent was right on the creek. In fact, maybe too close because Mark said the noise of the rushing water woke him up a few times. You can see our tent and the girls playing in the creek behind it. THAT's how close we were.

Mark and Avery did most of the cooking. We had great food, including breakfast burritos, grilled chicken and ceaser salad, and of course, smores :)

Hannah used the net to "catch" rocks. I now have zip-lock bags in the garage with rock collections.

Oh yeah, we took the trip down the river many times. Mark would drop us off in the Smokey Mountains National Park and we would ride the tubes ALL the way down to our tent. That way, we never had to carry our tubes.

Abbie loved the tubes. She spent most of the day doing just this.

Oh yeah , this was on the way up to the park to drop us off. We were driving up there with the tubes on the top of the van, when they started rolling down the road. The ties had snapped, and away they went. Abbie fetched them and laughed all the way back to the van.

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The Fontana Dam

After seeing the Road to Nowhere, we went to see the Fontana Dam. There was a letterbox on the way, so it was worth the trip. We found the letterbox and stamped our books. The hightlight though, was seeing the dam. I never expected it to be this huge.
We had a picnic lunch there by the lake. It started to rain, and we were so happy to enjoy our sandwiched under a pavilion in the rain. There was lots of laughter and fun, and the lunch was tasty too.
Next we took the tour. It was cool. The height made me nervous. Even though the rail was high, Hannah still made me nervous when she looked over. She would have to do some serious crawling to fall over, but for some reason, even her standing on her tippy toes to see over gave me the willies.
Of course, for the rest of the day...Mark had his lines...We went to the Fontana Dam, took the dam tour, ate a dam lunch, took some dam photos and bought a dam t-shirt. And we really did buy a t-shirt. They were on sale and I wanted a dam t-shirt.

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The Road to Nowhere....

We set out for a day of exploring the Bryson City area. We ventured up to see the Road to Nowhere. It was a gorgeous drive, and we had the whole road to ourselves except for a couple of bikers. The graffiti in the tunnel was very cool. The kids loved yelling inside the tunnel. Usually, we are driving through tunnels. This one is foot traffic only. Well, obviously, horses are allowed, because there was "evidence" of horses all over the floor of the tunnel.
The Story Behind The Road To Nowhere
In the 1930s and 1940s, Swain County gave up the majority of its private land to the Federal Government for the creation of Fontana Lake and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Hundreds of people were forced to leave the small Smoky Mountain communities that had been their homes for generations. With the creation of the Park, their homes were gone, and so was the road to those communities. Old Highway 288 was buried beneath the deep waters of Fontana Lake. The Federal government promised to replace Highway 288 with a new road. Lakeview Drive was to have stretched along the north shore of Fontana Lake, from Bryson City to Fontana, 30 miles to the west. And, of special importance to those displaced residents, it was to have provided access to the old family cemeteries where generations of ancestors remained behind. But Lakeview Drive fell victim to an environmental issue and construction was stopped, with the road ending at a tunnel, about six miles into the park. The environmental issue was eventually resolved, but the roadwork was never resumed. And Swain County's citizens gave the unfinished Lakeview Drive its popular, albeit unofficial name The Road To Nowhere. On weekends throughout the summer, the Park Service still ferries groups of Swain County residents across Fontana Lake to visit their old family cemetaries for Decoration Days and family reunions. And the legal issue of whether to build the road remains unresolved.

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Icecream at Sonic

We promised the littles a trip for ice cream today if they worked together to clean Hannah's room. Between breaks, fighting, and being sucked into the cartoons on TV, they eventually got it done. We ended up at Sonic and had a quick dinner including their favorite versions of Wacky packs. Ave is a grilled cheese sandwich fan, and Hannah chose the corndog. The girl loves corndogs, I think mostly because it comes on a stick. The sun was going down there in the Sonic eating area we were positioned so nicely, I grabbed the camera out of the van to take advantage of that golden hour where to sun is so soft and the hue so gorgeous. I do hate to see the son leave when it was so pretty and I still want to take photos. I am glad I had a few minutes to play with the camera anyway.

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