The NOC

1 day

4 travelers

4 icees (3 coke and one orange)

8 hours driving (there and back)

1 friend made (i'll let you guess who made a friend)

1 tour guide (Garette)

1 raft

8 miles of river (the Nantahala, NOC)

4 miles an hour

2 hour tour

54 degree water

449.2 miles driven

First white water rafting trip as a family of 4

Great memories.

look who found the camera

In Action

All Foward

Not that FAR......

Golden boy did take a fall out

last rapid and he took the plundge

This picture above is right before he fell out

He did amazing the whole time

Since we were in water he couldn't wear his hearing aids

we mentioned to the guide that he was hearing impaired

Golden boy never missed a beat though

just about every time he gave a command Golden boy was on it and paddling

He just wanted to cast his pole and use his new tackle.

we have him a little time to do it before loading back in the car for the drive home.

we snapped this family selfie right before we left. 

it was a fun time and i am glad that we were able to do it.

side note: one of my favorite bloggers Ashley Ann just did a post on one of their most recent adventures. At the very end of her post she talked about how different her and her hubby are. It reminded me so much about me and mine. There are places were we have rubbed off on one another and things we have learned about each other on our marriage journey but we often joke that while we are different in so many areas, we are the same where it matters: Jesus, salty ham, Mexican food and adventures.

Maps, Planning, Adventures

This summer we have been planning a EPIC (as my son would say) trip

we plan to drive the Blue Ridge Parkway to Washington DC and then to travel the East Coast back home.

we are in the planning stage of the first part of the trip, the Blue Ridge Parkway

I took to Facebook asking for suggestions on where to stop along the way and got a ton of great ideas.

here is the list that we were given. we will pull from these suggestions when we decide what and were we want to do and go off of the parkway.

In North Carolina:

Chimney Rock

Biltmore

 Linville (Gorge Falls Caverns)

 Great Smoky Mt Railroad

 Tweetsie Railroad

 Mt. Mitchell

-The Land of Oz in Beech Mountain

In Virginia:

Floyd,VA the Floyd Country Store

Roanoke-museums for kids

Catawba dinner at the Home Placer

  hiking up to McAfee Knob

  the Peaks of Otter

  hike up Sharp Top mountain

  Skyline Drive, hike Humpback Rock

such great suggestions

how to narrow it down is beyond me but i am sure we will be able to

planning on where to stay and then i will tackle Washington DC

Our 2016 flood

First let me say that this is going to be a picture heavy post. I mean lets be honest, it will probably be word heavy too but I will try and keep it short and simple.

after being out of the house for about 2 hours on Friday, the kids and I came home to the kitchen and part of Little Girls room being flooded.

I handed Golden Boy the key to the house while I grabbed some things out of the van. The kids were the first to see the water. I was in the laundry room and heard Golden Boy say, why is there water all over the floor. I dropped the stuff in my arms and looked and no lie, there was water everywhere. I saw that it was pouring out of the cabinet where the sink was.

 I took off my shoes and socks, handed the phone to Golden boy and told him to call daddy.

I ran to the sink intended to turn off the water but there was so much water I just couldn't see the knob. I then ran to the road and just turned off the water to the house. we started pulling out every towel we could find to stop the water from going anywhere else.

there was one air vent in the kitchen that I hear the water pouring down.

my hubby called his dad and he came over to help dry everything up. once we got the water off the floors we called the plumber and our insurance company.

this is the water bottle that broke under the sink that started this whole mess

it didn't just come loose it completely snapped all the way around

Little girls room had to be cleared out because they were going to have to rip up the floor. there was something called cupping happening to the wood. we are pretty sad about her floor being ripped up. pictures of where they started the process below

we piled most of her stuff in our living room. it is a cluttered, chaotic mess right now. we are working on finding some normal in it all 

here is a view from Little girls room into the kitchen where they started to tear up the laminate in the kitchen

when we bought the house the white linoleum was just in this part of the kitchen and the brick paver type linoleum was on the other side of the kitchen. I guess at one point the brick paver looking linoleum went all the way through the whole kitchen.

our three floors

here is looking into Little girls room from the kitchen as they start the process of tearing up her floor.

it was loud and heart breaking. I know it is just floor but it was placed in the 1960s and it is beautiful

it was so wet underneath that it seeped through the floors into the crawl space and had already started to leave some mold

the coolest find. on the bottom of the wood slats in her room was stamped that it was made in the USA in Alabama

this section an a small section in the corner is where they started to tear up the floor

and just when I thought the house couldn't get any louder......

they brought in even more fans.

this is the threshold from the hallway to Little girls room. right now it still looks like this but I know that once this process is over that it will probably never look the same again.

among the craziness and loudness of the house Golden boy found some quiet in the building of his Legos. He made a carwash for this Lego cars, complete with vacuum station

and since what was once our coffee station, is now outside and the one plug that I have on our backsplash/kitchen counter area, is being taken up with fan plugs, we relocated the coffee station to the living room, on top of the toy box. because truthfully, when you go through a flood, coffee is a must.