okay, more about our cabin!

it is one of the historic ccc cabins built during the great depression. it has a beautiful fireplace. one of the glass panes in the fireplace doors was broken when we got here, but they have since replaced it with a new set of doors. i can’t even believe how hard it must have been to make this fireplace by hand. the stones look hand carved! and we have learned that fireplaces are not energy efficient. the old thing whistles when the wind blows. when the glass pane was broken, it would blow into the room. needless to say, the heat (they have rigged the house up with electrical baseboard heating) was up very high in that room. i even went downstairs and turned the heat on low to help the cold air that was raising up through the floor boards. 

i love the old fixtures! i love the old hardwood floors. i even love the old, single pane windows. it’s pretty genius actually. they have made the single pane windows double pane by adding in a glass panel. and then the screen goes on top of that! a little side note about our windows. apparently, bats like our windows. in our bedroom, there are two different windows with dead, squished bats in them. it sort of gives me the creeps, even though i know they are dead. but the little fingers of the one that are stuck on the inside of the window give me the heebie-jeebies. i guess i really don’t like bats! oh, and they were squashed and dead long before we ever arrived. 

the shutters on the windows have the evergreen trees carved into them and each room has log walls and wood paneled ceilings (except the kitchen and bathroom). the curtains may be the “most beautiful curtains” i have ever seen. but i am thankful we have something to cover the windows with. our cd player does pick up a couple stations so we are able to listen to music throughout the day (which happens to be when i also get my weather for the area… or i ask josh to check at work).  the kitchen has a modern fridge and electric stove but an old ceramic sink and no dishwasher. the cabinets are probably the originals as well. there is a breakfast nook which is my favorite part of the house. it has windows on two sids and is bright during day. with all the wood in the cabin, it does tend to make the place feel a little… dim? drab? but this nook is wonderful. i am currently sitting at the table, looking out those windows at the trees, the snow, and drinking a cup of coffee. i can see when people arrive to go snowmobiling, snowshoeing, or cross country skiing from this vantage point. it overlooks the brush creek parking area. the little table and benches are perfect for our little family. the benches are even the old forest service benches with the same carved evergreen trees as the shutters outside. and sweet penny’s high chair is strapped to an old forest service chair. i wouldn’t mind having a set up like this in our future home. 

the bathroom is pretty dated. it has an old ceramic tub which is in pretty good shape but the walls around it are disgusting. i cleaned them and scrubbed them and you can’t even tell (though they still look better than when we first moved in). the original cabinets are intact and functional which is pretty neat. the old medicine cabinet and lights may be original? or at least, dated pretty far back. the toilet is not a low flow and we have to hold the handle down the whole time it flushes. it also has a commercial toilet seat on it. that does make it a little difficult for lily to get up on it. and the inside of this thing, i thought it was stained rust. well, i cleaned the toilet… nope. not stained. it just hadn’t been scrubbed clean in a very long time! i’ll just light my lavender, eucalyptus, sweet orange candle and pretend i’m somewhere fancy. 

(stay tuned for the second part of this post! and once again, when i have better internet, i will include pictures!)

beautiful north carolina and beautiful friends

alright! i recently got back from visiting my best friend in north carolina. she had a little baby so, of course, i had to go meet her! plus, lily wanted to go play with brooke (her older daughter). it’s sort of perfect. brook is 10 months older than lily. and penny is 6 months older than baby fiona. she is the one that i referenced in my breastfeeding post and i’m happy to say, nursing is going well this time around. the trip was wonderful. it was so nice to see my dear friend and her little family. it had been quite a while since we had seen one another. we talk almost everyday and have “coffee” with one another over the phone but having coffee in real life was one of my favorite parts.

we didn’t do much while we were there which was just fine with me. brooke and lily played and lily got to do a few things she had never done before. she jumped all by herself on a little trampoline. she tried gelato (which was a big hit). she even learned to drive! she was such a champ and tried so many new foods like avacado-chick pea and red onion sandwiches! she also got to watch her first movie in the theatre. we went and saw frozen and it was wonderful! lily loved it so much, we now have the soundtrack and she sings all the songs (which started with brooke, in the car. those girls really are too cute!) she really loved playing with her friend.

penny did a few new things as well! she started crawling on our trip and sitting up all by herself! she also tried lots of new foods. and her and baby fi would just smile at one another. she really wanted to play with the baby, but of course, fi just isn’t ready for that quite yet. but the smiles she would give penny were simply precious!

while i was there, it snowed. in north carolina! it was crazy! i must have brought the weather with me! but there were a few nice days where the girls got to play outside. i flew with both girls which was a first for me. thank God for my double stroller. it was a life saver in the airport. and my dear penny cried for much of both flights (those poor people trapped in the plane with us). actually, there was a guy on the flight out that commented before all the crying started. i was talking with the sweet woman we were sitting by and he asked me to quiet down because our voices were carrying over to him. i had to giggle at that. in my mind i was thinking: just wait, sir. i knew penny wouldn’t do well. it was a 3.5 hour flight and penny only likes to nap in a bed or wrapped up on my back. 

we also attended church with shalane and david. manna church in fayettville is quite large but josh and i have been watching their “to love life, and see good days” series on blessing and curses and we have really enjoyed it. their church has special parking for new guests and a “welcome” packet that includes a free item from their coffee shop. i thought that was a nice way to welcome new people to their church. they also have a nursing mothers’ room with rocking chairs and changing pads where mothers can nurse their babies and watch the service on televisions. it thought that was nice too. i have no problem nursing penny in public, but she is at that age where  she gets super screechy when my milk doesn’t let down quick enough. it was nice to take her little distractible self somewhere to nurse where her little voice wouldn’t distract those around us. 

anyway, for my first trip alone with the girls, i would say it was a success. and as soon as i left for the airport, i was already missing my dear, sweet friend. i hope we don’t have to wait as long to see one another again.

(and ftr, once i have better internet, i will include some links to the sermon series and whatnot)

our new adventure!

i have decided to revive our little blog. so much has happened since the last time i wrote. the biggest thing being that we added a new little to our family (penelope iris). the most recent news, we have moved to wyoming for the next 3 months.

this move is our next big adventure and we want to keep you all in the loop with the goings on here in the great wide somewhere. we have headed here to follow josh’s job (forester for the forest service). he is working a detail here and we are blessed enough to be able to join him. we did have to pull lily out of preschool and gymnastics, but i’m doing homeschool time with her and i plan on starting our own gymnastics soon (once i figure out what to do…. i guess i need to do a little research). we are living in the small town of saratoga. i think at the last census, the population was around 1,900 people. there is no stop light in town but the downtown area is very quaint. we are staying in a forest service cabin outside of town at the brush creek workstation. the biggest adjustment has been the lack of…. technological amenities.

that’s right. there is no internet at our house. let that sink in. not only is there no internet, our phones are roaming so we have no 3g which means no data. i can’t even send a photo message. what an adjustment. for the past week we didn’t have a tv and haven’t even had a radio. world war iii could have broke out, and i would have no idea. the office did eventually send josh home with a big box television with an attached vhs player. but we don’t own one vhs tape! josh’s sister was nice enough to bring a cd player and some vhs tapes for us to borrow. i figured it would be good to have an fm radio so i could know if there are any crazy weather warnings. there is a ton of snow here and as i don’t have any access to the internet or any antenna/converter box for our tv, i had no way of knowing what the weather held except to look out my window and know “it looks cloudy. and windy. i think it might snow.”. not only that, but we always listened to music on pandora or spotify. i really have no music on my laptop so our days have been pretty quiet. i’ll be thankful for even a little music. i have yet to plug it in to see if we can get anything out here…. 

there is so much more i want to tell you! but right now, i need to go to bed. i am at josh's parents' house for the night and tomorrow leave to visit my bestie and her new little. once i get back from that little trip, i might have a couple days where i will have access to the internet and i can finish this little installment on the beginnings of our saratoga adventure (and maybe even include a few pictures)!

until then...