Windy days

We had incredible winds here today. I feel so wind blown and I was probably only out for a few hours in it total. The rest of the time I was inside taping and painting away on our house project for work. I painted the trim part of a door today and I was shocked how long it took to do just one door frame!!! We have a whole house of those to do. I am ready to lay down and watch a movie from Netflix with my beloved now. These pictures are just near the house we are working on which is on my bike ride back home. Just beautiful. Enjoy!

Cool Days

Yesterday was one of those days I just couldn't warm up. I have been told by several people this will be the warmest winter of my life, yet Fall is here and I am freezing. I guess a little bump on your belly doesn't provide too much heat. May be later.

Bryce and I got on the canoes tonight to move one of his beaver traps. I road in the back for the first time ever. If you don't know much about canoes, the back person pretty much directs the route and steers the boat. I have taught canoeing classes countless times and I like to think I am pretty good at teaching it. I have ridden in the back of a canoe by myself during classes, but I wasn't really going anywhere so little skill was involved. I had a great time. It was definitely hard to get used to. I am so used to Bryce leading us to where we want to go that I forgot at times it was now my responsibility.

Today was a beautiful day full of many colors. I love watching things change from morning to night. So far, October is much better this year compared to last year. I couldn't ask for a better 10 day forecast for where we live during this season. Have a great night!

This isn't a great picture but this tree is about to get really beautiful!

I will keep taking pics of it and showing the progress throughout the month.

This is just one of the traps Bryce uses to catch his beavers.

Bell Peppers

Today we are 18 weeks along in this pregnancy. The last 4 weeks have gone by relatively fast. From week 3 1/2 (when we found out) to week 14 I thought this baby would just live forever in my belly. Time dragged so much despite of being in the middle of crazy summer camp. I think it helps that it isn't some big secret anymore.

Bryce and I every Sunday get on babycenter.com and read about what our baby is doing this week and how he/she is growing. We do it on Sunday even though Monday marks are week updates because we are usually way too busy on Mondays. They typically compare your baby to some fruit or vegetable. When we first went on this site are shrimp was the size of a poppy seed. Then at week 12 or 13 when we started telling people it was the size of a lime. Now at week 18, this week, the shrimp is the size of a bell pepper. Bryce and I LOVE bell peppers so we are really liking week 18 so far!

We are not finding out the sex. In fact, at our ultrasound last Wednesday when it came time to look at his/her bum they told us we might want to look away until they finish looking and measuring whatever it was they were calculating. Bryce looked away and I decided not to because I knew I would have no clue what I was looking at. So there I stared right at the shrimps private parts and I still have no idea what we are having! I asked the technician if she could tell because I knew it depended on whether he/she was cooperating. She quickly said Oh yeah! So funny! Everything looked good and healthy though which we are very thankful for. Also, I call this baby he a lot for the sake of not saying or writing he/she every time I am referring to him. So no it is not a boy or yes may be it is. Who knows? I have no intuition about it just like the simplicity of one name.

Enjoy the pictures!

this one is a foot...i realize they are hard to tell

this one is more of a full body, but i love how

his arms are crossed and next to his face

Fall is here

We have had quite the day on this cool Sunday. We still have yet to find a church in or even somewhat near our area. We lost several months of searching due to our off season weekend groups and with summer camp going on, but still we are starting to get a little down about the whole thing.

We picked where we wanted to go last night. Looked at the map to make sure we knew how to get there. It wasn't to far from our house which was a huge plus for us. We pull up to this private school, which is where they were meeting, and there wasn't a soul in sight. The place was completely empty and it was supposed to start in 5 minutes. We obviously didn't get the "we are no longer a church" memo.

So we were still determined to go somewhere so we went searching in Swannanoa's downtown area. I know that means nothing to most of you, but we were shocked to find out that Swannanoa ( Swan-na-no-where) even had a downtown. What we found was about 11 churches in a 1 block radius. It was kind of sickening to be honest. You have the big First Baptist 30 yards away from the Free Will First Baptist which is down from the Presbyterian Church which is next to The Gathering...you see what I am painting?? This town is way too tiny to have all those churches in one little block. So we ended up driving around for an hour looking at different churches and following signs around random areas trying to belong somewhere. We gave up in the end.

We came home and started doing some research on different dominations and their core beliefs. I think we are further away on our search than when we started 9 or 10 months ago. I know we won't agree with everything at "one" church. But we do think it would be nice if we agreed on some basics like 1) Jesus died for everyone not just a select few or the elect 2) children under the age of 10 should be allowed to be with their family in the "main worship" not forbidden to join 3) God does not make bad things happen...please do not answer the question "Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?" by saying "I don't know, but we just know he is a good God." The enemy comes to steal kill and destroy. God is not the doer of evil. 4) the Holy Spirit still exist and as Follower you can be filled with that good stuff and things like miracles, speaking in tongues, the sick being healed, and bread raining from heaven still happen.

You know I could add a few more, but we just don't know where we should go. There are two churches that could be options but one is over 30 minutes away and the other 45 minutes. There is a lot of town and community between home and there and we would rather find something within the community we live in. I guess that was our Sunday.

I did make some awesome homemade Italian Bread to go with our lasagna. I think it is my favorite bread yet that I have made. Yummm! See you tomorrow.

This is one of the dogwoods next to our house. The

leaves on the trees are really starting to change.

This time of year is always exciting.

This is under neath our bird feeder. It is a ceramic man with

his sombrero broken off. Bird seed has fallen inside of it

and started sprouting! I thought it was pretty neat.

Beaver Time

I have a great husband. I am pretty crazy for him. He is quite the mountain man and lately he has really been wanting to do some hunting. We live on property at the camp we work for and one of the camp owners told Bryce for every beaver he kills he will pay him $100. I am pretty sure Bryce would have done it for free, but the money was an added blessing. For the past week, every morning and a few evenings he has been roaming the 3 lakes around property tracking most of their moves and habits and even finding their different lodges. Let me just say, we are not into just killing things for the sport of it. These beavers have been destroying the property and cutting down trees just about every other day. Our lakes kind of go in a row and the last lake has hardly any water in it and it is because of the damage these beavers have done. With out going on and on about Bryce hunting these pests down, he killed his first one yesterday morning. It was huge! We wish we could have weighed it but it was at least a 30 pounder. He was a happy man indeed. So the hunt will continue here on camp for him. Next week he is going bow hunting in one of our national forest near our home. Pretty exciting stuff.

This was the picture I wanted to post last night, but it just wouldn't

let me for some reason. This is our possible next backyard.

Here is the huge beaver!!!!! The feet look like they belong

to a gorilla only they are webbed. Crazy looking thing.

A Blog a Day is just good

Today is the start of this thing I will be doing on my blog. This month I will post a picture and a short something or another every day until November. I always have stuff I want to write or pictures I want to share, but one thing or another happens and 2 1/2 weeks go by and I haven't put a thing on. I have done this before with something else and I loved it! So be sure to keep checking every day or so. I know for sure there are going to be some fun pictures along the way!

Well, I tried and tried and tried again but it is not letting me load my picture tonight for some reason. I will post 2 picture tomorrow to replace the one for today. Have a good night.

Catching Up Soon!

I really was committed to keeping up with this blog after summer was over. In my defense, my body has been working overtime building a little one in my belly. It has been our secret for the summer! I kept wanting to write on here some great story leading up to sharing our news, but when it came down to it, I was too tired to process and write something beautiful. We are both very excited to welcome him/her to our family somewhere around the first week of March. (hoping for a little bit sooner:)) It is quite incredible to have something forming inside of you by the hand of God. I have been in awe more than anything at this point of this little us rapidly growing and fashioning inside. This last week has been great. I felt more energized and more

productive than I have since June. I have been feeling great before that also just exhausted. Here is a little pic. Will definitely post more later.

just kidding on top, bottom is 15ish weeks along