White Chicken Chilli

All day LEAF has left me stressed with all the people and the added things to do on my list with them being here. However, tonight having a good friend Hannah make us a delicious dinner and then having neighbors and friends pop by for a visit made it oh so much more delightful. It was a short time of forgetting the crowd and the claustrophobic feeling I get on these weekends and enjoying community, friendships, and good warm food (and cold ice cream). I am so grateful to have a life full of great loving family and friends.

This Chili was amazing and also came with special recipe chocolate chip cookies. They were heaven in your mouth.

Me, Mark, Corrie on the right, and Hannah in front.

After Work Adventure

My heart has been longing to be out in the woods enjoying this fall weather and colors before the wind blows and shakes them all off. This is always my season of awe and wonder. At times, I am looking up at the mountains and the beauty it is wrapped in and I about run myself off the road on my bike. Lord help the squirrels not get run over! I want to pull out a comfy chair, blop it right next to the 'tree', bring my blanket, and just stare at such handy work. I really could go on and on about this season. Oh that we would long to be still with our Father and praise His might works because He is most worthy of praise!

After work today, Bryce and I went on a very short hike up our mountain. We were trying to beat the rain, but we were craving to be outside. Here is a short telling of our hike.

We got up the first hill out from our house and came across one

of my favorite spots. I love this tree bent over the trail!

Bryce took the camera so he could snap a shot of me. He told me to

hang onto the tree bent across the trail. He helped me up

and then it took part of my finger off. Wow, such a little

thing but it sure hurt.

I managed to survive so we continued on our way. We got

up next to the first shelter out of 5 that are up on our mountain.

The colors are so awesome!

I must say, it was early evening and overcast so the

pictures just don't do it justice at all! Even the perfect shooting

conditions couldn't display properly what is all looks like as a whole.

Then it started to really rain so we took shelter for a little while to

let it pass over.

Once it passed we went back down the mountain using a different trail

and back to our house for some pasta dinner. What

a great day we had!

Invasion Once Again

LEAF is here...what happen to my beautiful camp?I have talked about Leaf before when I first started this blog. It is a great music festival with lots to see and do and it happens right at our front door. No really, like 15 feet away and I am there. It starts this Thursday and goes through Sunday. This is our last big off season group work that we will have and then it is the "real off season". A quite camp. Yeah.

This baby of ours has really been moving around today. The coolest thing of all is Bryce got to feel him move a few minutes ago! I didn't think that would happen for awhile, but I felt him moving around so I told Bryce to come quick. Sure enough, Bryce felt him once or twice.

I know I said I would have a pic of the new ride which is yet to be named yet, but does anyone know where my camera is??? No pic again today...sorry. I will find it tomorrow. It is my new mission.

Exhausted and ready to lay down with my husband...I know, I know, it is very early tonight. We are beat!

See you tomorrow.

2 Car Family

Bryce and I live as simple lives as we can. When you enter our home there is a sign that says "Simplify". We try to hold that statement true in all aspects of our lives. It is easy to do that when you are hiking 1,000 miles up through California or living out of your car, or in a small cave. It isn't that hard to do that when you are working in Yosemite and living amongst many many others abiding by the same lifestyle. We could easily rid ourselves of everything we possess and I say that very honestly. I love my home and my crock-pot and my guitar and pictures, but I love more the God I follow and how He has given Bryce and I freedom and the desire to live simply. I have many things in my house that I don't necessarily need even though I use the heck out of most of it.

I am around a lot of kids and families and I do live in America despite my phone coverage at times. I see a lot of children with rooms full of stuff they never even touch. Price tags on clothes that are just taken to Goodwill or given away. TONS of toys and must haves that never even get touched because the kid just wants to chew on his parents keys or play in the tupperware.

Bryce and I are committed to keeping our family simple even though we are now entering a life with a child. We have to remind ourselves every few days at times that just because you have some extra space doesn't mean you have to fill it. Just because you have a baby now, doesn't mean you need a playroom packed full of all the latest and best toys a kid could have. We wonder why kids can't pay attention for longer than 60 seconds, but it seems we have trained them to always have a million options for instant gratification. It is just not my heart's desire and thankfully it isn't Bryce's either.

All that said, we have been a 1 car family since we started dating in 2006. We love it and it has never been that big of deal. There might be things you miss here and there, but it has always been worth it to us. Bryce goes to school about 30 minutes from our house right now. When he switches to the main university it will be even further. We have been looking for a fuel efficient car for awhile now knowing the right thing would come along at some point. We started to become more keen as we talked through Bryce needing the car for school and me being left with our baby with no emergency vehicle. Neither one of us liked the idea of something happening at home at not having a car there to help as an option. So with much thought and some searching we bought a Honda Civic this morning. It is 1991 but only has 109,000 miles on it which is less than our Passport. It is in great shape and we got it for only $1800!

So it is official we are a 2 car family, BUT we are committed to making our gas bill less not more by doing this. This new car gets 40MPG unlike Lucy are other car that gets 20 on her best days. Bryce had school today and a class tonight so I have no picture of it so you must wait till tomorrow for a pic.

Have a great night!

To Be Woman

Women have many reminders in their life to let them know 'you-are-woman'. Some of those reminders really aren't great in my opinion and I could do without them. Others are quite beautiful. I have been thinking on this a little here and a little there for a couple of weeks now. I have decided this: There is no better reminder that I know thus far in my life that I-am-woman than carrying our child inside of my belly. Reading each week what new thing is happening and how he is growing is quite fascinating. I am in constant awe. This week I felt our child move for the first time inside of me. I am definitely growing and believing even more that he is too! I love being pregnant despite some of the smaller issues you deal with in being so.

We love going on walks around our community here at Rockmont. We took a nice one late afternoon around 3-4 of our lakes and made our way over to our farm as well. Here are some pictures of the beautiful garden Jon has and some of his animals as well. Enjoy!

Time to Play!

We live in a great place. I mean, we live at a summer camp year around. All those things that attract thousands of boys in the summer and thousands during the off season we get at our disposal almost everyday.

Right now we live right next to the archery shed. Bryce is getting into bow hunting so this works great to get practice in at any moments notice. Besides archery, we have a water zipline, a HUGE water slide called the Gulley Washer, great outdoor climbing wall, ceramics and a craft room, weights, fishing, all sorts of gun shooting, the Blob, and much much more! I wish I could say we took advantage to it all more, but we try to get things in whenever we can.

We love swimming laps in open water at the lake. We used to climb all the time, but I am giving up the harness till next spring or summer. We have eaten out of our lake from the fish Bryce has caught. We just love it here. The closet trail is literally 15 steps from our front porch, how awesome is that! Oh and we have horses and chickens and goats and all kinds of organic goodies in the garden that Jon takes such good care of. It is just a great place to be since we are committed to this area for the time being. I can't wait to have this baby and eventually get to play in creeks and in our sandy beach area and play in the garden and pet the animals. What a cool place to be married and have children.

Here's a couple of pics of us shooting some arrows.

Busy Days

We have been so busy lately. Today we made a last minute short road trip to Hendersonville to meet my sister-n-law and her to kids. We had a great time playing and talking, but now it is 9:10pm and we are exhausted! I have to babysit in the morning at 6:30am so tonight, this is all I have. I tried to take cute pics this evening, but nothing really turned out. So, no pic...very sorry. More to talk about tomorrow like this awesome (kind of) chair we found on the side of the road that is now in the back of our passport.