Home Sweet Home-Blowing Rock

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

I thought I would add "Blowing Rock" to the end of this posts title because Lord knows this is not gonna be the last "Home Sweet Home" post we ever do!! For now though, this is our home and in the week since we moved here we have tried to make it as cozy and personal as we could. There are still some gaps in decor here and there, but like Andrew has mentioned, that just gives us space to add things from our time here. Hopefully this will give ya'll (I said that BEFORE we moved here!) a little bit of a sense of where we spend our time here in the High Country. (Let me stop you here and say this is a little longer than other blogs recently, so keep time in mind...)

I will walk through the photos as if I were doing a walking tour of the house. This is a picture of our front door from the road coming in. We live on a dead end lane, rather than a cul de sac, so it is very narrow. Our house is actually right on a hill as you will see later...


Coming in the front door, you enter the living room and this would be the first view you see. Looking to the right of the door is the fireplace and built in's. If you crossed the room and sat on the couch, there would be a view out the window onto our street. There are lots of windows in the house, but it can still feel a bit dark cause there is an eave hanging off the roof over the whole house.


This is the dining room and kitchen area. We finally have a kitchen table, we haven't had one for 4 years, so we are now beginning the process of teaching Jonah proper "table manners". I really look forward to being able to sit down at the table together as a family for meals. What a luxury!!


There is a door to the left of the table that leads to our deck and yard area. Here is the view from the kitchen table. Not too shabby!


The kitchen has a wealth of cupboard space; unfortunately most of it is exposed! It took Betty and I quite a bit of tinkering to make all of the cubbies work together. I can guarantee that this area will be a continual work in progress.


Walking down the hallway of the house will lead you to the rest of the rooms. The guest bathroom...


Jonah's bedroom (with new "animal" theme)...


Jonah's playroom (complete with Thomas the Train table given to us for free from an Iowa faculty member, an Ikea road rug, art cubbies, and a bulletin board to display produced art)...


And our bedroom. There are a lot of unexplained quirks in this house, and the size of the master bedroom would be one of them. While Jonah sleeps in a shoebox, we sleep in what feels like another wing of the house. There is more than enough room and we have had to try to figure out how to fill it up! We aren't complaining mind you, this just isn't a problem that we ever thought we would have. I love it to pieces and it feels like a little sanctuary.

 

I will finish with a few views of the outside of the house. Here is a view of the house from our carport. Again, we are on a hill so there are steps from the carport to the house itself. Then there is a view of the "yard" area seen outside the dining area window. You can see there is a little clearing up at the top of the photo. That is because you can actually walk up the hill behind the flowers as it climbs behind our house. From that clearing you will see the final view.

 
 

day 3

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Our last day of traveling was relatively short and easy. We left Knoxville in the morning and made it to Blowing Rock, NC by the afternoon. The last 40 miles were a bit slow because it was a narrow 2-lane road through the mountains. That being said, it was a very pretty drive.


We will be unpacking everything today and should have some pictures of the house soon. Having never actually seen the house in person, there were a few surprises. Nothing too problematic, just features that add to the "charm" of the house.

We are all very happy we made it to North Carolina safe and sound. Needless to say, Vanessa and I are a bit nervous about starting a new chapter of our lives here. However, we are also quite excited at the opportunities we've been given.

day 2

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Our second day of travels is over and we made it 371 miles. We went through Indiana, Kentucky, and ended up in Knoxville, Tennessee.


All in all, it was a smooth drive and all the kids (Jonah, Addyson, and Chloe) continued to do well. Assuming things continue to go smoothly, we should be in Blowing Rock, NC by tomorrow afternoon.



Day 1

Friday, July 15, 2011

After a LONG day of packing and cleaning yesterday and then some last minute packing this morning, we are on our way to North Carolina.

Lots of cleaning to be done.

Lots of packing to be done (thanks Aaron).


We had to use every nook and cranny to get everything to fit.

Everything's packed up and we are on our way.

Today we went through the "I" states: Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana.  We drove 350-ish miles to a town outside of Indianapolis called Brownsburg.

Vanessa, my mom, Jonah, and Addyson were in the van, I drove the u-haul with Chloe, and my dad drove the subaru.  All in all, the traveling went well.  Jonah did great and we didn't have any major mishaps (there was one problem with the roof-rack on the Subaru, but that was easily fixed).  Driving the u-haul was a bit slow, but not too bad.  It will probably be a bit more difficult as we start getting into the mountains.  If everything works out well, we'll be in Knoxville tomorrow night.

Playing with bubbles

Friday, July 8, 2011

Wow, we sure are busy right now. Given that we are spending so much time preparing for our move, we haven't been able to blog about the big events that happened during our trip to Fresno (most importantly, Jonah's birthday).  Well, that blog is forthcoming.  In the meantime, here's a quick post with some pictures that our brother-in-law took while the kids were playing with a bubble machine.

Jonah checking out the bubbles.

Jonah and Noah hanging out.

Noah laughing at the bubbles.

The two cousins.

All four cousins.

All four cousins again. By the way, Jonah is signing "Noah" (an "N" over his eye).

You can see more photos here, here, and here. Thanks Casey for taking such great pictures.

A close call

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

A member of the Smith family recently underwent major surgery after a pretty severe injury. No, it wasn't Jonah, Vanessa, or me who was injured. It was....my laptop. (In case you were wondering, dropping a laptop onto its screen is not a good idea.)

Here's my laptop pre-surgery. Notice the broken part of his screen (and how sad he is).

Mid-surgery. I opened him up and carefully extracted the old screen.

The new screen is installed, but he's not out of the woods yet. I still have to put him back together again.

Post-surgery. He was a trooper and came through with flying colors!

All in all, it was a nerve racking experience. Fortunately he's as good as new now. To help keep him working well, I have promised to try and not drop him again. In exchange, my laptop has promised to not randomly delete my important files. It's a win-win situation.

Final thought: Vanessa thinks I'm a huge dork. She might be right.

Happy 4th of July

Monday, July 4, 2011

Happy 4th of July!

In some parts of the country kids play with sparklers on July 4th.  Here in Iowa, we play with corn on a stick.