Monday, April 29, 2024

Life In Pictures

 

Miles laying on his back with his legs spread open on my bed where Moosey is also. He is laying down like a little bean next to dad's pillows.

The Carolina Thread Trail sign. It looks like a snowflake on a pole. It is a frosty blue color.
The best trail system I have found in NC is called the Carolina Thread Trail. There are various hiking trails all around Charlotte and the surrounding areas. The symbol of the trail is above and I just love it. 

Trail sign that says, 'sharp curve ahead'. It is a yellow sign written in black letters.

A lone light purple flower amongst dead leaves and a few weeds. The flower has 5 petals and is very small.

A view of the lake on Forney Creek trail from the far bench.

The forney creek lake with a heron hunting in the middle of it.



A bush with dew covered leaves and closed flower buds of an unknown variety.

A close up of Miles and I sitting down on the deck of the second Forney Creek lake.

Another selfie with Miles in the same spot as the pic above.

A view of the Forney Creek Trail with Miles running ahead of me.

At a different part of the trail, Miles stopped looking back at me.

A cluster of white flowers with yellow pollen centers in the middle. The flowers are budding on a tall bush. Each flower has about 5 petals each.



A different view of that same white flowering bush.

A third picture of the same yellowing flowers. This pic is from the same angle as the last pic.
I guess I really liked these flowers...

Orange and light pink lillies on the dining room table.

Yellow and white roses sitting on the kitchen island.





A close up of a single orange lily.

Another view of the flower arrangement on the dining room table - this one is focusing on the light pink lilies.

Clouds moving in from of the sun. As they pass, the sun highlights the edge of a couple of clouds. The sun, clouds, and deep blue sky all contrast against one another making a beautiful view.


An amazing sunset over the houses to the right of our house - there are pine trees set against the sunset which is a deep, deep reddish, orange. The nighttime sky is encroaching on the bright colors of the sunset.

The nighttime clouds are encroaching a little bit more as the sun continues to set. The sky is less bright as before.
A brilliant sunset. 




You unlocking your dorm door. You are facing away from the camera with black leggings and your blue tshirt. Your bookbag is on your back.
Sarah finishing up her semester and ending her freshman year of college.  

Your dorm room.
Sarah's dorm room without any roommate now that her wretched roommate moved out after last semester to have her baby. 

Dad sitting on a cooler with charcoal next to him trying to light a grill at Latta Park on his birthday.

Elizabeth hanging out in the red hammock at Latta Park.



A selfie of Dad (holding a beer) and Elizabeth (holding her beloved Dr. Pepper) at the Hozier concert.
Hozier concert

A selfie of Dad and Elizabeth sans drinks.

Dad's birthday cake.
Bobby's birthday cake made by Elizabeth. 

Miles, in the water, fetching sticks at Latta Park.

A selfie of dad and I at Royal Bliss.

Friday, April 26, 2024

Cairo Court House

 I always love looking back on the houses we have lived in and seeing how they were decorated and remembering all the memories that I have with each house. Normally, I create a post with each house shortly after we have moved into it, but I realized that after a year of living in this house, I have not made the "house post" that I have for each of the previous homes we have lived in. 

I did not include the kids' rooms in this post. I am waiting for them to ask them if they mind me including their personal spaces online. If they are cool with it, I will edit this post at a future date to include their rooms.

Here is a look at our current home. It has 5 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, a formal dining room, an office, an eat-in kitchen, a reading room, and a living room. It is approximately 3000 square feet of living space.  


The eat-in kitchen area that we don't use because it would be too hard for Sarah to navigate around the table all of the time. (Which we don't mind at all. We have enough spaces to eat/chill at.)

Obviously, the kitchen. 

The kitchen again, with a view of the walk-in pantry. 

The living room

The living room with the doorway to the office in the background. 

What we call the reading room (or the front room). Plus, an adorable rascally puppy named Miles. 

The reading room again.



The dining room

Half-bath downstairs

Entryway
(These canvases show all of the states we have lived in in the last 9.5 years.)



Coat closet.
 (Although the blue is not my first go-to for storage, I try to recycle what we have in the house rather than just go and buy something new. The boys have had these bins since we lived on Jennings. They don't use them anymore, but I've used them for different spaces in our different journeys.) 



I threw this pic in here because I thought Elixabeth did an awesome job on it. This was an art assignment of her in which she had to cut out strips of an existing phone and draw in what she cut out to make a continuous photo again. You can see the parts she cut out pasted above and what she drew in below. I love the job that she did. 



We decided not to use the front room of the house as a school room and instead are using this closet space as my school storage room. Elizabeth and I just do her schooling on the dining room table or the kitchen counter or the living room. 

A closer look at some of our school supplies




The stair landing.
(I know some of these pics are crooked. It would be futile at this point to fix them because our development is under construction and has huge equipment coming through multiple times a week that shakes the house (and moves the picture frames). Once construction is completed, THEN we will straighten out the photos. 



The stairs are to the right, the righthand doorway is the master bedroom, lefthand doorway is the kids' bathroom, Sarah's room is on the front left of the kids' bath, and the final doorway is a linen closet. 

Andy's doorway

Josh's doorway is straight ahead. To the left is the laundry room, and to the right is Elizabeth's doorway.

Different view of the hallway taken from the master bedroom doorway. That is the linen closet doorway again. 

The kids's bathroom

The kids' bathroom

The master bathroom. 
(The closed door on the left is a linen closet. The door on the right is the water closet - aka the toilet). 

The open doorway is one of two master closets. We use it for storage. 

Master bathroom



View of the master bedroom from near the second master closet. 

Our sitting area

Master bedroom

View from the doorway

View from the bathroom doorway

Master bedroom

More of my books and the closet that we use for our clothes. 

My little inspirational nook.



I realized that I did not get a pic of Bobby's office, nor the front or back of the house. I'll grab those soon and update this post with those pics.