Saturday, April 30, 2011

Biltmore House Trip!!

We wanted to do something fun together on Friday since Arnold was off. he suggested we go to the Biltmore House. Most of you know that my brother works there, on the grounds and works with landscaping, flowers, mowing, etc. He was able to get us free tickets!!! I was so thankful for that, because its a great experience to go, and even better if you can get in for free ;) Brooke was going to be in school, and we decided to leave Rachel with my sister-in-law, since we knew she wouldnt do well with the long day, walking, heat, and all that. I was a little worried at first because she doesnt ever stay at Jenn's house, but she did great! Shes really becoming my little social butterfly ;) Oh and of course, that left Caleb and we decided to take him, we figured he might enjoy it.

We headed up the mountain around 9:30 am. caleb asked us questions the whole way there.. he is at that age where he is soo very curious. We kept telling him we were going to the mountains and he kept saying WHERE are the mountains?! We tried to show him in the distance, but they are quite literal at that age, and I think he thought we were actually going to be on a big hill or something ;) Arnold hadnt been there in a long time, so he took the wrong exit and we got lost for awhile. We stopped at the Asheville visitor center and all used the bathroom and picked up some brochures. When we showed Caleb he started saying "oh boy, we are going to visit the castle!!!!" So cute :) So right after that we found the place. We got parked, unloaded the stroller (Caleb hasnt ridden in one in a LONG time but we figured he might get tired) And headed for the shuttle. when we got to the front of the house we were all amazed... its just so beautiful!! We walked around for awhile taking pictures, taking in the view, and strolling around looking at all the flowers. The Festival of Flowers was going on while we were there!!

Alex happened to be working that day, so we called him and he said we could meet up with him at one of the greenhouses.. so we went to find him. We all got into his truck and were able to ride around the grounds on the special little roads for workers. Caleb was escatic to be sitting between his daddy and uncle in the truck.. he really was enjoying himself :) We drove up to where the shops and restaurants were, and ate lunch at a place called Cedrics, named after the Biltmore's dog. They had some really good food.. we all ate till we were stuffed. Thank the lord that we had gotten in free, because we easily racked up at lunch.. not hard to do there! But then Alex whipped out his employee card and we got 20% off lunch which was a nice surprise ;)

After lunch Alex had to go back to work, so he dropped us off back at the front of the house. We all got out and headed into the grass to take more pics.. then I realized I had left my camera in Alex's truck!! he was already driving off and I just knew it was gone. until my husband.. bless him.. started RUNNING after him! hahahaa.. I knew people were staring.. i just went to sit down with Caleb on the curb and wait for him. He DID get Alex to stop, after he started waving his arms.. and he rescued the camera for me.. my hero!!! ;) He kept blaming being so tired the rest of the day on that though.. said "almost 30-yr olds shouldnt be running like that anymore!" Haha.. gotta love him.

Then we went inside and toured the house. I love historical stuff... I am just so into seeing how things used to be back in the day. It wasnt TOO crowded, so we were able to get through pretty quickly. Caleb did pretty well but he was slinging around this wand of candy we had gotten him in the candy shop, and one time he accidentally slapped a lady in the leg!! I just quickly apologized and we took the candy away from him. Nothing like being embarassed by your 3-yr old! Everywhere we went though, everyone was so sweet to him and took the time to talk to him, I really liked that. He seemed to like it, but did get a little restless and bored after while. He tried to climb under the big roped off areas a few times and we had to grab hold of him. We got to ride on the old-timey elevator since we had the stroller with us.. which was neat but I was feeling VERY clauserphobic in there! Especially when we went up and for the moment that the wall was against the outside part and it felt like we were trapped in a small cage.. ahhh.. dont want to think about that again ;)


All in all it was an awesome trip!! We got a lot of walking/exercise in, Caleb got a great learning experience, got to visit w/ Alex, and we even remembered the sunscreen, so none of us got burned up ;) We stopped by the Asheville mall before we went home. We went into Oldnavy and Caleb found him a Batman shirt that he just had to have... here he comes up to me with Arnold and Arnold told me he was getting that, plus another shirt. That kid does NOT need more clothes. But he was so excited about them.. I swear, I am such a sucker. After that he wanted an ICEE which we gave him, and even the "small" size was huge! We figured SURELY he couldnt finish it all.. well we were wrong! And he was bouncing around from that point on. we should have known better.. we definately arent rookies, thats for sure!! When we finally got home and picked up Brooke and Rachel.. they seemed happy to see us. I was worried Brooke would be jealous that she hadnt gotten to go see the "Castle" too.. but Brooke was just thrilled that her Paw had gone to pick her up that afternoon from school, and taken her to get icecream and to the park. Do we have spoiled kids or what?!?!




Cant see that well, but thats me and Caleb!!



Alex took time out of work to have lunch with us!!


This is where we had lunch-- At Cedrics Tavern



This is what Caleb picked out in the candy shop.. that he then used to hit random women with :x



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