At the end of October, we took one last trip to the Biltmore before our passes expired. This time, the Springers came along with us to Ridgecrest (the Christian Conference Center that we stay at just outside of Asheville). They were going to visit some relatives on Saturday, and they took Micah with them so that we could enjoy the Biltmore by ourselves. The Springers were more than happy to take care of our sweet boy for the day!
We brought Micah's elephant costume with us in case we had an opportunity to do some trick-or-treating on Saturday. We didn't, but it was worth bringing for this moment! On the way to Asheville, Micah spotted his costume and wanted to put it on. He loves his elephant costume! Elephant was the first animal that he could say the word as well as make the sound. He loves elephants...I wonder how that happened?? I put the head part on first, but that wasn't enough...he wanted the whole costume on...a difficult feat while riding in a car seat. I put his feet through the legs of the costume and pulled up the rest to lay on top of him, and that met with his approval. Soon afterward, he fell fast asleep! Too cute!!
The weekend was rainy, cool, and overcast, but we still had a lot of fun. We had dinner on Friday night in the town of Black Mountain at a fun pizza place. Our room was connected to the Springers' room, and the kids had fun playing together, especially jumping on the bed! Micah got a little too brave when we were trying to get him ready for bed though. He started at the headboard, and took a running leap off the bed. It was pretty scary! Normally, Micah calms down pretty fast after a fall, but this time he was pretty upset. We were worried about a concussion, but he settled down after watching some Mickey Mouse and was okay.
The next day Micah left with the Springers - with no fussing, he loves them! - and we headed to Asheville. After breakfast of coffee and yummy bagels, we went to the Biltmore. We had to get our passes reprinted because they somehow disappeared (the suspect - a cute but ornery toddler!) and we expected to pay the $2 per pass reprinting fee. However, the lady who helped us didn't charge us because we had a good attitude about it. We were pleasantly surprised by her graciousness! It was drizzling, so we took the shuttle. We missed the pretty walk to the house, but we liked staying dry! We decided to take the audio tour this time since we were by ourselves. It was definitely worth it! We learned lots of interesting facts about the house that weren't in the brochure.
We wanted to go in the fall to see the leaves, especially from this view from the grand porch at the house. The peak had been the weekend before, and there had been a lot of rain that week, but it was still pretty, even in the rain. From our audio tour, we learned that much of the wooded area from this view was actually planned and planted by the landscaper. He wanted to bring back some of the wooded area to the grounds, and he wanted it to look natural, like it had always been there. I'd say he did a pretty good job!
After our tour of the house, we had a buffet lunch at one of the Biltmore's restaurants. It was delicious! We both thought we hadn't eaten that much, but when we left, we were so full! We made it back to the hotel before the Springers did, so we enjoyed a little nap.
Saturday night we got dinner at a place we had went to for breakfast on a previous trip. It has a much different atmosphere for dinner than it does for breakfast, but the food was equally delicious! After dinner, we got the kids settled in to bed and then we played Ticket to Ride with Allen & Angela. We've decided that it is a lot of fun to vacation with friends!
The weather cleared up Sunday morning, so we decided to take a hike before checking out and getting breakfast. Micah followed Nate into this little gully beside the road. He was so proud of himself that he could do what Nate did!
Stop taking my picture, Daddy!
The Springer Family: Allen, Abby, Angela, Nate & Jin Ah
We stopped in the middle of this bridge to look at the water with Micah. He was holding on to the middle rail while we were posing for a picture, and while we were looking at the camera, he decided to step of the bridge! He was just calmly hanging on to the rail! We quickly pulled him back onto the bridge, thankful that he didn't fall into the stream. He would have been okay, we were very close to the ground, and there wasn't much water, but he definitely would have been wet! We had a great, relaxing trip and we enjoyed the fall weather, despite the rain!
Micah and his pal Nate, checking out the stream
Trying to get a closer look!
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