We're on the market

We are now on the market. Well not us, our house to be exact. I know, crazy right! Don't worry, we are not leaving Charlotte. This will definitely come as a surprise to some of our friends and family since we haven't really talked about this previously. We have been thinking about our house future for awhile and we're just casually looking with the interest rates being so low.

I thought it would be awhile before we found what we were looking for. But then last month we found a neighborhood not far from our current house that is on a lake and has boat slips. The builder there is building homes that are in our price range and have many of the things we really wanted. Then we found out they had 1 boat slip left... ahhh! Hence why this has progressed rather rapidly.

So we signed in the new neighborhood with a lot and the boat slip and we are selling our current first house. So what better time to finally give you a tour of our lovely house?! You have probably seen bits and pieces over the last couple years but here are great pictures our realtor had taken of our ready to sell beauty!

Front view.

Entryway with closet under the stairs.

Dining Room that we use as Eric's office

 

Which leads into our wonderful kitchen. Still love those happy green walls!

The kitchen is open to the large breakfast area and great room. The table we have there which is really more of a dining room table seats 6.

Now this of course is the room we spend the most time in... the great room. I do even have some fall decor out because let's face it, fall decor is so warm and inviting! We seriously have a huge great room and even have a sitting area on the far end under the plate wall. There is also a half bath and large storage closet over there.

Yes we have all wood downstairs. It is fantastic and seamless, plus I know you know how carpet can look old so quickly... yuck.

Let's head upstairs. First we have the loft which could be a bonus room or whatever kind of room you want it to be. I use it for my office and sewing and such. We had plans to eventually put a TV in there so it would also function as a media room.

Oh, and we finally hung our grouping of travel photos. Nothing like selling the house to get us motivated to complete some of those should have done this a year ago items! But it sure looks great! Hopefully this reminds us to get things hung more quickly in our next house :)

On to the master suite.

I don't have pictures of the his and her closets but trust me they are the tidiest they have ever looked.

Master bath

Bedroom number 2 that we use as our guest room... the wonderful teal room! Love love that color! Although it looks more blue in this picture than it really is.

Bedroom number 3 that we use as another guest room if needed and a room just for junk and stuff that accumulates. Of course we cleared out all the junk.

Upstairs full bath. New light finally installed a couple days prior to these pictures being taken.

To the great outdoors we go.. here is our screened porch off the breakfast area. We keep our grill here usually so we can grill even if it's raining.

I posted about this deck shortly after I started blogging. Eric, his brother and his dad built it off of our screened porch and it spans the width of the back of the house. We have had some great use out of this deck. Definitely a must do for the next house. You can also see the big private backyard created by that natural hill. There is kinda a valley type area on the other side owned by the power company so no one could build there even if it was feasible.

View of the whole deck. We put up the posts and lights a little over a year ago and they have worked great for cookouts lasting into the evening.

Well I hope you enjoyed the tour of our home! It was already pretty close to being market ready but we had a week to do touch ups and hang a few things and give it a really good cleaning. The challenging part now is keeping it really clean and tidy and basically like people barely live there every day!

By the way if anyone is looking for a realtor in Charlotte or surrounding areas, Lauren Farlow with Keller Williams is amazing! A co-worker recommended her when we were looking for our first house so we are using her again to sell this house and buy our next house. She has been incredible and I am so impressed with her knowledge, availability and honesty.

Baby Shower for Kristen

In August I went to a baby shower for my friend and neighbor, Kristen who was expected a little baby boy. It was given by her mother in law and by her longtime friend Stephanie. I made this banner using my Silhouette. It's a similar concept to my Summer Banner but I used white ribbon to tie it together. Of course she loved it!

The hosts put up other great decorations like these baby boy onesies strung by the window.

Steph made this awesome baby cradle fruit salad. Adorable! I am definitely making this at future baby showers! Would have to get more creative when watermelon is not in season.

We played a few games and ate. There were finger sandwiches, deviled eggs, pasta salad, shrimp cocktail, fruit salad, cheese, and more.. quite the spread!

 

 

Then of course it was present time. The invitations asked everyone to bring a favorite childhood book in lieu of a card to start a great library which is always a wonderful idea!

 

There were even baby blue M&M's. And cupcakes.

Mom to be with her mom and mother in law

Steph, Kristen and I

Admiring Steph's diaper cake.

So excited that beautiful healthy little baby Ben has since arrived! And on his due date, what a timely little fellow. Congrats!!

LaForce Likes #23

Over the summer I bought several books off amazon from some lists I found of must read books. I picked out a few that interested me and so far I have really enjoyed each one.

I may talk about some of the others on another LaForce Likes but the one I am currently reading that I started on my work trip to Plano this past weekend is...

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

source

The narrator is "death" and it is written during WWII in Nazi Germany. Death tells the story of a girl growing up with a foster family there and how she becomes a book thief and learns to read and write. It is very fascinating and I can't wait to get further. The Book Thief is written very different than other books by constantly speaking of colors to set the mood and painting vivid pictures. Of course my explanation is not doing it justice so go read it for yourself!

Don't worry mom, you'll get it when I'm done! It's so nice to swap books around with family and friends :)

Asheville Cabin Weekend

Each year we get together with Eric and Keith's childhood friend Tyler and his family for a cabin weekend somewhere. Most years it is somewhere in Tennessee but this year in August we went to Asheville which I liked even better.

Everyone else arrived Friday mid-day and had lunch downtown and then hung out at the cabin. Due to work Eric and I arrived around 5:30-6. The cabin was about 20 minutes outside of downtown Asheville in an was an old barn refurbished into several bedrooms, a kitchen, large living room, game room, and deck with a hot tub and firepit out back.

The owners lived next door on a good amount of land and had some horses (and some dogs). Perfect photo op.

 

Friday night we grilled burgers and veggies and I made the avocado ranch dip. We just relaxed and watched the Olympics.

Saturday morning we watched some more Olympics and got ready for our big adventure of the weekend... ziplining! Tyler's parents opted not to go ziplining.

We ziplined with Navitat and had a start time a little after noon. They had great reviews on safety, satisfaction, and being well organized.

This was my first time ziplining other than something small as part of a ropes course/team building event as a kid. I was a little nervous, not about the heights or about safety but about going too fast and feeling motion sick. Rest assured there was no motion sickness since you are not in a confined space like a car and you always zip straight, no curves or swinging motion involved.

Eric had our waterproof/outdoor camera strapped into his harness so he could take some shots and they have a photographer there at one zip platform that you can buy photos or a CD from.

It was a blast! The first couple zips are shorter to get you used to it and teach you how to brake. I like that they have the handlebars you hold while you zip.

Keith getting hooked into one of the zips. See the handlebars

A bonus to being small is there is very little braking because you are not going at speeds as fast as a larger person. Several of the zips are quite long which is nice... there were 10 ziplines total.

This was one of the really long zips. Their photographer took this one.

Whitney taking off the platform.

There were also 2 repelling things but I would hardly call it repelling... basically they just hoist you down a short amount with the ropes.

1 of the guides getting Tyler ready to "repel"

There were 2 easy bridges to walk across at different points to get to another zipping platform that you couldn't just zip to.

In case you were wondering what they do when a branch gets in the way of the zipline..

The scenery is gorgeous with the blue ridge mountains in the distance as you zip among the trees. Even though this was August it wasn't hot since we were up in the mountains and mainly in the shade. There isn't a ton of walking/hiking involved throughout and the entire course takes about 3-3.5 hours so you get your money worth. Our guides were professional while still being fun and telling jokes. I would definitely go again!

One funny thing that happened.. of course you need shoes to zipline and hike. Well Keith forgot his and they had some there in the lost in found how you lose your shoes there I'm not sure  and they were hilarious velcro skater-ish shoes. Definitely not what you would wear ziplining or ever. So that gave us a laugh throughout the day.

velcro shoes

Then we got ready and went out to eat in downtown Asheville. This was my first visit to Asheville and I really liked the downtown. It had a lot of restaurants and fun shops and antique stores.

We had dinner at Doc Chey's I liked my dish and a few others did but a couple people thought theirs were just okay so it was a little hit or miss.

And then we walked around for awhile going into a couple of shops that were still open.

We headed back to the cabin to have s'mores around the firepit out back and hang out in the hot tub.

firepit during the daytime

Sunday we packed up to leave and went into Asheville to have lunch.

 

lovely day out

We ate at Salsa, Caribbean/Puerto Rican food. It was delicious. They change their menu daily based on what they get fresh. Definitely recommend a meal here!

These are making me hungry

 

After a great weekend with friends/family in Asheville, Eric and I cannot wait to go back! Next time we may have to check out a winery and maybe the Biltmore since I've never been there. It's only a 2 hour drive from Charlotte so would be a perfect weekend getaway sometime :)