Lake Junaluska 2010

We have been away most of the week.  We spent from Wednesday till today in the NC mountains at Lake Junaluska.  Drew has an annual ministers’ meeting up there and the kids and I go along for a vacation.  This is the kids 3rd trip to Lake Junaluska.  Click on 2008 or 2009 to see how they have changed!
 
Before I talk more about our annual trip to the Lake I have to back up to the beginning of the week.

Monday was a LONG morning for Drew and me.  We had to go write the kids’ IEPs.  We started at 9am with Lindy and finally finished hers around 12:15pm.  Will’s only took 45 minutes because he is just getting speech services.  We went through their evaluation results and Drew and I felt some were ridiculously low, specifically in categories like cognitive development and social and emotional development.  When we asked about this they gave us the list of how they determine these things.  Lindy had to get everything in each age category for her to get credit.  These thing don’t take into account hearing loss or vision loss.  A lot of them were based on language things which we all know is Lindy’s struggle.  Lindy could do a ton of things in each category but there might be one language component she couldn’t do and she couldn’t get credit.  They told us a few times to take the results with a grain of salt.  Lindy will receive speech, physical therapy, occupational therapy, vision therapy, and hearing therapy. In the end we thought everything went well.  We had Lindy’s early intervention specialist, her hearing and vision teachers, and our parent advocate there with us.  We all worked together and wrote her IEP.  The fun comes when we move in the next couple weeks and we have to transfer their IEPs to a new school system.  Stay tuned for how that goes!  The kids were home with Janice, our trusty babysitter.  I had to call her around 11am and make sure she didn’t have anything else to do because we weren’t anywhere near finished.  Thankfully she was able to stay till we got home!

Lindy’s only other appointment this week was physical therapy with Heather.  It had been about a month since her last appointment because Lindy got sick and we had to cancel her appointment.  Lindy resisted a little bit but did pretty well.

Wednesday afternoon we left and headed to the mountains.  We got up to Katie’s parents’ house and unloaded our stuff.  We ate dinner at Granny’s Chicken Palace.  We had always seen this place but had never eaten there.  Katie, Micah, and Claire got to the house late Wednesday evening. 

Thursday we got up and headed out to do some hiking.  Transylvania County is called the land of the waterfalls.  Last year we hiked to a few waterfalls so we decided to do it again this year.  We stopped and had a picnic lunch first and then headed to the Pisgah Wildlife Center where we fed fish at the fish hatchery.  We left there and went to Slick Rock Falls and then we drove and got on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  We stopped at Graveyard Fields and we hiked to two different waterfalls.  The lower one had a little pool where you could take yours shoes off and play in the water.  Will had a great time.  It took Lindy a little while to warm up to the cool water.  Of course they both ended up sitting in the water so they both needed new clothes when we were done.  Will walked the entire day.  We picked waterfalls with close hikes so Will could walk.  I borrowed Katie’s ergo carrier and wore Lindy on my back.  She has trouble with uneven surfaces so it would have been hard for her.  It would have been too hard to just carry her regularly too.  The ergo was great.  Will and Drew almost stepped on a snake.  The snake slithered by on one of the trails and Drew had to pull Will back.  Makes my stomach turn just thinking about it! After the waterfalls we headed back to the lake and met up with Mike and Janice, who were the conference delegates from our church, and Drew’s friend Richard and his wife Kristin for dinner at our favorite restaurant Butts On the Creek.

Friday morning Drew headed down to his meetings and I got the kids ready and we walked down to the lake as well.  We met up with Drew’s dad and Suzette, who were delegates from their district.  Bob hung out with the kids and me for awhile.  We took the kids to the playground and played.  We headed back up the hill for lunch with more friends, Drew and Vaughan.  Drew was one of Palmyra’s summer interns a couple summers ago.  Friday evening we had dinner in downtown Waynesville with Katie and kids, and Drew and Vaughan. 

Saturday morning the kids and I got ready and we headed down to lake again.  We walked around some of the lake and happened to meet up with Janice.  We also met up with Suzette and we just played with the kids while the guys were all in the business session.  We went out to lunch with Mike, Janice, Bob and Suzette.  Last night we had dinner at the mountain house with Katie, Kris, and our friends Richard and Kristin.  We did a low country boil and it was awesome! 

This morning we packed up and headed home.  We are going to get unpacked and then start packing up again.  We’re moving!!  Drew is getting a new church and so we are moving.  We get our rental house on the 15th so we’ll probably start taking boxes over during the week.  The movers aren’t coming until the 21st to get the furniture.  What a crazy week it will be. Trying to pack with two little kids hasn’t been easy so far!

Here is our week in pictures.

Last week’s church outfits.  I LOVE Lindy’s dress. Longing to get outside. We backed off potty training until after we move but we still use the potty.  Lindy peed on the potty and Will pooped on the potty this week.  Both successes in my book.  Playing on the potty. Getting ready to ride to the mountains. We made it! Dinner at Granny’s Our picnic lunch at the rhododendron thicket.Going to the fish hatchery. FISH! (rainbow trout, brown trout, and brook trout) Slick Rock Falls   “Come back to me.  Come back to Cold Mountain.” My two hiking boys. The girls. The Second Falls at Graveyard Fields. The Yellowstone Falls at Graveyard Fields. Playing in the water. She thought it was too cold at first. They loved throwing rocks and making splashes. “Hands wet!” Thursday night at Butts On the Creek.Playing with GrandBob.   Soaking up the Methodism at annual conference in a really cute shirt. Our friends Drew and Vaughan, who are moving to Alabama and whom we’ll miss. The annual porch swing picture. Lindy and Claire having a little girl time. Claire, Micah, Lindy, and Will in downtown Waynesville. Will likes to ride like this in his car seat. Enjoying Lake Junaluska on a foggy morning. One of the many roses along the rose walk. Playing on the sleeping porch upstairs. 

Phew that was a lot of pictures. 43 of the 311 I took last week.  Out of all of those pictures I didn’t get any of Katie, Kris, Suzette, Mike, or Janice.   Sorry guys!