The Biltmore

For years my sister has been telling me about the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina.  A friend came to visit from California and since visiting the Biltmore was on her bucket list, we had to go.  My sister met us there since it's only a few hours from her house.

The Biltmore has 250 rooms - a mere 135,000 square feet or 4 acres!  It's the largest privately-owned home in the United States.  The Vanderbilt family has owned the home ever since George Washington Vanderbilt II built it between 1889-1895. 

The amazing thing about this house is that the rooms are fully furnished and decorated just as they were when the family lived there.  The family spares no cost when it comes to restoring fabrics and wallpapers.  A weaver in France still had the same cards (patterns) that had been used to weave custom fabrics decades earlier and they were able to reproduce some of the original fabrics with those cards.

My favorite room was the atrium.  In the first picture (above) you can see its conical glass roof to the right of the front door.  It's an amazing sight as you enter the house.  It's like a rainforest with a tiled floor and smattering of paired chairs for conversation.  Here's a list of some of the other features of the house:

• 43 bathrooms, in a time when indoor plumbing was almost non-existent
• 65 fireplaces
• 3 kitchens
• 34 bedrooms
• a grand banquet hall
• a huge two-story library with thousands of books
• a two-lane bowling alley, the pins had to be set manually
• an indoor swimming pool

We weren't allowed to take pictures inside so I guess you'll have to take a tour if you want to see the inside, or google it - there are lots of bootleg photos out there.  The grounds were immense and gorgeous.  This is a picture of the conservatory with its unique masonry.  I didn't take pictures inside but you can go here to take a peek.

Below you can see the remains of the wisteria in bloom.  If only we had been there a week earlier!

Here's a gnarly old wisteria trunk.  If only gnarly old wisteria trunks could talk.  It almost looks like it could!

Here's a wisteria imposter, equally as beautiful.  Anyone know what it is?

We thought this Weeping Blue Atlas Cedar would work well as inspiration for a Dr. Suess illustration.

This was a fun lattice tunnel with portholes.  The sun-seeking vines were just starting to weave their way up through the lattice maze.

Look what's blooming in the tunnel!

Crane Flies

They're ba-ack, and they are still gross!  A few crane flies snuck into our kitchen the other night.  Howard stopped me as I headed for the dust buster.  At some point in our marriage he became an insect advocate - he thinks we need to rescue them and put them outside.  I think if they're in my house, they deserve to die by vacuum cleaner or dust buster.  Although, sometimes that doesn't work very well.

Anyway, Howard searched the kitchen for a bug-catching tool and came up with a clear clamshell that had once housed some yummy cinnamon rolls.  The clamshell, that looked something like this, converted to the jaws of life for the crane flies.  My job was to scout out the intruders and Howard's job was to sneak up on them and 'gobble' them up with the clamshell. 

The trickiest part was getting them outside after we captured them.  Since it was dark outside and they seemed to be attracted to light, we had to turn off the kitchen lights each time we released one to 'the wild'.  We repeated this little ritual about five times until the house was insect free.

You know, I really need to get a curtain on that window above the kitchen sink.  I'm pretty sure we provided some comical evening entertainment for the neighbors!

Cinderella

We heard this guy (Steven Curtis Chapman) sing this last night, accompanied by the Nashville Symphony.  Oh my!  There's more to tell, but not today.

Here it is again, with the story behind it.

Livin' in Music City

Jason and Melody and their four kids moved from Las Vegas to Nashville about a year ago.  They've all sacrificed a lot for Melody to come to Nashville to pursue her singing dreams.  They're learning about the music business as they go and they've experienced lots of miracles along the way.  This is Melody's first music video.  Did I mention that her last name is Nash - Melody Nash, a country singer in Nashville.  That's her real name - I promise.  You can find out more about her at her website.