Tents & Mansions

Last weekend we took a camping trip to Oconee County and Sumter National Forest in the Northwest corner of SC. We were a few miles from the NC and GA borders. The first night it poured rain all night. We were able to set up the tent, fix a quick meal, and start a little fire before the heavens opened up on us. So we retired to the tent earlier than we had originally intended. The next day was filled with hiking in the beautiful Sumter National Forest searching for waterfalls. We found two gorgeous falls during our trip - King Creek Falls & Blue Hole Falls. It was pretty hot that day so we took some time to play in the water and cool off!

King Creek Falls

Blue Hole Falls

Tired dogs after a day of hiking

Cara's boyfriend ( & now fiance) joined us in Greenville for the 4th of July weekend. Thursday night we went to a Greenville Drive baseball game and showed him around downtown. On Saturday we took a trip to Asheville, NC and visited the Biltmore House. The Biltmore House is the largest single family dwelling in the United States - 175, 000 square feet, 250 rooms, 99 bedrooms, 42 bathrooms, indoor swimming pool & bowling alley, library, observatory...you get the picture! It was built in the early 1900s by the Vanderbuilt Family when most people didn't have indoor plumbing or electricity, the Biltmore House and both and much more! Needless to say, the house and estate grounds were immaculate and it was a very memorable experience! The 8,000 acre grounds also include many beautiful gardens, ponds, walking trails, a farm, and a winery so it was definitely a busy day to see it all! After such a busy day, we took Sunday to just relax at the pool, barbeque, and watch fireworks with some neighbors. As we celebrate this 4th of July, we want to thank all of our friends and family who have served or are still serving in the military and help us maintain our independence in this great country! God Bless you All!

The newly engaged couple! Congrats Matt & Cara!

View from one of the Biltmore House's balconies

Matt, Cara, David, & Cori in front of the largest house in America

We have also found out last week that David got a job as an Industrial Engineer with Michelin and will be starting in August. He will be working at a different plant than Cori and his plant will be supplying the rubber products used in the tire making process. We have been very blessed and appreciate everybody's prayers and support. David is still working to finish his PhD but the opportunity for a position at such a great company was something that he couldn't pass up.

Cara has officially been living with us in South Carolina for a month now, and the time has definitely flown by! We have done quite a few things over the last month, so here is the recap of the events:

-Our kickball team, The Reedy Balls (a pun on Greenville’s downtown waterfall – Reedy Falls) finished up the regular season ranked in 3rd place. Sadly, we weren’t able to take part in the postseason tournament because many of our team members had prior arrangements. Cara even got to join our team for the last game and we are excited for the summer kickball league to start up again this week (new team name – Jiminy Kick-it!).

Kickball Pregame

We are NOT the Champions!

-We spent Memorial Day Weekend in Atlanta, GA and also celebrated Cara’s 21st birthday! Highlights of the trip included a Braves baseball game, the Georgia Aquarium, the Coca-Cola museum, and Noah’s Ark Animal Sanctuary and Rehabilitation Center. We also got to see the home where Martin Luther King Jr. was born and the church that he preached in. We enjoyed spending time together and letting Cara have her “first drink”.

Turner Field for the Atlanta Braves Game

Happy 21st Birthday Cara!

Official first drink!

World of Coke!!

Georgia Aquarium

-Cori set up a surprise get-together for David’s 28th birthday at Quaker Stake and Lube’s All-You-Can-Eat Wings night! We got to spend the evening with a bunch of our friends and eat A LOT of chicken wings!

-David travelled back to SD for a wedding (congrats Tate & Shelby!!) and got to spend some quality time with the family. He played in a golf tournament with his Dad and Father-in-Law and ended up taking first place overall!

We are the Champions!

-We all took a great hike last weekend to see the beautiful Rainbow Falls which are located about an hour north of Greenville in Jones Gap State Park. This was our 2nd time on this trail and the hike was definitely as strenuous as we remember (~1.5 miles uphill) but the view from the top was worth it for sure!

Rainbow Falls!

-Summer has definitely arrived in Greenville. Temperatures are constantly in the 90s with a lot of humidity. We commonly get afternoon thunderstorms which only add to the humidity. So, we have resorted to spending a lot of time at the pool to cool off! Cori and Cara even bought floaties to wade around the pool on!

Tobacco Road and Strawberry Fields

Cori had to travel to Asheboro, NC to visit a rubber facility, so David went along for the ride and we made a mini-roadtrip out of it. Asheboro is located about an hour away from Chapel Hill and Durham, NC. If you are a fan of college athletics, then you know that Chapel Hill is the home of the University of North Carolina while Durham is where Duke University is located. The college basketball rivalry between UNC and Duke is probably one of the greatest in the country and the two campuses are situated about 9 miles apart from each other (known as Tobacco Road). We took some time to walk around both campuses and also saw the basketball arenas at each school. We also walked through a church on Duke's campus which was amazing! We finished the night with some steak, ribs, and a cold beer at Top of the Hill Restaurant and Brewery in Chapel Hill.

Church on campus at Duke University

Duke University Basketball Arena - Cameron Indoor Stadium

UNC Basketball Arena - Dean Smith Center

We are also happy to have Cori's sister Cara staying with us for a few months this summer. She is working as an Intern at Peculiar Productions which is a marketing firm here in Greenville. We have had a good time showing her around Greenville and the Upstate. We took a drive last Sunday to see a Revolutionary War Battlefield near Cowpens, SC and also found an awesome strawberry and peach farm where we were able to buy some fresh strawberries and homeade icecream! Yum! We are looking forward to Memorial Day weekend and our trip to Atlanta, GA to play tourists and celebrate Cara's 21st birthday! Check back soon for some pics and an update on our trip.

A Time for Everything: Ecclesiastes 3:1-15

Cori returned to South Dakota at the end of April to take part in the women's basketball game during Alumni Weekend. Many of the girls she played with were able to make it back. The Alums were victorious over the Varsity, 92-81. It was a great time to catch up with friends, reminiscing about the good times and making more memories. It was also great to spend some time with family as well!

The Lady Hardrocker Alumni

Sadly, on April 26th, David's grandfather Leonard Thorson passed away at the age of 88. We made the trip home to attend the Celebration on Life Ceremony and the Funeral. Although it was a sad time, it was also a joyous time to spend with family and remember the life of Grandpa Leonard.

Grandma Thorson and the Thorson Family Grandchildren

We spent Mother's Day (We love all our mothers and grandmothers - thank you for being so special to us!!) at Jones Gap State Park. It was a beautiful day; clear skies and 70 degree weather. We got to see 2 beautiful waterfalls (Jones Gap and Rainbow) during our hike. We thought Jones Gap Falls was big until we came across Rainbow Falls which looked to be over a 100+ ft high, spilling over many rocks and cliffs.

Jones Gap Falls

Rainbow Falls

If April Showers Bring May Flowers...

… then what do 90 degree temperatures in April bring?! It already feels like Summer here, even though we just got done celebrating Easter. We spent Easter weekend in Myrtle Beach, SC where it was actually somewhat cool compared to the 90+ degree weather in Greenville and Columbia, SC. Myrtle Beach is about a 4 hour drive from our home in Greenville, and we really enjoyed the time we got to spend there. On our first morning there, we took about a 5 mile walk up and down the beach with the dogs. We had beautiful weather and the beach wasn’t overly crowded yet. The Spring Breakers had just left and the summer tourist had not yet arrived. We also got to take a nice drive up the Atlantic Coast into North Carolina. We spent some time checking out a few of the small beach/fishing towns along the coast and ended up in Southport, NC (near Cape Fear) where they were having a spring celebration in the town park. It was a really cool and quaint little town. On Easter morning, we were lucky enough to attend a Sunrise Service on the beach in Murrells Inlet, SC which was about a 20 minute drive from our hotel. The service was really beautiful and touching – wonderful music, great message, and what a view watching the sun appear over the horizon and cast light over palm trees and the cross.

Family Picture on the Beach

Sunrise Service on Easter Morning

The rest of the trip, we basically just relaxed and spent some time on the beach. The dogs liked running in the ocean water, but couldn’t figure out why it tasted so bad! At first, they were both a little hesitant of the waves but got used to it after a few minutes. The water was still a little chilly, but sitting and watching the waves from the beach was a comfortable 75 degrees. We toured a few SC State Parks (Huntington Beach State Park, Myrtle Beach State Park) located right on the beach. It was so beautiful to see the natural beach habitat without all of the homes and hotels like there are in most of Myrtle Beach. And of course, we definitely had our fair share of seafood and even brought some shrimp home!

Beach Bums!

Huntington Beach State Park

On the drive back home, we took the “scenic route” – 2 lane highways through the heart of SC. We stopped by a Revolutionary War Battlefield in Ninety-Six, SC (weird name, we know). We saw where the patriots had dug a number of trenches and tunnels to aid in the war efforts. It is really neat to be able to experience a little bit of history that happened almost 250 years ago!

A few weeks ago Cori got to travel to Texas for a conference for work. She got to spend the weekend with her Aunt Shannon, Uncle Stratt, and Cousins Misty and Stratton in Austin. As always, there was great food and fun times had by all. On the way to San Antonio for her conference, she and Shannon made sure to stop by a few wineries to sample some Texan Wines.

Shannon and Cori

That's all for now!

Mid-Winter Update

Seems like in past years that the months of January and February just drag on. Apparently 2010 is going to be different. Here we are already in March and it seems like it was just Christmas. The weather around here (and everywhere else it seems) has been crazy. We get snow and then 60 degrees - seems like we will never figure out what coat, if any, is needed for outside.

It snowed the Friday before Valentine's Day but on Sunday (Valentine's Day) it warmed up enough for us to go for a 3.5 mile hike in Paris Mountain State Park. It was a little snowy and icy but still beautiful. We have over 7 State Parks within an hour of our house so we look forward to getting out and enjoying them.

We had to make a trip back to Louisville last week. It was nice to spend some time with our friends and get a few things done too. We stayed the weekend with our friends and (old) neighbors. It was weird to drive back to our old neighborhood and not have a house to go to. We tried to eat at our favorite restaurants while we were back in the Bluegrass State. On our way back to South Carolina we had to drive through the Smoky Mountains because of a rock slide on the main interstate. All of the trees were covered in a beautiful white coating. It looked like someone had just flocked all of the trees. What a beautiful sight.

You can see why it's called the "Smoky" Mountains

Freezing Run

We are adjusting well to our new place here in South Carolina. We have met quite a few of the neighbors and everyone seems really nice. We are taking advantage of the warmer winter weather by spending as much time outside as possible - running, walking the dogs, and grilling in our newly fenced backyard. We actually ran a 6K (about 4 miles) race a few weeks ago. The race was held on one of the trails by a lake not too far from our house. It was one of the coldest days of the winter so far - about 32 degrees with rain/sleet. It was sleeting for the entire day before so the ground had a nice little layer of ice that was really fun to deal with going up and down the hills of the trail. Still, we had a good time and it was nice to get back into running again after the holidays and our move.