the sosebee's

I would’ve liked to include a picture of the Béla Fleck show but “photography was prohibited”. The Orange Peel in Asheville hosted the concert, which was part of his Throw Down Your Heart tour. A project he did while traveling to Africa in 2005 to discover the roots of the banjo. It was a great show. He is an amazing banjo player and has definitely worked at breaking down the barriers that most people have in associating the banjo with the bluegrass genre. Having said that, though, he can play some mean bluegrass! Especially when the guest performer came on stage and was none other than a fiddle player.

We stayed in the guest suite at the Singer residence for the night and were given free passes to see the Biltmore Estate mansion on Saturday. I couldn’t believe the size of it, extravagant. It is definitely quite the the architectural wonder. We meandered through the rooms for hours along with the thousands of other tourists taking in the sights that day.

Another good weekend of travel.

We took our first Spring trip to the mountains yesterday, at least it was weather that felt somewhat like Spring. We went to Rainbow Falls at Jones Gap State Park.

As today was one of the nicest, warmest days we’ve had yet, there was quite a crowd that had the same idea we did. This resulted in having to wait at the gate to the park a while until people came out to open up parking spaces.

However, the wait went by quick and we were on the trail before long. The beginning of the trail meanders along the Middle Saluda River for 3/4 of a mile before taking a sharp right across the river and heading straight up the mountain for another mile and half, climbing over 1000 feet in the process.

It was a beautiful hike. The peaceful serenity of the forest accompanied our companionship. The sights of open vistas and sounds of the wind rushing through the trees. How much good the fresh air and exercise does for one’s body and mind.

The sounds of the river running down the mountain as the trail parallels and then leaves it for a while, only to return after a long switchback up the mountain.

And with that return comes the anticipation of the magnum opus of the hike: Rainbow Falls. The power of the river getting louder and louder and you round that final bend. Then, opening up before you in all its grandeur is the falls.

Pouring over the precipice of the falls it streams down to the rocks below, some of it seeming to dissipate before it reaches bottom. And the breeze. The cool breeze coming off the falls chilling your warm body from the hike up.

What can compare? Is this but a glimpse heaven? Can you just imagine it?

More pictures on our flickr site here: Rainbow Falls

This is a repost from the design blog, but I thought was very relevant to us and something that we would like to share on here so I figured it wouldn’t hurt.

It only took me a little over 6 months, but my promise to make our first bed has been kept, It is now complete!!

Check out a few more pictures on Flickr: The Platform Bed

What a project to undertake. It’s a rather simple design, but has taken a while to come together. Especially only having the weekends to work on it for a while. Not having any work lately has allowed me to get it finished up.

Another part that took a while was finding the wood. I wanted to use rough sawn lumber, for a finished, rustic look. So after scouring craigslist for weeks I finally found a guy who had cleaned out a saw mill that had closed.

Kris and I went late one evening on the spur of the moment and it ended up getting dark by the time we got there, so I tried to pick out these huge planks of rough sawn lumber in the headlights of my car. After planing it down we discovered that we ended up with a mix of pine and oak.

Only when we bought this wood I forgot to calculate for enough to make the head board. So, the frame has been together for a while now, but I just recently found another guy to buy more wood from, some beautiful white oak, and was able to finish the head board.

All in all it was a fun project, but I’m glad to say that it’s finally done. Whew.

To The Golden Shore is the biography of Adoniram Judson. I could hardly put this book down once I began reading it. A missionary to Burma, Judson translated the entire Bible into the Burmese language. He left as a young man and only returned to America once, after 35 years on the field, in the hope of his wife recovering from an illness. He later returned to Burma and spent the rest of his life where he lived the most of his life, on the golden shores…

This is truly an inspiring book. And it is by far the best Valentine’s Day gift I’ve ever received. Thank you, my Dearest. May the Lord use the life and the story of this man to further his Kingdom.

If you enjoy biographies, I highly recommend this one. Even if you don’t, and you want a little Baptist history, I suggest you pick up a copy of this book.

You will be challenged and forever changed.