The Biltmore

For my birthday (which, yes, was back in October), my dear husband had the foresight to purchase tickets to the Biltmore house in Asheville, NC, for their Christmas celebration.  The Biltmore is a 255-room mansion that was built by George Vanderbilt in 1895.  It was incredible!  I would highly, highly recommend going.  It is so strange - and so neat - to see what is essentially a palace in the United States, and to see one which is so relatively modern.  We weren't allowed to take pictures indoors, but I honestly can understand why: one can only appreciate it by being there.

We toured the gardens in the afternoon, and then took the Christmas tour of the house in the early evening.

They decorated the house beautifully, and they had a string quartet, a cellist, a woodwind quintet, and a choir in various parts of the house, all under fairly low light in the evening.  It was so magical.  Touring the house was such a treat.  The big beautiful rooms were fun to see, but what was really cool was the basement: seeing the enormous area for all of the kitchen activities, the bowling alley, and the indoor pool: all built in 1895.  

Though Natalie did really well touring the gardens in her stroller, she was so ready for a break before our evening tour.  She ran - literally ran - around the big open space in front of the house for about an hour.  It was such a blast to see her having such a good time.  Also, you'll notice that Natalie always has leaves in hand; she really loves picking them up and carrying them around!  

 

Natalie was such a champ during the entire weekend.  Naptime was pretty much nonexistent during our weekend trip, and her behavior was still stellar.  She just can't really sleep any where except in her crib, and occasionally, in her car seat.  We probably had at least 10 strangers tell us how wonderfully behaved she was, and it was true.  She was so good in restaurants, and for our part, Taylor and I have gotten really good at tag-teaming to make sure everything goes smoothly.  We were discussing how much "credit" we can take for Natalie's good behavior, and at this point, we think that only about 10% of her loveliness is due to us; we think the rest is just who she is.

We stayed in a wonderful cabin in Flat Rock, NC.  It was so affordable, and very, very comfortable.  Flat Rock is right by Hendersonville, which is near Asheville.  We've realized we much prefer these small mountain towns to the larger Asheville.



The highlight of Natalie's weekend was probably the goats that lived in the pen around which the cabins were built.  She had so much fun yelling, "Go! Go!" as she saw them, and realizing that they too say "Ba!"