MLK Weekend

The 3 day weekend and 70+ degree temperatures provided Megan and I with an excellent opportunity to explore the local area around Charlotte --- taking our newly acquired (borrowed) kayaks out to Lake Wylie and McDowell Nature Preserve for a day on the water and a morning hike to King's Pinnacle in Crowder's Mountain State Park.

http://www.charmeck.org/Departments/Park+and+Rec

http://ils.unc.edu/parkproject/visit/crmo/home.html

Day 1: Megan and I prior to getting underway.

Megan with a possible future home in the background --- after a few more years anyway.

The day was a little breezy (check out the flags), but it was still easy cruising around.

Megan just can't follow the rules --- she couldn't help herself!

Day 2: From the top of Pinnacle's Peak 30 minutes outside Charlotte (which is actually just off Megan's left elbow --- kinda hard to see in the pic). At just over 1700 feet we didn't need any oxygen, but it does stretch the legs w/o traveling the 3 hrs to the Smokies. We even made it back for a late lunch.

First hike with poles --- always wanted a pair, but never made the buy. Thanks to the Schmitt's we now have the option.

Had to sneak one in of the crazy cat with his, "why are you looking at me that way" expression.

Schmitt Triplets Baptism!

What a great way to start the New Year- Baptisms!! Nate and I headed to DC on Saturday Jan 6 for the triplets' baptisms! I have the honor of being their God-mother! I am so excited to rid them of their original sin on Sunday, but first, we have to go to the ND vs Georgetown basketball game!

Kevin and my Mom picked Nate and I up from the airport and we headed straight to the Verizon Center - where, unfortunately, we saw ND get a good ol' fashion butt kickin'- they have been scoring upwards of 88 points every game- but this one- ha, they scored a whopping 48 points! Nice work- but we still had fun

and we did run into Retzke -->

Nate is looking a little short- but hey, Jon does have a good 4 inches on him!

We then headed to Kevin and Bryn's in preparation of the Baptism the following day! We had a full house - The entire Schmitt fam was in, and most of the Umhoffer fam (Matt and his wife stayed in LA with their newborn- Kennedy)

Here are some pics as the babies got in their car seats-

Ryan and his pal "the fish"

Brendan and his purple hippo, no dinosarurs here! And Miss katherine and her Lion

They all looked so cute in their baptism outfits!

Kevin and Ryan- Ryan seems to be wondering what Grandpa wants!

And Brendan is so excited to get this party started!

More to come.. off to dinner

New Years 2006

Happy New Year!!

This is a little late in the evening- hence the blurriness (thanks Nate!) but it shows everyone we had over to ring in the New Year! The Rouses were in from Boston for the weekend - this was the first of many pitches to try to get Doug and Katie to head south after Bean Town- and Karen came over for the festivities! We had a relatively low key weekend with Doug and Katie- the weather was horrible- but we ate well, drank well and enjoyed the company!


I am not sure why this one is posted, maybe because we are starting to get a little giddy- Katie is dancing a little New Year jig, I am in the middle of an amazing dance routine myself- and Doug and Nate are obviously catching us on their cameras- I believe we had just watched some of the New Year's show on tv- so who knows who was performing!


What better way to spend New Year's than to go out in the rain and play some corn hole! Karen had already left for the evening- since this game picked up at 12:15 am! Luckily we have no neighbors beside us yet and there is a good amount of space between us and those across the street! You can see Katie above celebrating a hole in one! And Doug and I proved to be the tough ones out in the rain! Well once it started pouring we decided we should move both boards to the garage!

Doug and I as we moved to the garage

Doug and Katie are dancing the "little red light" dance- aka the garage door safety light- every time they crossed the plane, the light went on! Again, this is now after 1:30am or so :)

We had a great New Year's and look forward to 2007-

If you find your way to NC this year please give us a call as we would love to see you!

Time for a few house projects

Over our holiday vacation, we knocked out some small house projects at the top of our to-do list --- complete our "library", construct our sports closet and a bonus: hang the kayaks on loan from Hal and Margaret in the garage.

A before shot of the space were the library would reisde --- our house had the option of an elevator, so we have tons of storage space on each floor. We wanted to make the most out of the main floor and figured a place to keep our books would be ideal.

And voila! The finished product. Not carpenter quality, but Megan and I built it together --- it turned out not half bad.

As for our sports equipment, we used the downstairs closet and some simple pegboard (which Megan had a strange fondness for --- wanting to more up elsewhere in the house). It will be nice to not have to dig through large tupperwares to find specific stuff. We look fwd to the added convenience --- we're now 6% more efficient.

As mentioned above, we transferred the Schmitts' 2 kayaks from Lynchburg to Charlotte in hopes of getting some winter use --- based on the weather over the last month, we should definitely be able to get them in the water.

The Jeep was happy to participate.

At 12ft we had to be creative considering the layout of our garage, so we constructed a simple storage system above the garage doors.

In all, we accomplished quite a bit in a couple days and look fwd to finding time for the next items on our list: Shelving for the garage and a trip to the nursery to explore options for the space around our patio.

The Schmitt Triplets

Here are some fun pics of the babies-

Kevin is already learning them!

Go Cards!

'They just needed us watching to win the Series!!'

Sporting their Bank of America onesies- nice branding!

Ryan, Brendan and Katherine

(she was so excited to put on her favorite outfit that she blew her sock right off! )

This is their "Bank of America Stare" much like the care bear stare, but this one is asking for investment $$ for their 529c's. I am working on getting them hired as models - I mean look at them, who could refuse their cute little faces trying to sell our products!

Christmas #2

We spent Christmas in Lynchburg with the Schmitts- we drove up Saturday and stayed until Wed. It was a great trip filled with lots of family time and good eats! Unfortunately my brother Hal could not make it in for the holiday but we did get lots of triplet time as soon as Kevin and Bryn arrived on Sunday.

Here is a shot of the fam- Nate is holding Akula (we didn't want him to feel left out) then me- holding Ryan, Kevin, Bryn holding Katherine, Mom and Dad holding Brendan! Everyone managed to look at the camera for this photo- which is amazing! The babies are all doing great! They are about 5.5 months old and are all weighing in at 14+lbs! Brendan is the largest right now, Katherine has the most hair (and it is an adorable red!) and Ryan is holding his own as the most easy going (at least when we are around! ) I had some good baby bonding time and had the pleasure of teaching them all about stockings and the bounty that comes with the birth of Jesus (I am their Godmother, so I tried my best to intertwine some religious teachings with those of Christmas commercialism)

Bryn and Kevin are doing great, and have three very beautiful, healthy and happy babies- we will see them again soon, and I can't wait- they (the babies) change every time we see them!

Christmas morning!!

Nate and I holding some new books- Barefoot Contessa for me, and some Jackson Hole and fly-fishing ones for Nathan.
"Read your own books!"

Nate's proud of his new waders-

hopefully by the time we get to jackson Hole next summer for our friend Jenn's wedding we will have been fly-fishing enough around NC to look like pros :)

We somehow managed to get NO photos of our delicious dinner spread - nor did we get any pics of the desserts of the season- lots of chocolate- mousse and pudding pies and pecan pie- not to mention chocolate chip cookies and peanut butter delights (my new name for a cookie we made)

After a few great days in Lynchburg with the fam (though it never seems long enough) we headed back home to Charlotte - with kayaks attached to the top of our vehicle- my parents have graciously let us borrow their kayaks- see the next post- and many fun new gifts!

(I will do another post with some cute baby photos)

We hope everyone had a wonderful holidays!

Posted by Megan (Using Nate's login)