We left Columbia at 2:00PM on Friday, and standing on the top of Triple Falls in DuPont state forest shortly after 5. I’ve been to Triple Falls 4 or 5 times, but I’ve never seen anything like what I saw this time. There were 4 or 5 kayakers who ended up going straight down the middle waterfall. It was incredible, and there is no way I would ever do that.

Triple Falls

Saturday, our goal was to visit new places where we had never been before. We are both creatures of habit, and normally go the same place each time. We started the day off hiking on the Art Loeb Trail. We drove down 475 until the Art Loeb crosses at Gloucester Gap. Our goal was to make it to the top of Pilot Mountain. I wasn’t sure of the milage, but I’m guessing that from Gloucester Gap to Pilot Mountain would have been somewhere between 4-5 miles (round trip). The best thing about that trail was that even on Labor Day weekend, we didn’t see a single person on the trail. We didn’t make it to the top though. The trial was extremely steep – over 1000 ft gained in elevation in about 1.5 miles that we did. Also, we had some other places that we wanted to go, and didn’t want to waste all of our energy early in the day.

Overlook on hike to Pilot Mountain - Art Loeb Trail

After the hike, we drove to French Broad Falls and Shoal Creek Falls. Ashley took some amazing  pictures here. It was extremely easy to get to, as it took less than 2 minutes to hike (walk) from the road to the waterfall. I wish I had a bathing suit, because it was a perfect place to go for a swim.

French Broad Falls

Shoal Creek Falls

Once we left those falls, we headed further down Hwy 215 to Courthouse Falls. You take a dirt road for about 3 miles, and then it’s a short 10 minute hike to the falls. Courthouse falls was a beautiful sight to see. Apparently, people jump from the top of the falls even though it’s 45 feet high. Once again, not something I’m interested in doing. No amount of peer pressure could induce me to stand on that ledge and jump.

The day ended with dinner with dinner at Papa’s and Beer in Hendersonville. If you haven’t eaten there, you gotta go and try one of the burritos. I believe that what I had was called the Asada burrito? Incredible!

Without a doubt, the best part of the day was getting to spend an entire day (and a half) with ashley in the mountains. Thank you Lord for the beautiful weather! We couldn’t have asked for a better day.

Natural Beauty!

My Favorite Picture of the Week

Ashley and I just got back last week from the best trip of our life! I figured that was reason enough to revive the old blog for at least a day right?

We spent a week at Sandals Grande Ocho Rios Beach Resort. We realized that it was actually the first week since our honeymoon that we spent a consecutive week together with just the two of us. The reason for the week long vacation was to celebrate our 5th anniversary and Ashley successfully completing a year of school at Paul Mitchell. Our honeymoon was awesome 5 years ago. We went to Asheville and spent a week in a cabin, but we both wanted to have the Caribbean, blue water, all-inclusive, week long adventure before we had kids.

Jamaica was all that we dreamed it would be. It was by far one of the greatest weeks I’ve ever spent in my life. I think we enjoyed it a ton more at this stage in life than we would have 5 years ago if we did it on our honeymoon. We’ve both never been so relaxed in our life.

Here’s a recap of the week.

The best thing that we did, by a long shot, was the 65ft Catamaran Cruise. We sat on the nets on the front of the boat, and the seas were pretty rough when we went on Thursday. So, it was an awesome ride. I was a little worried of getting sea sick, because the waves were huge, but it was awesome. The trip was broken into 3 parts – First, the boat went to Dunn’s River Falls. It’s a waterfall that literally spills into the ocean. It’s about 900 ft of gradual water falls, and we hiked up, through the middle of the falls in the water, to the top. The water was freezing but it really was an amazing sight to see.

After the waterfalls, the boat went to a huge reef where we went snorkeling. We took a snorkeling trip through the resort a few days earlier, and the experience snorkeling at this huge reef was 100x better. We followed a guide, whose name was Travis, and pointed out tons of amazing things to us. He picked up a VERY LONG eel, went down and rustled up a sting ray from out of the sand, and put a sea urchin in my hand, and I immediately had about 20 small fish trying to eat from my hand. After snorkeling, it was just a huge party on the ocean. It was definitely one of the coolest things that either of us have ever done!

On the resort, there are about 8 restaurants that you can eat at each night. I would have to say that the food was probably one of the biggest let-downs of the week. Some of it was awesome, but there were some meals where I could have easily cooked up something better than what was brought out to me. Our favorite restaurants were the 2 Italian restaurants. However, the nice thing about most of the restaurants was the view. You can’t really complain when you are on a pier over the ocean eating dinner as the sun is setting. During one dinner, there was a really bad storm out on the ocean, and we tried for forever to get a picture of the lightning. (Ashley, who took all of the pictures during the week, finally succeeded. I’m pretty sure that if she really wanted to, she could be a successful photographer and make a living doing that. ) Our favorite meal, without a doubt, was lunch everyday. There is a little outdoor grill that cooks bacon cheeseburgers, fries, grilled chicken, grilled cheese, jamaican jerk chicken, and more french fries ALL DAY long. Some days I ate French Fries at 10:30 am.  One of my favorite Jamaicans worked there each day named Raquel. All of the Jamaicans who worked at the resort were some of the friendliest people that I have ever met.

Another one of my favorite things about a week at the beach is getting into a good book. The past 2 books I’ve read during a “beach week” were Lonesome Dove and East Of Eden. Both are two of my favorite books and have each been read multiple times since then. So I put a lot of thought and am probably a little too concerned about what I should read. I ended up reading Ken Follett’s Pillars of The Earth. It was written in 1989, but became popular again a few years ago because Oprah started to promote it. It’s a story that follows the building of a cathedral and the battle between church and state in 12th century England. I would highly recommend it if you enjoy reading. It’s almost 1000 pages, but it is very easy to get interested in.

Finally, Ashley and I made a bet before we left. Anywhere we go, we always see someone we know. That’s what happens when you both grow up and spend your entire life in the same neck of the woods. She said that we would see someone we knew. I said there was no possible way. On about the 3rd day, I am sitting in the water at the resort getting ready to get on a boat to go snorkeling.  A girl comes up and says, “I don’t mean to be a creeper (or something like that), but do you still lead worship at Midtown?” Needless to say, I lost the bet. Midtown people are EVERYWHERE.

I will let the pictures below tell the rest of the story! Enjoy!!!!! To see more pictures, here they are on Ashley’s facebook.

Sunset on the catamaran

Dunn's River Falls

In the freezing cold water

The awesome boat!

Picture taken by the Underwater Cameraman

Standing on the Beach Pier at night

Storm out at sea during dinner

Reading in the shade

the POOL

Ashley loves the self timer

“I Asked the Lord That I Might Grow”

 I asked the Lord that I might grow
In faith, and love, and every grace;
Might more of His salvation know,
And seek, more earnestly, His face.

’Twas He who taught me thus to pray,
And He, I trust, has answered prayer!
But it has been in such a way,
As almost drove me to despair.

I hoped that in some favored hour,
At once He’d answer my request;
And by His love’s constraining pow’r,
Subdue my sins, and give me rest.

Instead of this, He made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart;
And let the angry pow’rs of hell
Assault my soul in every part.

Yea more, with His own hand He seemed
Intent to aggravate my woe;
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,
Blasted my gourds, and laid me low.

Lord, why is this, I trembling cried,
Wilt thou pursue thy worm to death?
“’Tis in this way, the Lord replied,
I answer prayer for grace and faith.

These inward trials I employ,
From self, and pride, to set thee free;
And break thy schemes of earthly joy,
That thou may’st find thy all in Me.”

So give us some help. Where are places between here and Maine that we have to go to? We’d like to hit Boston, DC, Baltimore (we’ve got good friends there), anywhere in Maine, and who knows what else.

Leave some comments and let us know!

To start out, Ashley and I left Columbia on Christmas Eve and drove to Gatlinburg, Tennessee for a Christmas vacation all by ourselves. After the crazy months we had in November and December, we needed some time to reconnect in a major way.

• We stayed at a cabin in Wears Valley right on the edge of Great Smoky Mountain National Park from Thursday to Sunday. We slept almost 12 hours each night, ate out at some incredible restaurants, read books, and basically did absolutely nothing.  We had planned on going hiking and doing a few other things, but each time we agreed that we would rather just stay in the cabin and not go anywhere. Here are a few pics from the weekend.
• One other fun thing we got to do before Christmas was to provide some bluegrass music for a Christmas party. Easily one of the highlights of December. Here are a few pics from that night.

• 
• For New Years, we each worked a half day on New Years Eve, ate lunch together at Sandy’s Hot Dogs. We had a great party with some Midtown folks where we fortunately weren’t killed by any of the fireworks, and then once again did nothing Friday Saturday and Sunday. We slept, watched movies, read, ate some great chili, had lunch with Ashley’s family at Hudson’s, and watched more movies.

• *Funny story from lunch at Hudson’s* – A waitress comes up while both of us are sitting there, and asks Ashley, “Hey, don’t you sing at midtown? You have an awesome voice and I just wanted to tell you that.” Yup, not sure she even recognized me. I wish that you could have seen how hard Ashley was laughing while this girl was trying to talk to her. God knows how to keep me humble. This happens often in our relationship – and I agree 100%, her voice and looks are much more memorable than mine!

God is incredibly gracious to Ashley and I. I’m so thankful to have such a wonderful wife and I’m also incredibly thankful for the time of rest that he has provided for each of us. I’m ready to roll again!

It’s hard to believe that 2009 is almost over. Although this week seems to be dragging by as I await our Christmas vacation, 2009 has really flown by, as all years seem to pass quicker and quicker as you get closer to 30.  Here’s a quick meaningless list of some of my favorite “things” from 2009.

Favorite Books

• Worship Matters
  •  Great book on multiple aspects for a worship leader
• Ender’s Game
  •  I’m not a huge SciFi fan, but this book is awesome and I sped through it in no time at all.

Favorite Movie

• There Will Be Blood
  • obviously not a new movie, but just saw it for the first time this year and loved it. The soundtrack was just as awesome.
  • I used to watch movies all the time, but didn’t see many at all this year.

Favorite Video Game

• NCAA Football 2010
  • really, is there ever a better game each year than NCAA Football?

Favorite New Music

• Peter Bradley Adams
  • Traces and Leavetaking are 2 fantastic albums. One came out this year, and the other had been out, but I just started listening to him this year.
• Mindy Smith
  • Stupid Love is a good bit different from her older stuff, but I’ve really started to like it a lot.
• Works Progress Administration
  • Glen Phillips rarely puts out anything bad, and combined with Sean Watkins and Luke Bulla, this album is awesome.

Favorite New Worship Tunes

• Hallelujah To My King – Paul Baloche
  • Paul Baloche’s stuff isn’t nearly as popular nationwide as the Hillsong stuff, but his stuff shouldn’t be overlooked just because it isn’t as flashy musically. Lyrically, this song stands above just about any other song sung today.
  •  ”Oh how great the kindness our God has shown. We were strangers, now we’re called His own. His grace has welcomed the sinner home tender mercies, lead us to The Throne. Hallelujah, what a savior, I owe everything to Him.”
• Because of Your Love – Phil Wickham
  • Because of your cross my debt is paid, because of your blood, my sins are washed away.
  • I’ve always loved Phil Wickham, and his new album is great.

Favorite Scriptures

• Ephesians 2:4-10
  • But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,  even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,  so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.  For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,  not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

The christmas gathering at Midtown was a ton of fun to be a part of! Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!