The Biltmore Estate

Today, Kendra had the day off. She has been working really hard as she is the event coordinator for Biltmore Baptist and there are a lot of events connected with the global missions celebration. We were excited to be able to spend the day with her. We went to Sonic for lunch and the kids loved that they bring the burgers out on roller skates.

Afterwards, she and Trudy took us to the Biltmore Estate. What a place! It was built in 1895 and is the largest private residence in North America. When it was built it had electricity and refrigeration. It really is something else! The kids were given a scavenger hunt to do while we toured the house. I think they found most things on it. The best line of the day came from Daniel when we were touring the servant quarters. “Hey, even these rooms are bigger than ours!” I personally liked the banquet hall with the pipe organ and the indoor bowling alley and swimming pool! It is hard to believe that it was built for a family of three people! We had so much fun thinking up uses for the house if we owned it. We could have a church, a music school, a café, our whole church family could live there and even have one whole wing left over for our friend Cheri! I was not allowed to take photos of the inside of the house but I did get some of the grounds and the outside.

After visiting the house, we went to see more of the immense grounds and the winery. The kids had a blast as they got to stomp grapes. I was the official photographer and therefore unable to participate but they told me it was cold and TJ said it was disgusting. There was a lot of laughter, funny faces and defiantly some good sports as Kendra and Elva Jean stomped grapes too. Moments to remember for sure!

We spent the evening with people from Biltmore trying to have a bonfire between the rain drops. We were not very successful! Oh well, there is always tomorrow night.
The other exciting news of the day is that we were able to find a gas station with gas and were able to fill up! Yeah God! So with a full tank of gas we are ready for tomorrow!