Biltmore House

Yesterday we toured the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina. It was the kids first visit, but the rest of us have been there before - for Ben and I, our last visit was in July of 2002 when we were there for Doug and Andrea's wedding, and I was 7 months pregnant with Sam. I remember it being very hot.

Not the case this year. It was in the 60's and rainy, and Maria was the only one of the four of us who was prepared. We are never cold on our Kiawah trip, so we didn't pack another pants or sweatshirts. But Maria had bought a Kiawah sweatshirt, so she was set. And luckily while we were touring the house it warmed up considerably.

We got to the estate about an hour before our tour time, so we spent some time in the toy store where the kids spent their last of their allowance money.

We spent a little over an hour touring the house - we went at Sam's pace, so we didn't spend a huge amount of time in any one room. The kids enjoyed the basement the most - where the swimming pool was, and all of the servants quarters, kitchens, etc. When we left the house the rain had cleared up so we were able to tour the garden as well, although we really just did a quick walk-through.

After the tour we went to lunch at a very tasty buffet on the estate (guess who didn't eat anything?) and then stopped at the winery on the way out. Ben did some tasting but I was too full from lunch.

We got on the road to head back to Ohio about 2:30, and got home about 11:30. It was a fairly easy trip, and we are so glad to be home. It feels like we have been gone forever - June was a very busy month. Looking forward to not packing the suitcases for a few weeks. But it was a great trip, and the kids will have lots of good memories.