Our Future Home

As of October 1st, 2010 this will be our new homestead for a while. The house is located in Maylene, AL (on the other side of Helena), and consist of 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a fireplace, a garage and a backyard. These were our main requirements in a house so we were very happy to find this place that was within our budget! We of course do not have the keys to get in to the house yet since our lease doesn't start until the first, but once Josh and I found out we would be living here we wanted to go by and take some pictures and explore around a little bit (so outside pictures will have to do for now). We really loved the neighborhood, it seems to be full of people around our age, and of course I was totally pumped that there was a nature trail that I can go running on! The backyard will be perfect for Duke too! We brought him along with us today to give him a taste of his future home. I think he approved:-) Anyway, I will update with more pictures once we can actually get IN the house.

Hiking the Cohutta Wilderness

On our way to the Cohutta Wilderness in North Georgia for some hiking and camping!

About to start our hiking adventure with the Dukester.

Duke and I on the trail.

Josh posing in front of the beautiful mountains.

True mountaineers.
The scenery was absolutely beautiful!

Duke enjoyed the water quite a good bit too.

Our campsite! (Josh looks thrilled doesn't he?)

Josh is making us some purified water from the creek (thanks to Adam and Bentley for sending us the water purifier. Couldn't have made it without it!).

Our tent was awesome! Best Christmas present ever! (Thanks mom)

Eating the infamous Raman Noodles for dinner. It's a camping must!

Posing by the falls with our boy!

Aaaannnd again....

We found some rather large trees on the trail.

Josh committing a big forestry "no no" (carving our "brand" on a beech tree).

Our brand!

Aaaaannnd we made it back! Half dead from exhaustion and lack of sleep, but we made it back!

For Labor Day weekend, Josh and I had been planning a hiking/camping trip to the Cohutta Wilderness in the North Georgia mountains. The Hike was about 5 miles in to set up camp and 5 miles back out, crossing the Jacks River a few times on the way. So we loaded up our packs, grabbed the Dukester and we were on our way early Saturday morning. We made it to the trail and started the hike at about 11:00 on Saturday morning, and made it to camp at about 3:30 or so that afternoon (not positive on the time considering neither Josh nor I had any sort of time-telling device with us). The hike was beautiful (as you can see from the pics) and I think we found Duke's calling in life. He was definitely born to hike and explore the trails! He was always leading the way (never closer than about 50 yards ahead of us), and would run back to us to let us know if he saw anything important up ahead. What a little trooper! We really had the best time on our little hiking journey this past weekend. It was so nice to just get away from the business of life and relax out in the quite, peacefulness of nature. We will definitely be making another hiking trip soon. If not for us, than for our little explorer Duke!