This is such an exciting milestone—progress worth celebrating! 🎉 Our well has been dug, and the new septic system is officially installed—hooray! Now we’re just waiting for our contractor to finalize quotes before moving forward with the retaining wall and foundation. Let’s hope the winter weather cooperates!
It’s definitely taken longer than we expected, but we’re finally starting to see a little light at the end of the tunnel. More progress (and pictures) to come soon!
September 2025 - 359 days after Helene
Can you believe we’re coming up on the one-year mark since HELLene hit? I can hardly wrap my head around it. But here we are—still standing and slowly but surely making progress.
After what felt like hurdle upon hurdle (upon hurdle), we finally have our house plans in hand and all the permits approved to rebuild. HOORAY! Huge credit goes to Shep for tackling that exhausting permitting process—it felt endless, and he got us through it.
Amid all of that, we had to say goodbye to our sweet Blanca. She now rests at the property, where she’ll be watching over us from dog heaven for years to come.
This week brings another big step forward: a team is coming to dig a water well and install a new septic system. Before the hurricane, we were on spring water, but with no house in the way right now, it’s the perfect time to get a well put in. The septic situation was a whole saga of its own—our old system worked fine, but since we’re rebuilding a three-bedroom home, the county required a brand-new one. Definitely an expense we didn’t anticipate, but it’s a non-negotiable. (Because let’s be honest—poop is serious business, friends!)
We finally feel like real progress is happening, and we’ll have much more to share soon. Thank you for being on this journey with us!
A, J, E, T
Hello! It's been a few months, so I thought I would give you a short update on our progress. Well, there are NO updates! The weather has caused a long delay so nothing has happened since the middle of December. It's either been a muddy mess up there...or the ground is frozen solid. So, until the weather warms up, there isn't a whole lot to share.
We hope you all are doing well and having a wonderful 2025 so far.
Hugs from the mountains of North Carolina,
Jaymie
Hello family & friends,
Things are moving quickly up here on the mountain. Here are some pictures of what our property looks like today...
2017 - The beginning. Long story short, we decided to move to North Carolina from California in 2016. We lived in a cozy little cabin until we were able to purchase our first home in 2017. Our new home needed a lot of work. It was built by a man who lived in Florida and used it as his "vacation" home. Shortly after he passed away, we were able to purchase, demo, and completely make the home ours. Lots of sweat and tears...but it was ours and we worked so hard.
Here are some before, during, and after pictures of our remodel. I experienced a lot of emotions looking back through these...not gonna lie!
September 27, 2024 - How we ended up here!
We heard the reports that Helene was heading our way. We just never thought (in a million years) she would change our lives that day. We woke up around 6am, the wind was howling and the rain was still falling. It had been raining heavily for 2 days straight, so the ground was saturated. The storm was scheduled to leave our area shortly after 10:30am. So, we hunkered down, watched at least 12-15 trees fall on either side of our house, trapping us inside, and praying for our safety. Around 7:20am the wind gusts were recording at over 70mph and around 8:30am an extremely large tree fell into our house. Then around 9:30, the winds started to slow and my brother in law made the journey up to our house to gather the kids and took them to his house. The tree falling into our house was extremely traumatizing for all of us, as you can imagine.
I am BEYOND GRATEFUL (and always will be) he gathered my kids up when he did. Because about 20 minutes after they left, the saturated land behind our house rolled into our house at rapid speed and moved our entire house 3-4 feet off the foundation....while my husband and I were inside! Andrew grabbed the dog and we got out of the house immediately.
After the storm cleared, our neighbors got to work clearing the roads and surveying the damage. And it was extreme! We wouldn't know the devastating impact of HELLene brought upon others until the next day.
Here are pictures of all the damage on our home & property.
We spent the next 18 days without power and very limited cell phone service. Our mountain family joined together and helped cleared trees & remove important belongings from our home.
As of today (December 6, 2024), our first home has been demolished. We are currently staying in the same cozy little cabin we lived in in 2016 surrounded by a wonderful community, family & friends that will help us rebuild!
Thank you for following along on this incredible journey!
