Great article..for guys and gals...

I hope Ginger (not to mention the author) won't mind my lifting their article for my blog. Despite the title, I thought it was a great read for both guys and girls. Here it is:

Stop Test-Driving Your Girlfriend

by Michael Lawrence

"How do I know if she's the one?" I can't think of a question I encounter more often among single Christian men. The point of the question is clear enough. But a rich irony dwells beneath the question. In a culture that allows us to choose the person we're going to marry, no one wants to make the wrong choice. Especially if, as Christians, we understand that the choice we make is a choice for life. The question is not merely ironic. If what you're after is a marriage that will glorify God and produce real joy for you and your bride, it's also the wrong question. That's because the unstated goal of the question is "How do I know if she's the one ... for me."

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The question frames the entire decision-making process in fundamentally self-oriented - if not downright selfish - terms. And it puts the woman on an extended trial to determine whether or not she meets your needs, fits with your personality, and satisfies your desires. It places you at the center of the process, in the role of a window-shopper, or consumer at a buffet. In this scenario you remain unexamined, unquestioned, and unassailable - sovereign in your tastes and preferences and judgments.

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The problem of course is that as a single Christian man, not only are you going to marry a sinner, but you are a sinner as well. From a consumeristic perspective, no woman on this planet is ever going to perfectly meet your specifications. What's more, your unexamined requirements for a spouse are inevitably twisted by your own sinful nature.

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The Bible reminds us that though our marriages are to be pictures of the gospel relationship between Christ and the church, none of us get to marry Jesus. Instead, like Hosea, we all marry Gomer; that is to say, we all marry another sinner, whom God intends to use to refine and grow our faith in Jesus. So what's a guy to do? Ask the right questions.

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To begin with, start with a different question. Instead of asking if she's the one, you should ask yourself, "Am I the sort of man a godly woman would want to marry?" If you're not, then you'd be better off spending less time evaluating the women around you, and more time developing the character of a disciple. Start by considering the characteristics of an elder that Paul lays out in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, and work toward those. Then you should ask another question: "What sort of qualities should I be looking for in a wife so that my marriage will be a picture of the relationship between Christ and the church?" If you're not sure what those characteristics are, then spend some time reading Proverbs 31, Titus 2:3-5, 1 Peter 3:1-7 and Ephesians 5:22-33.

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Once you've asked the right questions, and once you've found someone you suspect fits the biblical description of a godly wife, you now need to decide whether to get married. And men, though this is a big decision, it's not a decision that should take too long. How long is too long for a dating relationship? The Bible doesn't provide a timetable (after all, most marriages were arranged during Biblical times). But it does provide principles that point us in the direction of making a decision to marry or break up in the shortest appropriate time. Think like a servant, not a consumerIn 1 Thessalonians 4:6, Paul warns the Thessalonian Christians against "taking advantage" of their brothers or sisters. The larger context in the first eight verses makes clear that what Paul primarily has in view is sexual immorality, in which you take from one another a physical intimacy not rightfully yours. But the text also suggests that there are other ways you can take advantage of one another in a dating relationship. And one of the primary ways men do this is to elicit and enjoy all the benefits of unending companionship and emotional intimacy with their girlfriends without ever committing to the covenant relationship of marriage.

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Too often in dating relationships we think and act like consumers rather than servants. And not very good consumers at that. After all, no one would ever go down to his local car dealership, take a car out for an extended test drive, park it in his garage, drive it back and forth to work for several weeks, maybe take it on vacation, having put lots of miles on it, and then take it back to the dealer and say, "I'm just not ready to buy a new car."But so often, that's exactly the way men treat the women they're dating. Endlessly "test driving" the relationship, without any real regard for the spiritual and emotional wear and tear they're putting her through, all the while keeping their eyes out for a better model. The Scriptures are clear. We are not to take advantage of one another in this way. Instead, as Paul says in Romans 13:10, "Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law."Remember that love is never easy.

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One of the myths out there is that if you just spend enough time searching, if you can just gather enough information, you'll find a woman with whom marriage will be "easy." The fact is, such a woman doesn't exist, and if she did, she likely wouldn't marry you. And that means that you don't need as much information as you think you do. No matter how long you've dated, everyone marries a stranger. That's because fundamentally dating is an artificial arrangement in which you're trying to be on your best behavior. Marriage on the other hand is real life. And it's only in the context of day-in, day-out reality, with the vulnerability and permanence that marriage provides, that we learn what another person is really like. Some of the things we learn about each other aren't easy. But who ever said that love and marriage were supposed to be easy?

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Men, the point of marriage is that we learn to love our wives as Christ loved the church. Yes, as Revelation 21 and Ephesians 5 tell us, one day, Christ's bride will be perfectly beautiful, without spot or blemish, altogether lovely and loveable. But the church is not there yet. First, Christ had to commit himself to us, even to death on a cross. This is the model we're called to follow. It's not an easy model, but it is worth it. So your goal should not be to date her long enough until you're confident marriage won't be hard, but to date her just long enough to discern if you're willing to love her sacrificially, and if she's willing to respond to that kind of love. Remember that to commit does not mean to settle.

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Does this mean you should just "settle" for the first Christian woman who comes along? No, not at all. You should be making this decision in light of the qualities held out in Scripture for a godly wife, and you should marry the godliest, most fruitful, most spiritually beautiful woman you can convince to have you. But you also need to be aware that you live in a culture that says the ultimate good in life is to always keep your options open, and that any commitment is inevitably "settling" for less than you could have tomorrow. You must reject that kind of thinking for the worldly garbage that it is. Did Jesus Christ settle for the church? No, he loved the church, and gave his life as a ransom for her (Mark 10:45). Marriage is fundamentally a means to glorify and serve God, not by finding someone who will meet our needs and desires, but by giving ourselves to another for their good. So if you find yourself hesitating about committing to a godly, biblically-qualified woman, then ask yourself, "Are my reasons biblical, or am I just afraid that if I commit, someone better will walk around the corner after it's too late?" Consumers are always on the lookout for something better. Christ calls us to trust Him that in finding a wife, we have found "what is good and receive favor from the Lord" (Prov. 18:22).Marry true beauty when you find it.

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Finally, the Scriptures call us to develop an attraction to true beauty. 1 Peter 3:3-6 describes the beautiful wife as a woman who has a gentle and quiet spirit, born out of her faith and hope in God, and displayed in her trusting submission to her husband. Men, is the presence of this kind of beauty the driving force for your sense of attraction to your girlfriend? Or have you made romantic attraction and "chemistry" the deciding issue? Now don't get me wrong. You should be physically attracted to the woman you marry. This is one of the ways marriage serves as a protection against sexual immorality (1 Cor. 7:3-5). But we get in trouble, both in dating and in marriage, when we make physical beauty and "chemistry" the threshold issue in the decision to commit (or remain committed) to marriage. Physical beauty in a fallen world is fading and transient. What's more, the world narrowly defines beauty as the body of a teenager, and scorns the beauty of motherhood and maturity. But in which "body" is your wife going to spend most of her years with you? Personalities also change and mature, and what seems like "chemistry" when you're 22 might feel like superficial immaturity 10 years later. Even over the course of a long courtship and engagement in the prime of your youth, physical attraction and chemistry are sure to go through ups and downs. We must resist the temptation to value the wrong kind of beauty.

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No one lives in a perpetual state of "being in love." But in marriage, our love is called to "always protect, always trust, always hope, always persevere" (1 Cor. 13:7). If mere worldly, physical beauty is the main thing attracting our love, then our love will prove as ephemeral as that beauty. But if we have developed an attraction to true beauty, then we have nothing to fear. Marry a vibrant growing Christian woman, and you have Christ's promise that he is committed to making her more and more beautiful, spiritually beautiful, with every passing day (Rom. 8:28; Phil. 1:6).

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More questions to ask: How then do you decide, in a reasonable amount of time, whether or not to marry the woman you're dating? Let me conclude with some more questions you should be asking:

• Generally speaking, will you be able to serve God better together than apart?
• Do you desire to fulfill the biblical role of a husband outlined in Ephesians 5:22-33 with this specific woman?
• Do you want to love her sacrificially?
• Does this relationship spur you on in your Christian discipleship, or does it dull and distract your interest in the Lord and his people?
• Are you more or less eager to study God's word, and pray, and give yourself in service as a result of time spent together?
• Do you think she will make a good discipler of your children?
• What do other mature Christian friends and family members say about your relationship?
• Do they see a relationship that is spiritually solid and God-glorifying?

If you can't answer the questions at all, then you may need to spend some more time getting to know each other. But if you can answer them (and others like them) either positively or negatively, then it's time to stop test-driving the relationship and either commit to marriage or let someone else have the opportunity.

Copyright © 2006 Michael Lawrence. All rights reserved. International copyright secured.

Halloween in Philly

Well it wasn't quite Halloween, but Hannah and Heidi (my two cousins in Philadelphia) and their roommates were having a costume party this weekend in Philadelphia, and Shelly (their sister) was flying in for it, so that's where I was this weekend. It was so much fun. Everyone that came really got into dressing up, and there were some great costumes (but I think ours were the prettiest). Here we are below. Hannah (far left) was Esmerelda, and her friend Farley dressed up as Quasimodo (Hunchback of Notre Dame) - they both looked great. Between Hannah and I is Shelly, who was a Moulin Rouge dancer. On the far right is Heidi, who was a colonial lady, and found the prettiest dress at this costume shop in Philly.

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The party was a lot of fun - their roommate Anne, who teaches ESL at Penn, invited a lot of her students, who all came, even though they had no idea what Halloween was about. Thankfully, Hannah once had to write a paper on its origins, so she explained to them what it was all about. Apparently the whole Jack-O-Lantern thing comes from a Celtic tradition where they'd carve gourds and put them in front of their houses to ward away evil spirits. Anne had two students, one from Japan and one from South Korea, who came with digital cameras in hand, and took pictures with literally everyone in costume at the party. Now I bet we're all on Japanese/South Korean blogs and/or MySpace sites....

The next day we went out to this cool little diner, and then went to the Edgar Allan Poe House. I'm glad I went, so I can add it to the list of things I've done and impress maybe, oh, one person at a party 30 years from now, but other than that it was a bit of a disappointment. The Poes only lived in Philadelphia for 6 years, and during that time, they moved 5 times. The only reason this house is known as "THE" E.A.P. house is that it's the only structure they lived in that's still standing. However, it's been extensively remodeled, and is completely empty. Apparently they had no records or receipts to tell them what was in the house, and decided not to guess. So you walk through a completely empty house. One room is furnished according to what one of his characters said he preferred in a pamphlet, but as many of his narrators are 180-degrees opposed to Poe's true sentiments, it's hard to tell whether he really liked this sort of decoration, or whether he thought it was the ultimate in tacky. Kind of funny....It would be like me writing a short story with a character preferring, say, Austin-Powers-esque decorations, and then 100 years from now, a tour guide leading guests through my old house, pointing out that I really loved plastic furniture and formica.

The one redeeming quality was that in the one furnished room, they had a CD player with recordings of Christopher Walken reading "The Raven," which were quite entertaining and more than made up for any lack of decor.

Pseudoseizures

So in this George Orwell-1984-world, where we can't call a spade a spade, we have such a thing as pseudoseizures. Pseudoseizures are when the patient is faking seizures, for whatever reason, but of course there is no ICD-9 code for "fake seizures," and we therefore can't bill for it, so we call it "pseudoseizures" which DOES have an ICD-9 code, and makes everybody happy. In the medicine world, for whatever reason, when someone is faking something (be it consciously or subconsciously) it is a rule never to confront them about it, because the story goes that your confronting them just might push them over whatever edge they are teetering on at the moment.

I am not sure I buy that.

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Last night I admitted a patient that was doing perhaps the worst impersonation of seizures ever. Here are some rules about seizures:

1. If it's a real seizure, the patient loses control of their bladder and/or bowels. Since people tend not to like to wet/soil themselves, the fact that a patient (and I'm sorry to say it, but it's almost invariably a female) stays continent throughout a "seizure" is one of your first clues that it's fake. My patient stayed continent.

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2. A seizure is an area in the brain where neurons are firing like crazy, and one of the signs is that the patient's eyes deviate together toward the focus (area) of the seizure....My patient kept her eyes open, blinked them like a normal conscious person, and looked around the room.

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3. One of the medications we use to stop a seizure, Valium, take at LEAST a few minutes to work. Upon being given 5ml normal saline (i.e. salt water), my patient promptly "woke up."

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4. After a patient has a seizure, they are post-ictal (just means "post-seizure") for usually 30-60 minutes, if not more. Basically they are really groggy, and can't really talk or answer questions. My patient had no post-ictal period at all. She would stop rocking (also a good sign it's not a real seizure) and within 15-20 seconds be fully alert.

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Unfortunately, most of the people who come in with things like this have some reason to want to stay in the hospital, as I suspect this patient has. It would be much simpler for all of us (not to mention it would get me to the gym and/or Panera that much faster) if they found some other way of letting their stress out....

So there is your 5-minute tutorial about seizures vs. pseudoseizures.

Test on Friday. Just kidding!

Interviews so far:

I've heard about a couple more interviews in the past few days, so I thought I'd post a tentative schedule. Right now I'm only getting interviews for categorical medicine (3 year internal medicine programs) and medicine prelim years (the year of medicine you have to do before starting the 3 years of dermatology). I won't hear about derm interviews for at least another month (I think...) [Half the reason of posting this is in case something happens to my Palm in the next month or so and I lose my schedule!]

11/10 - Case Western in Cleveland, OH (prelim medicine) - this I'm particularly excited about because their derm program is the one that takes D.O.s into their derm program!

12/1 - Emory in Atlanta (categorical medicine)

12/4 - UT in Chattanooga (categorical medicine)

12/15 - Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, NC (categorical medicine)

That's it so far....

York RULES!!!!

I just have to express my amazement at how awesome this rotation is. For one, I have finished - seriously - at noon, 11:30, and 10:30 for the last 3 days. That just doesn't happen!!! On my first day with my attending, he handed me the list of patients and took off for the office. This place is so great! He doesn't teach much, but he lets me run the service, so I'm assuming I must've not looked like too much of a moron on my first couple of days, and it's so great. In the past 3 days, I have had time to go to work, go to the gym, take a nap, go to Panera, and read a fun book, ALL IN THE SAME DAY! The cafeteria food is great and free, and as long as you don't mumble your order, Gladys the lunch lady won't give you too much hassle (as my roommate Becca found out the hard way yesterday). It really just doesn't get any better than this.....

York, PA

Yesterday I drove from Durham, to York, PA, perhaps better known as "The Factory Tour Capital of the World." Hmmmm.......Anyhoo, the house is a teeny little postwar box-like thing that's actually pretty nice inside, after a bit of elbow grease. It's right next to the hospital, which is great. And guess what - we have memberships to this really nice health club right down the road. I already went today - I'm so proud of myself!

And who says God doesn't have a sense of humor? Below is the view from our front door - you got it, a Stouffers Cookie Factory! The little thing on the bottom right is the door to their factory store, which is right in front of our house! When I got there last night, it was dark and all I saw was the across the street was some kind of industrial complex. This morning, by 7, the air was already filled with this wonderful baking aroma....Yep, the same time I resolve to start working out and being healthy, God puts me right next to a cookie factory!

This is just a really pretty tree in our neighborhood. I love these - you never get these in California or Texas (or Arizona, for that matter!). This is one of the many things of the east coast/north that I never get tired of seeing......

I haven't met my attending yet, but I'm already inclined to think he's a great guy. When our student coordinator paged him about 12:30 to find out where to send me, he told her to tell me to go home & enjoy a day off - how cool is that! So I went to the gym, Panera (now), and then I'm going to meet the other students at a pub for MNF. What a great start - I am loving York already!

What I'll miss about NC:

As fun as York is turning out to be, I'm still really missing NC, and I can't wait to go to my interview in Charlotte in December. Here are some of the things that I am thinking I'll really miss:

The vegetarian sushi in the Duke cafeteria.

Miryam at Panera that spoke to me only in Spanish, and always had my tea ready for me as soon as I came in the door, which was so cool.

Cheesy dining establishments with names such as "Biscuitville" and "Bojangles."

All the maple trees that were turning such a beautiful pink, right when I had to leave.

Drivers so polite that they actually really mess up traffic flow, while giving you the (incorrect) right-of-way.

Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, with the 20 different houses I want to own someday (along with the house in Charleston, of course!).

Being abruptly woken up in the middle of the night to the honking of Canadian geese right outside my window (we had a flock that roamed the neighborhood and seemed to be very awake at odd hours - are geese nocturnal???)

And many other little things that will come back to me at random times....

Mommicked....

I was feeling kind of sad that I hadn't gotten to visit the Outer Banks (an island chain obviously on the eastern part of North Carolina) on my trip here, and this week, God sent me something soooo cool in place of it! (Maybe this is something only I could think is cool, but anyhoo....) So I had read in my North Carolina travel book about how some people from the Outer Banks speak a dialect and have an accent that is the closest thing to Old English. Fewer and fewer people are speaking it, but it says that if you go hang out on the docks, etc., you can still hear it.

Well, this week, while chatting with a patient and his daughter, I found out that they were from the Outer Banks, and I asked them if they knew where the people were that spoke Old English. They were like, "That's us!!" And when I remarked that neither of them seemed to have much of an accent, the daughter told me that as she worked in a bank, she'd basically had to lose the speech (it's really more a way of speaking, than an accent per se, I found out). She said that one of the things they say is "onliest" where we'd use "only." Even though she said she didn't use many of the words, I heard her say "onliest" several times throughout their visit when she wasn't thinking about it! Another thing she told me about was "mommick." It is usually used as a descriptor, as in "I'm all mommicked out." It sort of means to be overwhelmed/tuckered out. How neat is that!!!

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My patients were from one of the northern islands, near the Cape Lookout light house (otherwise known as the one painted with black-and-white diamonds). All the North Carolina lighthouses are painted in black and white, but with different patterns. I think they're beautiful, and they're the main reason I wanted to go see the Outer Banks, so I posted some pictures here:

Below is the Cape Lookout lighthouse:

Another view of the Cape Lookout lighthouse:

Below is the Cape Hatteras light house, presumably before it was moved 1800 yards inland to keep it from being consumed by the Atlantic.

So I have to say that getting to meet a sort of piece of living history was a pretty good way to compensate for not getting to see the Outer Banks on this go-round.

First interview...I think....Maybe...!

I finally finished my applications!!! I submitted the derm ones Saturday night, and the IM/Prelim ones Sunday night, and I already got a response from the Medical College of Georgia (for a prelim spot), that I needed to get all of my forms in ASAP, as I "look like a very strong candidate" and interview spots are filling fast." So I am guessing that means that when they get around to downloading all my documents from the ERAS post office, they'll give me an interview!?!?

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This is so exciting/stressful! You can literally watch on ERAS (the national website through which we apply to residencies) to see which programs have downloaded your documents (letters of recommendation, USMLE scores, etc.), and then you know they have everything they need to decide whether to give you an interview or not! Right now it's mostly just IM/Prelim programs that are downloading info...Out of the 63 derm programs I've applied to, only a couple have started to download things.

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I should explain: derm is a 3-year residency program, that you start after you do either a Preliminary Year in Internal Medicine (aka internship, the first year of residency), or a Transitional Year (which is just like a Prelim year except it isn't strictly dedicated to IM - you'd still do a month of Peds and a month of OB, and this is widely regarded as the easier way to go - less call, less ICU months....). So if you're applying for derm, you apply right now for a Prelim spot for next year, and a derm spot the year after that. And since I'm sort of an iffy derm candidate at best, I'm applying to IM programs (3 years) as a backup. You can also just go to your prelim program if you don't match in derm and hope that a second-year IM spot opens up in the meantime, which is fairly common. So now you all know just about as much as I do about the whole derm match process!

The Hand Song

I just downloaded the original Nickel Creek CD (bluegrass) and they had the neatest song on it. Thought I'd post it...I'm going to try to attach the music but I haven't done that yet, so don't hold your breath!

The Hand Song

The boy only wanted to give mother something
And all of her roses had bloomed
Looking at him as he came rushing in with them
Knowing her roses were doomed
All she could see were some thorns buried deep
And the tears that he cried as she tended his wounds
And she knew it was love
It was one she could understand
He was showing his love
And that's how he hurt his hands

He still remembers that night as a child
On his mother's knee
She held him close and she opened her Bible
And quietly started to read
And seeing a picture of Jesus he cried out
"Mama He's got some scars just like me"
And he knew it was love
It was one he could understand
He was showing His love
And that's how He hurt His hands

Now the boy's grown and moved out on his own
When Uncle Sam comes along
A foreign affair but our young men were there
And luck had his number drawn
It wasn't that long till our hero was gone
He gave to a friend what he learned at the cross
But they knew it was love
It was one they could understand
He was showing his love
And that's how he hurt his hands

It was one they could understand
He was showing his love
And that's how he hurt his hands

The verdict is in.....Derm it is!!!

So I finally decided, sometime last week, I think, to do derm! I feel very relieved to have finally decided on something, and this time I can't change my mind, because I'm literally out of time to - it's great! So right now I'm sitting at Panera, working (sort of...) on my personal statements - lots of fun....In my endless efforts to procrastinate I thought I'd show yall what I'll be working on in the future. If you ever wanted to know what your skin looked like close up, here it is:

So for the next few months I'll be checking my email/voicemail an absurd number of times because that's how they contact you to let you know you have an interview. At best, any given med student only has about a 60% chance of matching in dermatology, mostly because there are so few spots. They've kept the number of dermatology residency spots artificially low, because that increases demand, and therefore pay....So if you ever wondered why it takes 4 months to get into see the dermatologist, that's why! So since I'm a D.O. applying to only M.D. programs my chances are probably less than that 60%, but I'll try to keep positive over the next few months....Most types of programs interview from October through December, but derm, because they're so special, makes everyone wait and they don't interview people until December through February....nice....

So here is one of the things I'll be treating...Below is a something called a squamous cell cancer of the lip. For whatever reason if it's on the lips, it shows up on the lower lip 90% of the time...This one would be very tricky to remove, because it's huge, and if you mess up, the person may be drooling/not able to smile right for the rest of their life. They have a sort of new surgical technique that does a really good job with lesions on the face especially. It's called Mohs micrographic surgery, and when they remove a lesion, they literally graph out where it was, and look at it under a microscope. They can tell immediately if any malignant cells were left, and then they know exactly where they came from. It has a much better cure rate than conventional surgery, and the patients have a better cosmetic result.

The next picture is a basal cell cancer. The difference between the basal cell and the squamous cell cancers is basically the cell type, and the fact that squamous cell cancers are more invasive and metastasize (spread to other organs) more often (even though it's still pretty rare). The way you tell it's a basal cell cancer is that it's kind of pearly-looking, with a rolled border and it usually has teeny blood vessels running through it.

This is how a squamous cell cancer would look if you were looking at it under the microscope....Everybody remember the lovely keratin pearls we all had to memorize for histo? That nice pink ball in the middle/right of the field is called a keratin pearl, and they're found in any kind of squamous cell cancer, be it in the skin, the lung, or wherever....If you see one on a slide it's not a good thing...

Blue Ridge Parkway & Biltmore Gardens

Here are the rest of the pictures from my Asheville trip. Below are two pictures I took from lookouts on the Blue Ridge Parkway. You can see why they're called the Blue Ridge Mountains - at any hour of the day the distant hills are blue, even though close up you can see they're green with some red maples. Not sure what makes that color, but who cares - it's beautiful!!! If you're ever in that area, you must take some time to drive a bit on the Parkway.

Here is one of the back porches of the Biltmore House that leads to the Conservatory and path to the Bass Pond. I wonder how old that wisteria is....parts of it were as thick as regular tree trunks...

This is a statue in the Italian Gardens (actually built in the French style, which I thought was kind of funny) that I liked.

This is a beautiful pathway down to the conservatory....On the right were water fountains in the stone wall and statues lining the walk.

This is another statue I liked.

Below is the conservatory with its hothouse. There were SO many rooms in it, but I guess it would take that many plants to provide flowers for the house. It was a very neat place to walk around in - very calming, and they had baroque music piped in, which was so fitting! To the right and left of this walkway, there were the most enormous rose gardens I've ever seen.

This is the bass pond. The water was so clear you could see the bass floating in the moss below...Wish I'd had a net....

All along the walk to the pond, and all around it, they have benches placed so you can take a break and appreciate the surroundings. It was so peaceful!

The Biltmore House & Winery

On Saturday I drove to Asheville to see the Biltmore. If you go after 3pm, your ticket is good for the entire next day, so that's what I did. I drove around Asheville and drove for awhile on the Blue Ridge Parkway until then, and it was amazing. I would recommend having 2 people though - one to drive up and one to drive down, so one person can always have their eyes on the road!

On Saturday afternoon I decided to just see one thing, and since I knew I couldn't fit the house and gardens into 2 hours, I started with the winery. It is so neat - they have a free behind-the-scenes tour that I just happened to be in time for, and it was so interesting. More below...

I made sure to be at the Biltmore house right when it opened...The gates open at 8:30, and since the house is 3 miles from the front gate (yep, it's that big of an estate!) that's when I got there. It was so awesome - I literally had every room to myself when I toured the house, and the same with the gardens and bass pond. It was amazing. If you ever visit the Biltmore, I'd highly suggest doing that. I can't imagine that it'd be the same experience, having to walk through this amazing castle of a house with screaming kids and people with cell phones (as I saw going through later). They have an Inn on the estate, and I'd recommend staying there - it isn't very expensive, and the estate is just so beautiful and relaxing to be in...It's a couple miles between each building (the house, the winery, the deerpark, etc.), and I think it's about the most beautiful drive I've been on (next to the Blue Ridge Parkway, that is!). There is a small river running along much of the drive, and there are trail riders and carriages out & about too. Some other things they have at the Biltmore estate are private fly-fishing lessons (I'm totally doing that next time) and a Land Rover Driving School, where they teach you how to drive your Land Rover sideways on hills without toppling over.

Above is the view of the house as you walk in from the parking lot, and below is a view from the esplanade (raised walkway - but that definition doesn't quite do the Vanderbilt esplanade justice!), and behind me is this enormous, beautiful hill, with a statue of Diana at the top....After 4 hours of walking, I didn't quite feel like walking to the top for a picture from there, so you'll just have to imagine it....George Washington Vanderbilt took his inspiration for the estate from a French Chateau, and you definitely feel like you're in Europe, not America while you're there.

Below is the winery. It used to be the calving barn until they turned it into a winery in the '80s. The chutes where they used to chuck waste from the stalls are now just perfect for aging wine (seriously).

Below is Rosemary, our awesome wine tour guide, pouring us samples of an unfinished wine....I was expecting it to be weird-tasting, but honestly it was better than their lower-quality wine that they had during the sampling! She taught us all about what grapes they grow and use, and taught us all about the process of making red wine, vs. white wine, vs. champagne. Anyone ever wonder how they get that giant cork into the champagne bottle? They microwave it! Apparently cork becomes quite malleable after 45 seconds in the microwave, and then they cram it in and put the wire cap on. Rosemary spoke of the importance of covering the bottle top with a towel when you open champagne...We were all kind of laughing (as in, seriously, has anyone ever poked an eye out with a champagne cork???), but then she told us how her daughter was at a party last year and someone opened a champagne bottle with improper technique, and her daughter caught the cork right between the eyes! (She was OK, but now you'll remember to use the towel, right?!?)

Below are some of the white oak barrels they age the wine in.

I have more pictures of the garden & bass pond, but I knew Blogspot wouldn't let me put them all in one post, and now my computer is running out of battery, so I'm going to finish this tomorrow!