It's been about a month since I last posted, so I thought instead of doing lots of little posts, I would just catch you up on the past month of our lives in one giant post. No worries, it's mostly pictures.
Mother's Day
Mother's Day has always been an interesting day in my family. My parents birthdays are a week apart, smack in between Mother's Day and Father's Day, so we rarely do gifts. Ever since I moved to Raleigh, though, the unspoken rule has been that I show up and spend time with my parents on those days. Now that I'm married, it's not that simple. In a way, though, it is.
We just have everyone at our place!
We hosted both families, including Aaron's sister, Abbey, and her boyfriend, Christian, for Mother's Day lunch. In case you didn't know, we live in a two bedroom apartment and I have a dining room table that seats four. Feeding eight people isn't the easiest thing in the world, but we have managed it twice now.
At Thanksgiving, we used two card tables put together to make a big table for everyone to sit together. Then, we bought a folding 6" banquet table from BJs. Best idea ever! We are going to be in the apartment for at least another year and this allows us the ability to entertain without having to get larger furniture. I also hate the idea of not having everyone sit together, so this is our answer.
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| Thanksgiving set-up. Two card tables put together...and my ghetto-rigging to make the tables even. |
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| Mother's Day set-up with the new table. We also used the Ollie Dollie china, which isn't shown. |
Asheville
I had a conference in Asheville May 14-16, so I convinced Aaron drive up Friday afternoon and visit the Biltmore. Neither of us had ever been and I thought it was the perfect time to go.
I drove up with a co-worker and her husband so that Aaron and I wouldn't have to drive back separately. The conference ended at noon on Friday and until Aaron arrived that evening, I had no car. So I explored what I could walk to - the Biltmore Village.
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| The fanciest McDonald's I have ever seen. Gotta love design standards! |
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The Cathedral of All Souls
Aaron arrived Friday night and after crazy bouts with traffic, we finally found a parking space downtown. We ate dinner at Posana, which was really expensive and not that wonderful (to us). We then traveled down to the French Broad Chocolate Lounge which was amazing! I got the salted caramel hot chocolate (it was actually pretty cool that weekend - hard to imagine right now, I know) and the lavender creme brulee. Aaron got a salted caramel liquid truffle.
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| The salted caramel truffle |
The next day we went to Biltmore. We arrived at 10:15 for our 10:45 AM tour of the house. After the house we toured the gardens, the conservatory, the bass pond and the waterfall. The photos below will illustrate our day.
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| View from one of the balconies. |
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Side view of the house from one of the gardens.
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| Photo from one of the balconies. |
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| Some of the walled garden |
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| More Walled Garden |
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| Conservatory |
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| My favorite plants from the Conservatory |
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| There were so many cute little bridges. I loved them. |
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| After the Conservatory, Aaron decided he wanted to check out the boat house at the bass pond. So we walked through the Azalea Garden to get there. |
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| Cool tree in the Garden. |
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| At the bass pond |
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| The boat house. We were a little disappointed with it...especially after the 1/2 mile walk to get down there. |
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| So then we walked another 1/4 mile to the waterfall. |
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| Then I was the crazy one that said "Oh, let's take the woodland trail!" Which was all uphill. In Toms. Don't take the woodland trail. |
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| The house. Some people are upset with how little of the house you actually get to see, but by the time we were done with the house tour, we were glad to be done. It was a great experience, we both had fun. |
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My mom and I found wine bottle holders like these at the Junior League Holly Day Fair in Fayetteville, so I thought it was cool to find this bride and groom at the Winery.
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| We ended the day with a meal at Homegrown. It was $25 and so much better than the fancy meal at Posanas. |
Canning
Strawberries are in season! I went to the Farmer's Market this past weekend and got a really good deal on strawberries, so I was able to preserve some and eat some. I tried my hand once more at Strawberry Jam only to have it be about as solid as can be, but was successful with strawberry lemon preserves! I'm excited to try these in some different desserts!
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| My preserves cooking |
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Finished product!
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Emily Giffin
One of my favorite authors came out with a new book this month. I always resolve that I won't immediately buy the new book, but Target makes this so hard when they have signed copies! So I bought a copy and proceeded to finish the book in one day and then watch Something Borrowed, a movie based on my favorite of her books. If you haven't read her books before, I highly recommend her!
That's it folks! Hopefully it won't be another month before I post again!
