Asheville

This past weekend Jude and I rode up to Asheville, North Carolina to see my good friend Jessica and meet her newest baby, Wes.  It was the first time either of us had been there.  We chose to meet there because it was almost exactly halfway for both of us.  And what a great choice!  We had a really nice time.  It was not without its stressful moments, but we expected it to be somewhat challenging with the two babies :}  It wasn't without its fun times either.

I was so excited to see our baby boys together!  Wes was born 16 days after Jude...pretty awesome :} I wish we lived closer so that they could get to know each other the way Cam and Jessica's older son, Andrew, did.  But I know they'll love playing with each other when we do get to visit.

They were fast friends...and pretty cute!

We stayed in the carriage house at a bed & breakfast built in 1899 called The Wright Inn. 

The main house
www.bbonline.com

 

The carriage house
www.wrightinn.com

 

The room Jude and I stayed in
www.wrightinn.com

 

Asheville is such a cool city.  It's extremely artsy and focused around locally made and produced items.  Our first night there, we went downtown and stopped in a local Mexican restaurant called Chorizo (in honor of our El Paso days!).  The waitress informed us that the owner uses produce from his own farm in his 2 1/2 restaurants (not sure what she meant by 1/2).  And he was actually in the kitchen cooking our meals that night!  The food tasted super fresh and was delicious!  Not the typical heavy rice and beans covered with cheese dishes in most Mexican places (although that's good too, sometimes!).  We were very pleased with our choice.  On a side note, the Mojitos weren't bad either...

On Saturday we went to Biltmore Estate.  Cue the Downton Abbey theme song.  Wow!  It was huge and gorgeous!  We did a self-guided tour of the house mansion then went to the winery.  They offer tours of the winery, but we just did the tasting (which is included in the price of the admission ticket).  We spent pretty much all day long on the grounds, and still felt like we hadn't seen it all!  The tickets are good for 2 days; we didn't go back the next day, but I'd recommend it if you're thinking about visiting.  We were of course exhausted after our visit, but we enjoyed the beauty of the estate (despite hauling around our sweet babies!) and we met some really nice people there.

 

Umm, yeah. :}
www.thepinnaclelist.com

 

 Sunday morning we went back downtown to look around a bit more.  We found an awesome bookstore/Champagne bar (yep, you read that right!) called Battery Park Book Exchange and Champagne Bar.  It was too early for Champagne, but luckily they also had a coffee bar!  We got a white chocolate strawberry latte...delish!

 

www.foodandwine.com

 

 

When we walked out of the bookstore we saw that some local street vendors had set up shop.  I saw one called Monster Menagerie.  The super sweet lady was selling her adorable hand-made stuffed monster toys.  I had to get one for Cam and Jude.  Jude got one named Miles (who she said is named after her dog) and Cam got one made out of camouflage fabric called Tank.  Each monster is one-of-a-kind.  It was kind of funny...we were headed to a toy store I had spotted downtown when we saw this lady's booth.  I'm glad we saw her; it feels good to support local and independent artists :}

 

 

Our newest friends

 

Also while we were shopping downtown, we saw a shop called Bath Junkie.  It's a store where you can customize your bath and body products.  You can pick your formula (lotion, bath salt, shower gel, etc.), pick your scent, and decide what color you want.  All of the formulas are kid friendly, and I've been needing to get the boys some more bath soap, so I got some head-to-toe shampoo and body wash.  They have a "menu" of popular combinations of scents and I saw one in the kids section called Mud Pie...it's a mixture of Rain, Vanilla, and Dirt.  I smelled each scent individually and Dirt really did smell like dirt!  I got it tinted blue since it's for the boys.  I washed Cam's hair with it when I got home and it smells SO good!!  And the scent in his hair lasted for 2 days...it's pretty pricey, but it's quality stuff.  I'm thinking about getting myself something.  They have a limited number of actual stores, but they have a pretty good website if you want to check it out.

 

 

Anyway, it was such a nice getaway weekend with a dear friend who I miss living 3 streets away from!!