New Hampshire!!

Welcome to one of the most beautiful places in the U.S. fern hill...
These are the cute little cabins that we all stay in during our bi-annual family vacay..

Not only are the cabins beautifully nestled among the tall hemlocks but the trees open up to Half Moon Lake and this awesome beach...


The fam catchin some rays...

After enjoying the beach for a bit, we grabbed a canoe and explored some of the little creeks off the main lake...

Veronica, Scott, and Kevin could go even further up the creek in the kayaks...

The next day Kevin, Char, and I went on a sunset fly fishing adventure...

Kevin practicing his casting skills...

He actually caught the first fish of the trip on his special red ant fly...

Then Char quickly followed suite and caught his own little fish...

I didn't catch any fish but I did catch some sweet photos of the sunset...

The next day it was off to pick blueberries, this is a huge hit among the kids and the adults each time we come...

Scott was quickly filling his bucket...

When the bucket was full he and Colin filled their bellies with a few...

G'ma and her boys and pounds and pounds of blueberries, luckily we had Vicki with us who was the master baker, she made 2 blueberry pies and 12 blueberry muffins!

Our last night there the boys all went off in their fishing boats, Uncle Patrick and Scott in Docs boat, Kevin Char and Dad in the canoe...

While they were off fishing I again grabbed a few shots of the sunset and our solidly constructed sand village, complete with heart shaped pool, moat, and mountain with a drive threw tunnel...

I leave you again with another gorgeous summer sunset...


I hope everyone else out there is having as much fun as we are with our summer! However it is quickly coming to an end but our last little treat of the summer is a visit from our bestest friends Amy and Dan this upcoming weekend! We can't wait! Pics will follow!

Weekends with folks we love...

When we returned from Boston we enjoyed a beautiful Thursday night at Mayfells! Thursday night is dog night where everyone brings their dogs to dinner and part of the bill is donated to a local shelter, Mayfells has quickly become our favorite spot in downtown, I mean check it out...

The next day our friends Josh and Jess stopped in for a visit. Charlie's mom came too! Our little group headed down to RIBFEST 2010~ where we first had home made root beer...
After a thorough taste test we determined that the SC ribs were the best overall...

It was so crazy that Diana was here all the way from Fort Worth just to have Fort Worth ribs in Asheville!


We also tried the TN ribs, these ones had the most unique sauce, Jess and I really liked it but we couldn't convince the rest of the crowd.

Fat and HAPPY...

The following weekend we joined Diana on visit to Charleston to see Matt & Lauren (char's bro & sis in law) at their new home! We had a blast hanging out with their two beautiful daughters, Adelaide and Henrietta. We visited the weekly farmers market and had the most delicious crepes ever! We also got to play in the sand at the beach, I forgot my camera back at the house so I unfortunately don't have any pics of that adventure.

Matt and Lauren were awesome hosts, we miss them already and can't wait until they get a chance to come visit us up here in the mountains!

4th of July in BOSTON!

July 3rd- We went to the Green Dragon Tavern which was where Sam Adams and others organized to begin conversations about the Declaration of Independence. This pic was taken at the end of the day and it was cool to see two guys dressed as American and British soldiers having beers together today.

Char in front of the Green Dragon... best oysters ever!

That night we had dinner at the Union Oyster House... so freakin tasty, I had Scod (new england whitefish) for the first time...

In the square across the street was a really awesome Holocaust Memorial, what looks like white lines on the glass is really hundreds of prisoners numbers from the Holocaust.

Then we ran into Ben Franklin himself...

We also got to visit the Paul Revere House...

Char's parents, Chuck and Karen with a woman who explained the wardrobe of the time to us...

One of the lanterns that Paul Revere used to let us know that the "British were coming!"

One of the many reenactments we saw that weekend...

We also stopped by the grave sights of many of the key players in our country's independence...


And we even caught a few parades...

Here's a shout out to all my library friends (Amy, Tracy, and Janet!), this is the courtyard in the middle of the Boston Library, gorgeous...


July 4th- We were lucky enough to see a reenactment of the first ever reading of the Decleration of Independence in the same place where it happened oh so long ago...


Then we headed over to Cambridge where we visited Harvard University...


Then finally to our ultimate destination, the James Taylor & Carole King concert at Tanglewood in Lenox, MA (James Taylor's home town)! There were soooo many people there...


You can kinda see James there behind the leaves strummin away...


And you can sort of make out Carole King on the screen (but seriously, check out those clouds!)...

Chuck and Karen at the concert near our picnic site...

Char and I at the site...


And I leave you with a pic of the sunset (I couldn't get enough of the view at this venue, it was soo gorgeous and worth every minute of the 15hr. drive!)...

After Boston we headed back to Asheville for two weeks and had our friends Josh and Jess join us for a weekend and then Char's mom came to check out the new digs. It's been a crazy fun summer and I still have so much to share! I'll update soon with pics and stories from our Charleston, SC trip this past weekend, which was also super fun. Thanks for checkin in on us as we travel around the east coast!

So it's been forever since I've posted anything so I figured I'd do a quick recap of the last few weeks...

1) right after moving we drove back up to DC and played in our last softball game of the season, check out the awesome Batitudes!

During that week I also joined my friend Amy and her family to see Janet Evanovich in person at a book signing in DC!

Last but not least I got to celebrate my birthday with my Mom and sister over some cake and while playing some dominoes!

2) Then we stopped by Williamsburg to hang out with the grandparents and swung by Newport News to have dinner with our friends Josh and Jess Saturday and then we got to have dinner with our friend Beth who was visiting from London Sunday night. We jumped on the road that night and got back to Asheville that night.

3) The next day was our second wedding anniversary and we celebrated by adding another member to our family, we adopted our new puppy, Riley!!! He's a mix of blue heeler and something else... maybe some kind of spaniel? Either way he's precious and super sweet!
Napping on the way home...

Playing outside...

Char and Riley (who's smile is bigger?) ...

Being a good boy and posing for just a few more pictures...

He's such a fun puppy and he's growing like a weed... in these pics he was only 8 lbs and we took him in for a check up yesterday and he was already 12 lbs. He's doing great and is such a happy pup!

After all these fun times we drove up to Boston... check out the next post for more details :)