Two Years

Two years ago, today, I married the man of my dreams :)


I will post more about how we celebrated later!

Chocolate Tour

One of my favorite things to do with other people in Asheville is take them on The Chocolate Tour. Justin and I started this tour a little over a year ago with Debbie. Ever since then, we have taken my mom, Jen and now Steph and Jess on The Chocolate Tour. Downtown Asheville has several chocolate shops, so we like to go to each one and get something at all of the stops!

Stop #1: Kilwins
Kilwins is a chain [oh no!] sweet shop. It has a display case full of chocolate covered pretzels, marshmallows, twinkies, oreos, rice krispie treats, basically anything you can imagine. At this stop Jessica got a chocolate covered rice krispie, Stephanie got a chocolate covered marshmallow and I got a s'more bite. Yumm!!





Stop #2: The Chocolate Lounge
The Chocolate Lounge is a quaint little shop in downtown that is set up like a coffee shop. Here you can get chocolate brownies with cocoa nibs, chocolate macaroons, chocolate cake, hot chocolate and more. There is also a wide variety of unique truffles with chocolate from various countries. At this stop, Stephanie got the double mint truffle, Justin got the lavender and honey truffle and Jessica and I got a raspberry truffle.





Stop #3: The Chocolate Fetish
We saved the best for last. The Chocolate Fetish is my favorite chocolate shop in downtown. The store itself is very luxurious and has impressive display cases with everything made from chocolate. You can even by a chocolate high heel here! There are lots of amazing goods that you can get here, chocolate covered fruits, truffles, nut... anything! Here, I got a milk chocolate cashew frog, Jessica got a chocolate covered cinnamon apple and Stephanie got a peanut butter cup.

Display Case- all chocolate shells!

Chocolate High Heels :)

So, who wants to come visit and take The Chocolate Tour?!? :)

Southern Sisters

Stephanie and Jessica are here!!

They arrived on Saturday and are staying with me and Justin for 10+ days until my parents arrive. I am beyond excited to have them living 20 minutes away from me. Justin and I have been trying to keep them busy over the last few days to keep their minds off of moving. Here is what we have been up to:

Saturday:
I made the girls' Welcome to North Carolina baskets that included their favorite candy, snacks, drinks and cake pops.


After relaxing and showing them our place, we took them over to the apartment that they will be living and my dad's new school. We ate lunch at Panera and then made our way to the Blue Ridge Parkway. We started climbing Mt. Pisgah. Unfortunately, it started thunderstorming when we were only 5 minutes from the top. We tried to wait it out, but finally decided that it would be best to go back to the car. As we were driving home, we stopped off at an overlook and snapped a picture.

Dad's School

Sunday:
After Jen and Jon were done with their morning seminar, we met up with them in downtown Asheville to check out Bele Chere. Bele Chere is one of the largest and most popular street festivals in Asheville. We were only there for about half and hour since we had to get Jonto to the airport.

Where's Jon?
Oh... he's in the car!

Bele Chere

We dropped Jon off at the Greenville airport and made our way to downtown Greenville with Jen and Hannah. Greenville has a very cute downtown next to the river. We ate dinner and strolled around the quaint downtown. We then hit up the Melting Pot for dessert. We love Greenville ;)

Good-bye :(

Downtown Greenville

Southern Sisters

By the River

We just need Hillary to move down!

Mmmmm... Melting Pot!

Monday:
We had a nice day lounging at the pool and reading. Then it was off to Stephanie and Jessica's first day of volleyball tryouts!!

First day of tryouts- These girls DOMINATED!

Tuesday:
We had another day at the pool. It was then time to go to their new school early to schedule classes and take a tour. After tryouts, we ate dinner at the 'World's Nicest McDonalds' and then we to the Asheville Tourists Game.

Tourists!

Just Dance 2 Routine

Wednesday:
We headed into downtown Asheville and strolled around. We took the girls on the 'Chocolate Tour' (next post). We also checked out the Double Decker Coffee Shop and Jessica bought some Toms. After tryouts, we had dinner at John and Bobbie's where the girls had their first southern meal, Red Beans and Rice.

Steph- an Ashevillian already?!?

Flat Iron Downtown

I want to go to Holy Hip Hop! Who's in?

Double Decker Bus Coffee Shop

Inside the Bus

2nd floor on the Bus

Stay tuned for more fun!

Graveyard Fields

I know that my blogging has slowed down some. Please, let me give you some reasons why:
1. We currently do not have internet at our apartment, which means that I can't go on my blog at any random point of the day and blog when I feel like it.
2. In order to blog, I have to walk down to the 'Click Cafe' and use their internet, and I don't always feel like doing that.
3. I haven't done too much lately that is blog worthy :(

This week I did have an answer to prayer, though! I had TWO interviews!! I was getting very discouraged on Tuesday because I was hoping that this school with a first grade position would call me for an interview. I had talked to the principal on Monday and she said that 175 people had applied for this ONE job! As the hours passed by on Tuesday, I was beginning to get really discouraged. It has been really difficult because I felt that I had applied to soo many jobs, probably up to the 80's or near 100 now, and I had not heard back from one person! I just kept praying and asking the Lord for something to open up. I really knew that it was all in His hands and that He is the only one who can open up the job for me. On Tuesday, Justin and I went for our run and on the car ride home (about 5:00 pm) I got a call from a principal!!! Praise the Lord!! On Wednesday morning, I received another call from a principal asking me to come in and interview. So on Thursday, I went on my first two interviews!! The positions for both of these jobs are 4th grade. This makes me really nervous because I was ideally hoping for first or second [maybe third] grade. But, a job is a job! The interviews went really well! I am waiting to see if I get offered any of the positions. I am really just praying for the Lord to open the right door. If I am suppose to teach 4th grade, that He will just open that door and give me peace about it. I will keep you all posted!

Today, Justin and I went hiking at Graveyard Fields. It a trail off the Blue Ridge Parkway that has two waterfalls. We were planning on going yesterday but I hurt my knee from Zumba earlier in the week [Yes, you heard that right-Zumba. Only I could hurt myself doing dance aerobics!] so I wasn't able to go yesterday. We had a beautiful day to hike today and we had a great time. Graveyard fields has two waterfalls that you can check out and cool off in. The first one, lower falls, is about a .3 mile walk to get to. The second one, upper falls, is a 1.6 mile hike. We went to the Upper Falls first and then checked out the Lower Falls. Overall, we hiked around 4 miles. Not too bad with a hurting knee!

Upper Falls

He was adventurous and climbed higher.

Lower Falls.

Swimming area at the bottom.

One thing that I love about Asheville is that there are all these fun hikes to go on. It is fun to walk through the mountains and see people cooling off in the waterfalls and swimming holes. Although, I am sure these Ashevillians think that I am this chick from the city. Today I carried my camera in my Vera Bradley wristlet. All of the people we passed in their river shoes/sandals and dogs are thinking who is this girl from the city with French manicured nails and Vera Bradley ;) I might need to get a new back-pack or something!

On our car ride home, we encountered 3 black bears crossing the road! There was a mama bear and two cubs. It was so cool- probably the highlight of my day! This is the best picture that I could get of one of the cubs.

See the bear's face in the middle of the pic?!?

If you would like some other light reading, Justin stared a blog about things to do in Asheville. He is hoping to turn it into a website someday! He has a list of about 60+ things there is to do in Asheville, so we go out and do them and he blogs about them! Check it out!
Asheville To Do

Max Patch

Today after church, Justin and I took our first 'hike' as Ashevillians with Joelle and Joseph. We drove about an hour through Marshall and Hot Springs to Max Patch. Max Patch is part of the Appalachian Trail and has a beautiful 365 degree view and lots of wildflowers. It was simply beautiful, despite the clouds. We look forward to many more hikes, mountains and curvy roads!

Here are some pics from our excursion:

Trail to the top.

Me and the Hubs.

Joseph. Joelle. Me.

There were Japanese Beetles all around.
Justin actually started talking Japanese to one! What a jip!

In other news, Justin and I are settling into our new home. We have everything unpacked! All we need to do is hang our pictures (which Justin is not looking forward to) and that is also why I have not posted pictures yet. Justin has started his job. He is finishing his training this week and then is all full rotation for the mobile crisis team. I have been keeping myself busy with Zumba (birthday present from J) and cooking dinner. Yeah, not too much! I have enjoyed having some down time, but I feel like this is the week when I will start getting antsy and need to be doing something. I have been applying to jobs like crazy. Please pray that something opens up soon!!