This past week Portman attended a conference at Microsoft in Seattle, so Harper and I trekked down to beautiful Black Mountain, NC to visit my grandma (and Harper's GREAT grandma!) Abie. Lucky for us Harper's "Lala" came along and kept her company in the back seat for most of the ride. Although she didn't sleep much, Harper was so good on the long car ride and spent most of her time tossing Cheerios all over the back seat.

Abie was so excited to have us visit and we met lots of her friends at Highland Farms, the community where she has lived for the past 10 years or so. I particularly enjoyed introducing Harper to two of Abie's friends from Africa – I think it is so neat that not only is Abie still in touch with her childhood missionary friends, but they actually live together!

We also took a trip down memory lane and visited Montreat, where we spent several summers growing up. Montreat is a really special place for our family because not only did Luke and I (and our cousins) spend summers there, but my mom AND Abie, when she was a teenager, spent many summers there when they were on furlough from Africa. Montreat was purchased by the Presbyterian church in the early 1900's and hosted missionary conferences every summer. Families would fly in from all over the world to attend the conference, and my mom and Abie were telling me stories of all the trouble they used to get into! What was particularly shocking for me was seeing how smallI it looks now – the lake that used to seem so huge to me is actually pretty tiny! I was happy to see that the swans still live there, so we took lots of pictures of Harper watching a very aggressive swan. He kept trying to bite us! Our last stop at Montreat was the playground where Luke split his chin open and had to get stitches. Honestly that is one of our most memorable moments from Montreat! Harper played on the swings, not the fireman's pole, and ate a soy cracker while swinging.

We also visited the Folk Art Center and Biltmore Village in Asheville. The highlight of that trip for Harper was getting to push chairs around the lobby of the craft center. She wanted nothing to do with local artisans – an old chair on a concrete floor was all she needed:

We celebrated Lala's birthday at the Red Rocker Inn, which we apparently ate at as kids, but I don't remember. The meal was a huge family-style southern spread, and Harper ate enough biscuits to satisfy her for the next couple of years! It was a long week with lots of driving, but we had a great time. Can't wait to visit you again, Abie!