Two weekends ago we traveled to Black Mountain, NC, just outside of Asheville, to visit Harper and Roman's great-grandma Abie. Harper and Roman and I drove down to Charlottesville on Thursday night to celebrate La La's birthday, then the four of us (with La La in tow for back-seat entertainment) drove to Black Mountain on Friday. The kids were amazingly well-behaved in the car. Roman literally slept the entire way, only waking up briefly at Wendy's to have a bottle. Harper colored and watched The Little Einsteins ("Rocket") for 4 hours straight, then napped for the last hour of the trip. Portman flew to Asheville after work on Friday and we picked him up after dinner.
The weekend featured gorgeous fall weather and the leaves were only a few days past their "peak colors." On Saturday we showed Portman around Montreat, then Portman and I went to the Biltmore while La La and Abie played with the kids. Saturday was the first day of the Biltmore's Christmas season, so the house was completely decorated for the holidays. This was Portman's first visit to the Biltmore and he was shocked at how beautiful it is. We both agreed that it is more spectacular than any of the castles that we've visited in Europe!
Apparently there was some sort of Corvette convention in Asheville and Saturday was the day that they all visited the Biltmore. There were literally hundreds of Corvette's in the parking lot, so we took the opportunity to park Abie's 1995 Toyota Corolla right in the middle of a line of them!
View from the back of the house:
On Saturday night we celebrated La La's birthday at the Red Rocker Inn, our favorite southern eatery in Black Mountain. The food was everything you could hope for in a home-cooked southern meal. Portman and I stayed at the Red Rocker both Saturday and Sunday nights and enjoyed our first time away from the kids together in almost a year! As you might guess, the front porch of the Red Rocker Inn features... red rockers.
Finally, on Sunday Portman and I took Harper into Asheville to visit "The Health Adventure," which is the Asheville children's museum. It was honestly the best kid's museum we have ever seen. It was full of all sorts of hands-on projects for the kids to explore, and we got lucky and caught the special Curious George exhibit! There was a huge room with slides, dress ups, dolls, a kitchen and more that was just for kids under 5. I can't even begin to describe how much fun this museum was!
Harper's favorite things at Abie's house were the "bu bird" and her "sopping cart:"
