babies are a good reason to party

This past weekend was busy but great. I worked Friday night in Greensboro doing a Norwex show and had a baby shower for one of my dearest friends.

It was the cutest shower I’ve been to, no detail was over-looked. And there were no gross or embarrassing games.

Pom poms everywhere! Allison worked hard making all of these decorations!

I made a pink drink which looked presh in some mason jars with paper straws.

Just a few of the peonies that were fresh from Dorothy’s garden.

The mom-to-be! There was so much pink and so many ruffles!

Um, I barely held it together reading this… gah the emotions were overflowing that day.

I love these girls. 🙂

And these man-ladies.

I couldn’t leave this picture out. Petals is such a sweetie. And I love Ginna’s new haircut!

For more and prettier pictures of the set-up, food, and guests, check out Carrie’s and Allison’s blogs.

I crashed as soon as I got home on Saturday night and spent the day Sunday cleaning and packing for our trip. Since I’ve watched season 1 of Downton Abbey about 6 times now, I’ve moved on to season 2. Love it!

These will be my traveling friends for the next two weeks or so. We’re on our way to Ottawa (driving: via VA and PA). We’ll be spending the week with our Canadian AIA buddies. I’m really excited. We always stay with our family friends (rather than in the dorms) and I love them. Even though it’s a chaotic week ending in a 24-hour sports marathon, we always leave feeling refreshed.

Belated Anniversary

Bribri and I have been married for 6 and 1/4 years. We have yet to celebrate our anniversary (January 7th) on the actual day. Every year we’ve been with our fellow AIA’ers at staff meetings. Last year we went to Seattle for a weekend later in January. This year, we did nothing. We didn’t even exchange cards. We were in Vancouver as visitors, not residents. It was an odd feeling, but that’s another story.

So I decided that we needed to get away and planned a quick trip to Asheville, NC. We stayed at a cute B&B, the Cedar Crest Inn. It was our first time staying in a B&B and it was lovely. We had our own bathroom and it got great reviews on tripadvisor.com, so we went for it.

It looked like a dollhouse my sister and I had growing up. 🙂 Such good memories.

I felt like I was walking into Downton Abbey (which I just finished watching for the 2nd time through). Or into an antique store, which we actually did shortly after arriving. But more on that another day. On our second day we went to the Biltmore Estate. If you’ve seen Richie Rich, you may recognize it. (Lots of other movies were filmed in the area, too.)

The weather was beautiful and the house was magnificent.

There were fountains…And gargoyles…And again I felt like I was walking around Downton.The garden was in full bloom. It reminded me of The Butchart Gardens in Victoria.Our breakfast at the B&B kept us so full that 2:00 rolled around and we figured we should eat something just because. Vanilla Brice got some ice cream made at the local dairy and I had the best cup of coffee that I’ve had in ages. Honestly, I couldn’t stop talking about it.

Then we wandered down the Blue Ridge Parkway.

For dinner we headed to Mellow Mushroom and I declared my love for hippies.

Although it could’ve been the Blue Moon talking.

I haven’t gotten a beer at a restaurant in a long time. But this one tasted so good, I wanted to chug it and had to pace myself since all I had in my system was the coffee from “lunch.” I think the nice big orange wedge made it extra sweet and the fact that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast (unthinkable for me) made it that much better.

The next day we went straight from Asheville to my bff’s in Spartanburg to meet her new baby Daba!

Here he is, less than a day old. 🙂 His name is really Tucker, but his big sis named him Daba (and some other names I can’t pronounce with a few numbers thrown in) a long time ago and it stuck.

Last week was busy and I felt quite frazzled at times, but it was well worth the miles. 🙂