Queen City Weekend

Well, I had another long weekend in the great state of North Carolina. This time in our previous city of Charlotte. The reason was to see our old Charlotte friends as well as our annual Chapel Hill bible study reunion. The weekend was absolutely wonderful. There really is nothing like seeing old friends to make the heart happy. (Not to mention visiting the place the Ben and I met and fell in love.)
Everyone in the group now has kids (with the exception of LB and me being pregnant) so the group has doubled in numbers and noise levels. Which only makes it that much more fun! Instead of going out to eat, we now cookout and play in the park. It's funny how life changes and somehow seems to just get better.

Love front porches with rockers!

Next year everyone will have kids in their arms and hopefully the rest of the group will be there!

Rest in the Holy Land

This past month I have felt like this blog has been my last priority, especially with all the other things going on in my life, not to mention all the traveling taking place. However, after this past weekend I couldn't wait to come home and try to write down the kind of weekend I witnessed. It started with an surprising invitation that came my way about a month and a half ago. The invitation was to attend a "Ladies Farm Forum" in Asheville, NC. This event is put on through a wonderful and generous family as well as The Trinity Forum. My sister had gone once before and Ben had gone to the "guys farm weekend" last August. Needless to say, they both loved it and have talked about it the entire year. So I was beyond excited that I got invited.
Are you asking yourself, what the heck does this "Farm Forum" thing entail? Well, it's somewhat hard to describe since I'm not sure words will do it justice. But I'll try.
To sum it up, it was about fellowship with other women who love Jesus and came together in a place of rest and yet silliness. However, it goes far and beyond just that. We all read the book, The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen before we arrived. We had 3 sessions on the book throughout the weekend. The rest of the weekend was about resting and listening to the words of God and then basically having a big slumber party like you did back when you didn't care about how silly you looked. It was an amazing and beautiful time of freedom, love, acceptance, peace, honesty, raw emotions, and seriously silly and fun girl time. This past weekend will go down in the history books as being one of the best! God is good.

Getting ready for a session on the book

 Their property was gorgeous

 Our setting for every incredible home-cooked meal

 How do you not rest and have fun here?

 Girls gone fishin

 The cow pasture

 We drove around the property in small cars

 Just part of their beautiful land

 Silliness with handbells?! Not even sure how this happened

 Ole!

 It was hard to leave this wonderful place

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures

It took me forever to go through all the pictures from this past weekend in Harwich Port - Cape Cod. Going through them also made me want to go back, or at least visit another town on the Cape.

We all rented a house across from the beach with a huge yard. (Yards are something you appreciate much more once you've lived in NYC.) The house didn't have AC, only heat which ended up being fantastic. We slept with all the windows open and woke up to birds chirping, NOT honking horns or car alarms. Again, something you really appreciate once you live in the city. We spent our days on the beach, visiting local restaurants for Lobster Rolls, grilling out, drinking wine, having a clam bake, playing games, charades, talking, getting local ice cream, and eating blueberry pies. Not too bad for a quick weekend getaway!

The beaches were narrow, private and quiet. The weather was perfect. And the food was fantastic. One of the highlights was the clam bake we had catered on Saturday night by Swan River. By the way, it is not a lobster bake like we called it, even though each person gets their own lobster. Later that night some of us had a craving for the local ice cream shop named, Schoolhouse Ice Cream we kept passing. And yet again, A+. Another recommendation would be a waterfront restaurant called, Brax Landing. It was directly across the little harbor on the side of our house and had some great views and Lobster Rolls. We went again for brunch on our way out of town and I have to say this could be skipped. It's a buffet, but nothing special.

I'm already planning our next weekend trip!

Side yard Clmabake!

Relaxing in the side yard

Food in the Cape

There were some beautiful sunsets

Off to the beach - See ya later!

The Cape

Here are a few teaser pics from our weekend in Cape Cod. I'm too busy and tired to do a real post on all the fun had at the Cape. So until tomorrow...

Montauk, NY

I've been trying to figure out how to fit our trip to Montauk, NY into a cohesive post. It was only two nights but the minute we arrived we became so relaxed that it felt like we had been on a week long spa trip.

We arrived late Wednesday night at the Montauk Yacht Club and Inn. (Back in April a sale came through on Jetsetter.com was for this pricey Inn and we scooped it up.) If only we had known how much we would like this place we would have booked another night, or two. The Inn was a bit further from the beach and center of town than other well-known places. However, they have a shuttle service that runs on the hour as well as bikes for the guests to use during the stay. We rode our bikes into town the first morning and had breakfast at Joni's. A little fresh and healthy restaurant a block off the beach. My heart skipped a beat when I saw the beach! I have been quite homesick lately and this just made me that much more excited about going back to Florida with my family for the 4th of July. But I digress. The beach was great. Different than those of the Florida/Southern coast I grew up with but very pretty! So pretty in fact we took a walk and just kept walking. Finally coming back to the Royal Atlantic hotel beach bar for a beach side drink. (There's also the Sloppy Tuna a couple doors down) These were a bit less relaxing due to Brittany Spears playing over the loud speakers. But really, we were at the beach so can't really complain. We finally made it back to the Inn that evening in time to head over to Gosman's Dock. It's a restaurant in a cute little village spot where we watched the gorgeous sunset. We had many different opinions of where you get the best views of the sunset so I won't say it was the best but it was amazing to see it over the water. Gosman's was also tasty and again relaxing.

The next day was rainy and gloomy but we still headed into town for some of John's Pancakes. Its been around since the 1950s. Anthony's is right across the street which is suppose to also have good breakfast. After our pancakes, we had to check-out of the Inn but we didn't leave! We just weren't ready to head back into the chaotic city. So they held our bags and we hung out. We had some Lobster rolls and John Dalys at the Inn's bar. (Again, we've heard many opinions on where to get the best lobster rolls but choose connivance.) They were fresh Lobster, though. While sitting at the bar we made some friends who offered to let us take their car up to the lighthouse point! We actually took them up their offer and made our way. It was worth it.

The sun finally came out which meant some good sleeping/reading out at the pool on the Inns cozy pool beds. That late afternoon we walked over to Star Island Marina to see the weigh -in of the shark tournament. Quite interesting! When we got back to the Inn there was a whole new "weekend crowd" that had arrived. Definitely not as laid back or quiet. It was a much more fashionable crowd. We decided to go to the one place we had heard about from every review we read, The Surf Lodge. It was quiet when we arrived but by the end of our dinner/drinks it was definitely the place to see and be scene. Hubs and I didn't even realize we weren't talking to each other due to the each of us people watching. The food was good so I think we'd come back during the day instead of a Friday night.

It was finally time to catch our 10:38 PM train back to the city. We got home and into bed at 4AM. Needless to say, we were exhausted but it was completely worth it!

Joni's healthy breakfast next to the beach

We had a healthy breakfast so we should obviously get a fresh doughnut. Also, would it be a proper vacation without a doughnut?!

John's Pancakes in the center of town- yum!

Cute little town. I was riding my bike while taking this picture. Probably not the smartest of ideas but I had to capture how Hubs was "low ridin" on his bike

Royal Atlantic beach bar

Gosman's

Lighthouse in a distance

I felt like I was filming Jaws

That's most of our trip to the lovely Montauk, NY. I can't wait to go back!