Just a Suggestion: Check out the Asheville Drum Circle

If you are every in Downtown Asheville on a Friday night you have got to do yourself a favor and head down to the Drum Circle. This is a tradition on Friday nights spanning back 9 years and is one of the coolest, free things you can do to really experience all that makes Asheville the amazing place that it is. Things start up pretty early, like maybe 6pm or so in Pritchard Park.

Here are things getting started...

Anyone with a percussion instrument is allowed to join in the fun. I have to tell you, one of the coolest things about the circle is seeing people of all ages and walks of life joining in the fun. If drummings not your thing, not to worry, there is plenty of room for a spectator, dancer or hula-hooper. It's also a great spot for a good game of hackey sack.

So check it out when you are here, you won't regret it!

Here's the drum circle once things really got going!

Out and about in WNC with the fam

So this past week was absolutely fantastic. I've been up in WNC for 51 weeks now (yes, almost a full year) and my mom, stepdad, little bro and sis in tow have been up visiting for the first time this past week. It has been amazing showing off the area that Beau and I love to our family.

We also spent a LOT of time showing off good ole Hendo. We went to the soda shop, walked around downtown, shopped, ate some amazing food and in true Southern fashion did some serious front porch sittin’.

Hendersonville has lots of perks but you can’t visit this part of the world without heading in to Asheville to see that town in action. Asheville has lots of fun, art, culture and people watching. So there was lots of showing off to be done. I insisted on taking my sister to UNC-A to visit the campus and to attempt to convince her to move to Asheville, got to UNC-A and become a hippie, simple request right?

Despite the great overview of the campus, she wasn’t fully convinced though so I had to attempt to bribe her with cupcakes and shopping in downtown. (Jury is still out but if a cupcake from Bake it Pretty won't help, I don't know what else to do, you know?)

Last night was our big send-off. Nothing says small town like a fun dinner with the family and car show/outdoor music downtown. One of the things I love best about Hendersonville is that it still has such a thriving downtown and offers so much up to us as residents from Music on Main to Mike’s Saturday Sock Hops to carriage rides to the countless festivals.

These may seem like “old people” activities and in all fairness Beau and I are the first to admit that we sometimes act as 80 year-olds trapped in 30 year-old bodies. But these things are oldies but goodies and these activities are the things that made the American small towns so great in the past and are missing from too many towns today. (Not to mention my family loves them too!)

I'm so bummed the fam is back in FL but the good news is that they fell in just as much love with Hendersonville as we are and have already planned to come up in the fall and hopefully winter too!

Memorial Day Fun In Asheville

Beau and I had some fun company in town all weekend. One of Beau's best friends, Blake, came to visit for a man's weekend (he and his beautiful wife are expecting a baby soon). The boys spent most of the weekend hiking, fishing, biking, etc. which meant that I got some serious downtime (lots of crafting and cleaning). I love my husband but sometimes it is nice when he finds other people to be active with on the weekends so I can do some relaxing.

Anyway Beau's BFF (funny picture post on Beau's facebook where he calls Blake his BFF) left early on Monday and because Beau had been pretty active earlier in the weekend, we decided to take things a bit easier and opted to go down to Asheville for lunch and some walking around.

I didn't snap a ton of pics but here are a couple shots from our trip. The shirt I'm wearing is a new fave. It's a reworked dress that I rescued from a thrift store and decided would make a cute top. I've got a before and after of it but it's stuck on my camera and I cannot find the cord to transfer photos from my camera to computer...boo.

Little Bradley Falls aka Beau's waterfall

Several months ago Beau and a friend went on a hike out in Green River Cove and were psyched to discover a beautiful waterfall. For awhile they thought they were like Lewis and Clark but as it turned out, they had really just found an alternative path to a somewhat popular fall called Little Bradley Falls. Beau may not have been the first to discover it but to me it will always be Beau's waterfall.

Beau's been dying to go back so this morning we decided that this would be how we'd spend Sunday afternoon with the pups. And I'm so glad we did. We had a blast and literally every weekend that we go out hiking more and more signs of spring are popping up to let us know that March 20th (first day of spring) will be here before we know it.

The first day of spring is not just exciting for us because we go stir crazy in the winter time (Beau more than me). March 20th marks the 3rd anniversary of the day Beau asked me to be his wife and made me the happiest little lady in the world.

I hope you're enjoying these last few days of winter with someone you love!

A little mid-hike smooch

Fearless Frankie seems just as pumped about the view as we are!

I love this tough little pup!

Rocky was thrilled to be out running around.

In my book, butterfly = spring

A little love from Frankie...

If Frankie can see her shadow, spring is here!

Pwetty flowers!

Closing out my 30th Birthday month with a weekend away

So to finish out my b-day month (that's right people, I was turning thirty so I got a month) of celebration, we decided to go stay at a friend's cabin in Sylva for the weekend. We were blessed with some great weather on Saturday morning so we set off in search of a waterfall but took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up on a great, forest trail. Here are some pics from our journey.

A cool, old hearth we happened across on our hike.

I love this pup!!! We got him on my birthday last year!

Rocky and I relaxing after a long hike :-)

After we got back to the cabin we were both super hungry and since we were only a few miles from Cherokee we decided to head over to the casino to check out the Paula Deen restaurant. The food was AMAZING! Beau definitely questioned my incredible love of Paula and her cuisine but after that, he was hooked too!

The food was good but the casino itself made me super sad. First of all, you have to understand, this casino is in the middle of nowhere. What was crazy though is the number of people that were there. Of course, you have to walk through the whole casino to get to Paula's and I am not kidding, 95% of the slot machines were filled with people. I thought we were at the end of a recession. People were spending money there like it was nothing.

I can't help but wonder, what have we learned from this recession? The greatest generation was the greatest because they learned a lesson from the hard times they experienced. What happens to those of us who fall on hard times and don't embrace the lesson we can learn from it? Like the saying goes, "those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it."

I don't know about you guys but I have no interest in repeating another recession any time soon. So we need to all take the lessons we learned from the hard times we've just been through and remember them and make changes. Save more. Spend less. Find ways to entertain yourself and your family that don't cost money. Don't live in fear but do have a plan for hard times.

It killed me to see all those people throwing, what I'm sure was hard-earned, money away on slot machines. And I haven't even talked about how smokey the place was but that made the entire thing completely unbearable.

It made me realize how lucky Beau and I are to have a love for the outdoors. Over the past couple years we've had some amazing times with just a backpack filled with water, granola bars and a trail to hike only spending money on a bit of gas. I promise I didn't spend the whole weekend depressed about what I saw at the casino but I did take it as an opportunity to learn a lesson. I also took the opportunity to look forward to spring. There were a couple twists on that trail that led to greener foliage that made me feel like I was turning the corner on spring. I can't wait for everything to turn green again!

Anyway, all in all my birthday month was amazing. I never dreaded closing in on 30 and I have to say that it's treated me well so far. I'm excited to see what the future has in store for Beau and I over the coming year as we take on our thirties together... :-)

Triple Falls for Triple 10

Yup...I turned 30 recently. It's been an amazing birthday month! Beau got my birthday off to a great start by making me breakfast in bed! We decided a great way to celebrate the big 3-0 would be to hike up at Triple Falls. It was absolutely gorgeous. It's definitely on our top five list of places we have to take folks to when they come up to visit.

Here is our list of top five places to visit in WNC-Beau and Jolie edition (no particular order)

1. Visit Lake Lure (and if there is time, eat lunch at La Strada)

2. Drive up to Jump Off Rock (pref. at sunset)

3. Triple Falls!!!

4. Walk around downtown Hendo (America's #1 small town...maybe I made that last stat up :-))

5. Biltmore of course!

Here are some pictures from the hike...

What I can only describe as a tree chair....