Blowing Rock, NC

Some friends, Julie and John, from Columbia invited us to join them at John's parents' mountain house in Blowing Rock, NC last weekend.  (John and Will grew up together at the beach.)  Thankfully, it only took one phone call to line up childcare for the weekend!  We had a great time and enjoyed some uninterrupted, by little people, at least, conversations.

The Browns & Hudsons were responsible for Friday night's dinner.   It turned out that Marie and Julie did most of the work.  Dinner was fantastic!  Marie's salad was delicious and will be served at some point this weekend (with the Stricklins).

Dinner is served!

We took our time waking up (well, some of us did; I woke up at my usual time - early) and getting dressed on Saturday morning.  The guys had plans to play golf at Hound Ears and we went into the town of Blowing Rock for lunch and some shopping.  Julie and Marie had been to Blowing Rock for a similar weekend last fall and knew just the place for lunch - The Village Cafe.  It's hidden down an alleyway and I'm not sure a regular tourist would think to investigate it because it's so tucked away.  Lunch was delicious - as was the raspberry-passion lemonade.

After lunch:  Marie, me, Gray & Julie

After lunch we did a little more shopping.  I found a great pair of shoes at Monkee's - half-price/last pair (which doesn't usually work out in my favor).  The only sad part of the shopping experience was going into a precious children's 'boutique' and realizing that my children had outgrown the sizes that they carry.

Will and I, along with Gray & Patrick, were in charge of dinner Saturday night.  But first, we managed to have a little photo shoot on the porch which looks out toward Grandfather Mountain.

Check out the new shoes! (Disregard the flat hair.)

No one brought an iPod docking station to the mountains so we were limited to CDs for Friday night's music.  It didn't take long to run out of music - Julie had a Zac Brown Band CD which was loved by all, but we needed a change after hearing it for the 5th time.  Saturday, we discovered that the cable channels had music as well.  We found an 80s station and turned the living room into Dance Party USA.

I ended up not really having a lot to do with preparing or cleaning up dinner.  I do take credit for setting the table and purchasing the ingredients, though.  Patrick made the most delicious beef tenderloin that I've ever eaten and Will made his specialty - crab cakes.  Will had very little patience by the time dinner was served - he was ready to eat!

And, as for the rest of the evening, we're going with the motto for the weekend:

What happens on the porch ... stays on the porch!