Out to the East Coast!

Charlotte, NC from May 17th - May 21st.

Visiting two aunts on my mom's side.  Flight out included a layover in Atlanta, two and a half hours - solid amount of time for a leisurely meal, time to walk around (in one of their SEVEN terminals!!!  The Atlanta airport is HUGE!  I had no idea!) and make a catch-up phone call.  

I had to take a picture of my meal because a.) it was a delicious grilled salmon b.) it was the first time I used the journal Christina gave me - on the left . . . .the green thing.  I love love love that color!!  AND c.) although that knife looks like a normal steel knife (or whatever normal silverwear is made of these days) it is, in fact, a plastic knife painted fancy-schmancy.  Really?!  Yep.  It totally threw me at first because the fork is normal, but the knife is plastic.  Is this because it's a restaurant in an airport?  Can they not have real knives?  Can you really do less harm with a regular fork than a plastic knife?  All of these questions spurred from simple utensils.  This is why I don't need to pay lots of money for any kind of enterntainment.  =)

ALTHOUGH!  Speaking of expensive entertainment, I maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay end up trying to get out to London to see if I can pick an Olympic event to go witness.  I think it would be pretty incredibly sweet to go see the Olympic Marathon at any point - but especially the finish.  Can you imagine?  I have no idea how realistic that idea is, but it occurred to me as I read a safety alert about the chaos that is expected at Heathrow in July and August due to the Olympic games.  Fascinating stuff.

And!  Speaking of London - let's go big picture to UK here . . . if you haven't seen the movie "We bought a zoo" with Matt Damon, I highly recommend it.  It's awesome!!  AND it's based off of a "true story."  Turns out the zoo the movie is based on is in the UK, called the Dartmoor Zoological Park.  I think it would be quite fun to go visit, but need to figure out if that would be possible too.  So many ideas!!!  Sooooooooooo many places to go!  Figuring out where may be the greatest challenge of my existence.  =)

Back to the weekend in Charlotte!  My sister came down for a long weekend, so the four of us got to spend a glorious girls' only weekend.  It was spectacular and MAGICAL.  See pictures below . . . .

My first night there, I slept outside on the deck on that porch swing next to the little fire pit.  Magical is truly the only word for it.  So stupendous! 

My sister arrived the next day, and we all went out to dinner together.  Eggplant Parmesian - yum!  No picture, sorry! 

One of the most entertaining parts of the weekend was my aunt's dog Delisia . . .

Isn't she adorable??!!!??

I love the "butt-up-in-the-air" pose.  She's playing with one of my socks that she very stealthily stole the night I slept on the deck. 

I ended up with over 20 pictures of her.  I don't think I'm one of those dog-obsessive people, but the shear number of pictures on my camera is making me re-think that.  I don't usually like small dogs, and she does definitely have that high-pitched bark that shocks you and makes you cringe . . . but you love her nonetheless! 

Last one, I promise.  =) 

And this way you can see some of the gorgeous flowers in my aunt's whimsical, magical garden. 

I saw 3 hummingbirds come up to this plant (apparently called "hot lips" - above) while I was outside reading for about 90 minutes on this incredible chair (below), that my sister is sitting in. Suuuuuuuuuuper comfy!

The whole time there was really relaxing.  Reading on the deck or patio, spending time catching up, sleeping in.  Marvelous.  Still thoroughly appreciating the whole sleeping in without an alarm thing.  =)  We also visited this gym that has a pool with ten lanes.  TEN.  Ten whole lanes.  It was stupendous!!!  Had a lane to myself both times I used it, and was one of 3 or 4 people in the pool the whole time.  It was excellent.  They had one stepmill with directions how to use it on a piece of paper taped to the machine.  It made me smile.  I finally found a gym geared more to  swimmers.  It was refreshing. Although their weight room was small, it was actually really decent, entirely sufficient.  I'm really excited to try all kinds of various gyms! 

Sunday was perhaps my favorite day as we went to this AMAZING cafe called Amelie's that I'm dearly wishing I'd taken pictures of right now.  You can kind of see what the place looked like here: http://www.ameliesfrenchbakery.com/ if you go to the rooms/venues tab.  It's basically a french bakery with delicious food and very unique, zany decorations and furniture that are all for sale.  Super fun atmosphere.  That night we visited downtown Charlotte and I fell in love with Freedom Park.

Here is my gorgeous sister, Chantal, in Freedom Park.

And working it for the camera.  Ha!  Grrrrr.

Later that night we went to a different park for a lovely view of the downtown skyline.

 A friend of theirs joked that there are not acutally enough buildings to be a skyline, so they call it a sky-clump instead.  Here is the clump in all its glory. 

We finished the night at a dessert place called Crave (at which I also failed to take a picture).  I had most of a decadent apple pie with vanilla ice cream and some of a flourless lava cake - mmmm mmmm good. 

The next day my sister and I drove back to Harrisburg.  About 8 hours.  Yowzers.  I have learned the past few years that I am SO not cut out for road trips.  I feel like the threshold of what I can enjoy is about 3 hours.  Good thing I had good company.  We had a stop for lunch in Charlottesville to meet a friend of Chantal's.  I had this awesome meal with basil, tofu, eggplant and a few other veggies.  Mmmm, I love basil!