last week : visits

Last week my aunt brought my grandmother down for a few days.  It was a busy, exhausting week.  They got here right before Kyle got home on Monday evening with some West Ky BBQ.  South Carolina thinks they know BBQ... and they do a decent job of it... but nothing beats West Ky pulled pork.  Specifically Knoth's BBQ.  My grandmother delivered 2 pounds of it to SC just for me :).  

Tuesday I took them downtown to see Reedy Falls Park.  They loved it!  It was pretty toasty out there even at 10am, but we took advantage of the beautiful weather and went for a pretty good walk.  

 

Our walk was followed by a yummy lunch at Tupelo Honey Cafe.  This place recently branched into downtown Greenville.  I have been hearing its praises sung for weeks here and finally got to try it.  Though I probably would order something different next time, I could sit and eat their homemade biscuits all day long.  SO. GOOD.  And Julie and Nana loved it!

The rest of the day was spent checking out a couple of antique/consignment shops around our community.  We pretty much decided on a dresser that day for the baby room!  SCORE.

imagine knobs instead of the girly pulls, and navy instead of teal.  this sucker was a great price that my grandmother talked down even more, an antique, and extremely sturdy.  great find.

Wednesday began... I tried to start mowing the lawn while they hit some more antique shops in the southern part of the county after swinging by to pick up the dresser.  Neither of us were very successful.  The lawnmower stopped on me (later figured out it was stopped up with damp grass), and they couldn't find the antique store they wanted to get to (my aunt wouldn't use a GPS).  So they came back and picked me up for lunch.  I eventually found the antique shop, which turned out to be a great stop where we scored the owl that I painted red, and an old Donald Duck comic book for the baby room.  

When we got home, Julie graciously offered to finish mowing the backyard.  And finished moments before we had a huge storm hit.  I ended up cooking a good home-cooked meal of grilled porkchops, baked potatoes, squash, green beans and cornbread. 

Thursday morning, we were up bright and early again to drive up to Asheville, NC to tour the Biltmore.  Neither my aunt or I had ever been there so my grandmother wanted to make sure we got to see it.  This place was huge.  

The Biltmore is a French chateau mansion that was built for the Vanderbuilt family and opened in 1895.  The estate spans 125,000 acres of North Carolina territory that was designed by Frederick Law Olmstead (the same man that designed Central Park).  The home has 250 rooms including 35 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, 63 fireplaces, and a gym, bowling alley, and swimming pool in the basement.

We toured the house first followed by a small portion of the gardens.

We still had a little time left in Asheville before I needed to head back home, so we went to a recommended antique shop down there.  The massive Antique Tobacco Barn.  While it was an incredibly neat place to go, it is not the place to go when you are pregnant, exhausted from walking all day, and it is 90+ degrees outside.  This place is actually an old barn.  No air conditioning.  And it is MASSIVE and piled with stuff.  None of us found anything we had to have, but it was a really cool place to visit... just best toured in the fall. :)  

So with that final stop, I said goodbye to my family and hit the road to see Kyle before he had to be in bed.  But not without indulging in a craving I have been avoiding for weeks.