And anniversary weekend commences.

I guess I kind of left you hanging with our Boone trip.  I didn't want to overwhelm you with pictures, so I figured I'd save the other part of our weekend.  While we spent Friday lounging around and exploring the lands, we took Saturday to walk around downtown Boone.

Does this outfit look familiar? Add a chambray + different color sweater, and it's a new outfit!  It certainly kept me warm.  I'm still trying to break out of my photo-shy shell while being in public, so I didn't take many pictures in town and none that warrant display.

But we did have a pretty great dinner at Vidalia.

Since we were technically traveling (remember my vegetarian rules?), I got the smoked chicken & "dumplings."  The dumplings were gnocchi, and I can not pass up gnocchi!  D and I were both impressed with our meals and really enjoyed our meal there!

After exploring in Boone, we bundled up and came home to drink and lounge by the fire (and use up all the firewood).

Special beers and this guy were the perfect way to end our anniversary trip.  Of course we spent one last time in the hot tub too.

Travel Tuesday :: To the mountains.

We have a tradition of heading to the North Carolina mountains for our anniversary.  We've gradually upgraded every year.  For our first anniversary, we started in a teeny little "studio" cabin on the same road where we stayed this year.  Last year, we had a much busier weekend staying right outside of Asheville, NC in Max Patch.  This year, we headed back to Boone for a cabin with a lot of land and gorgeous weather.

On Thursday night, we drove in and enjoyed the fire and just being together in the cabin.  The decor definite reminded us of the cabin (of the same owners) from our first anniversary.  That fox freaked out the dogs (and myself) a bit.  We tested out the hot tub, which was off by quite a few degrees (cue burning of feet & toes), so we took a break from that to let it cool down.  In the meantime, beers were consumed and books were read.

I took advantage of all the downtime and used it to read and ice my pathetic leg.  Since my leg wasn't 100%, we didn't hike on Friday but took advantage of the beautiful weather nonetheless.

 [We welcomed our anniversary morning with breakfast & cards. Above is from the amazing, NC local, EmDash]

 [There was plenty of land for the dogs to explore. The above was just a tiny storage barn!]

[A dusty bottle from our visit here]

And over a bottle of wine, D killed me in Monopoly (oh, it's here and now style).  It was a good anniversary day.  Beautiful weather, great company.  In the meantime, I'll be brushing up on my Monopoly skills...