Asheville

Sarah and I both had the day off today- a truly rare occasion- so we headed up to Asheville, NC for a walk around the city. Asheville is the home of the Biltmore Estate and is known for its art galleries and crafts. I was looking forward to the bookstores I had been hearing all about and the furniture stores that sell hand made furniture from the area.

After a brief visit to the Chamber of Commerce, we parked and hiked around the city. We visited the Grove Arcade, a large building constructed to hold several stories of shops and services. It is essentially an elegant version of a modern day mall. My favorite store was "The Big Cheese" which, surprisingly, sold a variety of cheeses. We sampled several and bought some yogurt cultured jalapeno pepper cheese and some cranberry stilton. The stilton was, by far, my favorite; Sarah prefers the spicier cheeses.

We visited two of the three major bookstores in town and we made a few purchases. I hesitated to buy too much since I didn't feel like lugging a ton of books around town. I was somewhat disappointed with the furniture shops in town; the quality wasn't quite what I expected. Maybe it's because I visited a Thos. Moser showroom two weeks ago.

It seemed Asheville also had an antique shop on each corner. One shop was almost exclusively antique, hand carved imports from Southeast Asia. Some of those were quite impressive.

The rain held off and our legs held up well into the afternoon. Actually, the rain never came but our legs gave out eventually. We came home and finished off our day with some steaks and asparagus on the grill. Not bad for a day off.

I will try to update more . . .

GO PATRIOTS!!!!!

Christmas in Maine

Sarah and I returned Saturday from a brief trip to Maine for Christmas. We have long since given up on driving there, especially in the winter. An interesting tidbit- the first leg of our flight was from Charlotte to Atlanta. About 10 minutes into the flight I started recognizing places on the ground- the Cliffs at Glassy, Sarah's bank, the great empty area in Dacusville, Lake Keowee. It was pretty cool to actually recognize buildings from the air.

Sunday my parents' church had a Christmas program and Annie and Lianna had a big part in it. They are extremely talented musicians. Dad did a Scripture reading and then Dad, Mom and the girls sang a song together.


We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas with my immediate family and my aunts. This Christmas was not a white Christmas, but it was cold. We got our first snow on Tuesday, but most of it melted by the end of the week. (The first picture at taken from the end of my parent's driveway and the second is at the Carrabassett River about a mile away.)



Lianna and I went skiing at Saddleback Mountain on Thursday. There was a lot more snow up near the mountain. About half of the trails were open and we had a great time. Thursday evening we had some lobster and potatoes. The perfect day!



I had a great week relaxing, freezing, and torturing the girls. That's what a good Christmas vacation is all about. Of course the big snow came while we were on our way to Boston on Saturday. There was no snow when we left but there was about 4-5 inches of accumulation by the time we got to Boston.