Family Reunions are the Greatest

I consider myself lucky enough to have a family that I am very close to. Last weekend, my cousin Shane got married, so my mom's whole side of the family traveled from all over to Winston Salem, NC to celebrate. It's always so exciting when we can all put our busy schedules aside and see each other. We had people coming in from Georgia, Minnesota, West Virginia, New York, Ohio, and North Carolina. We pretty much covered half of the country, wouldn't you say?


The whole family, after the wedding


My mom has three sisters, so between their husbands and kids, their kids' spouses and significant others, and grandma, we made up a grand total of 23 people (I think?). Much of the weekend was spent in the hotel, only because there were too many of us to go to restaurants. It was pretty great though, because it gave everyone time to catch up, eat pizza and drink wine. Saturday afternoon, we were feeling a little stir crazy, so we headed out to a WS fair. There was lots of food, drinks, and entertainment, so it was great to walk around and see the sites a bit!

My favorite couple spotted in WS.. Coca Cola pants!

As for the wedding itself...it was beautiful! Of course there were tears, mostly coming from the females of the group, but what's a wedding without them? Afterwards, we all headed back towards Winston Salem to an old post office turned reception. It was awesome! A very cool reception location. There were fabulous appetizers at the beginning (bacon wrapped scallops, bruschetta, asparagus in phyllo dough, etc..) Inside the wedding, there was actually a candy bar! Something I've never seen before, but you can imagine everyone's excitement when they got to reenact their childhood memories of filling up the plastic bags of candy at Sweet Factory - only it was free! The only downside to the candy bar was the amount of crack-induced kids under the age of 8 that immediately hit the dance floor in a sugar-induced craze... but that's a different story :)

Holy candy, batman!

By the end of the weekend, everyone was exhausted and dreading the drive/flight home. I was so happy to see everyone, since it only happens every year or so. I took the bf along with me to meet the whole  family, and lets just say he was given the seal of approval by EVERYONE! I had no doubts that he would be completely adored and embraced by the family, but it was still nice to get official approval from grandma ;)

Some photos of the weekend:

My dad takes 1,976,753 pictures at weddings, so I caught him in the act!

Cousins enjoying delicious food

Me and my momma!

All the sisters - can't you see the resemblance?

I brought my moves straight from ATL.

All 9 cousins before cramming into the photo booth

I suppose I'm teaching my parents the electric slide?

More cousin dancing...



My favorite bro!



J4 showing off his moves

 Looks like a pretty fun time, eh? We kinda like to dance...

Tupelo Honey

This weekend, the bf and I headed to Asheville, NC for another wedding. I have actually never been to Asheville, but have always heard good things. What a cute little town! On Friday we ate lunch at Tupelo Honey Cafe, which was delicious!

I did some wandering and window shopping solo on Saturday, as the bf had groomsmen duties to attend. I tried to take a lot of pictures, because the weather was so beautiful!

Lots of little arts and crafts booths set up

The people on the right had a bunch of sketchy looking food for sale

Cool liquor bottle art!

Beautiful!

Asheville Court House

Found a cool bead store.. too bad I'm not that creative anymore!

After lots of walking around, we met back at the hotel to get all spiffy for the wedding! The bf looked dapper in his tux of course, while I went for a new green dress (that looks blue in the pics!) which will be making many appearances at the next few weddings I'll be attending. The reception was at a place called The Century Room, which was upstairs in a restaurant/bar, Pack's Tavern.

This guy was parked out front!

Very cool place, right in the heart of Asheville. Needless to say, we enjoyed the beer and wine and fantastic band that night!

We tried to look very proper here....

....but lets be serious, this is way more fun!

Good candid of the lovely couple heading to their car through the bubbles!

What a great wedding weekend! Only two more to go this year, then the 2011 round will begin! Someday soon we'll have a free weekend.... I think? :)

Dreaming...

Wishing that I were here...

Or here...

With one of these...

Instead of here...

Feeling like this...

At least it's hump day! Almost the weekend, ALMOST!!

Reunited and it feels so good..

This past weekend I got to see my besties from Clemson. We met freshman year in the dorms, and were inseparable the rest of college! Sadly after graduation, we each ended up in different cities: me in Atlanta, AL in Greenville, and KL in Charlotte. Not too far away, but it is still tough to work out our busy schedules to see eachother. Since it had been just about a century since the Triple Threat was in action (yes,we made that name up in college - don't judge), we decided to squeeze in a quick visit to Greenville, even though we could only do one night.

I have giant heels on, and I'm still so dang short!

If you haven't ever made a trip to Greenville, you should definitely fit it into your schedule sometime. Their downtown is absolutely adorable, and there are so many boutiques, restaurants and a beautiful park to walk around in. It's definitely an up and coming city, and only a little over two hours from Atlanta! On Friday, we started the night off at a tapas restaurant called Stellar Restaurant and Wine Bar. We wanted to go to a tapas place so we could share a few items and still be able to button our pants afterwards. Between the calamari, beef scallopine, vegetable baklava and spinach salad, we were quite content! Oh, and of course it isn't a meal without some wine, so we tried a merlot, called Cypress. I have since tried to find it after I got back to Atlanta with no such luck. Sigh.

Downtown Greenville is beautiful!

After dinner we walked to a bar downstairs called Rey's. To my great surprise, one of our favorite bouncers from Tiger Town Tavern at Clemson was working there (Clemson ppl, you probably recognize him)! Needless to say, we were pretty excited to see Brody, as he always gave us the special treatment by letting us to the front of the line during busy game weekends. Luckily, he is still working the game weekends in Clemson, so looks like we've still got our connections :)

Unsure who the guy in the pimp suit is, but we let him in the picture simply bc of his outfit...

The rest of the night was filled with bar hopping, running into a few old friends, and the best cab ride ever. Greenville has GOLF CART cabs... Wait, I take that back.. Golf cart LIMO cabs. It was pretty much the greatest way to travel around downtown, and only $2 a head. I'm thinking Atlanta should invest in some of these, even though I'm not sure they would survive one night on Peachtree St...

Golf Cart Limo Cab thingie = genius.

The next morning, we woke up feeling... well, let's just say less than ideal. So we headed out to grab some greasy food downtown, followed by a little Blueberry Frog fro-yo, and some much needed pedis. I was so sad to leave my buds so soon, but still glad we got to hang out even for just one night. It always feels great to pick up right where we left off when we graduated. Love you guys!!

Nashvegas

So, I know this is technically an Atlanta blog, but I just got back from Nashville and want to share the experience! Nashville has been on my personal bucket list for quite some time now, so the bf and I decided to go for the 4th of July this year. Let me just say, what a fantastic city!

Broadway Street

There was so much to do in Nashville, so we hit the ground running the second we got to our hotel. Of course, we hit the the Honky Tonk strip bars first and foremost. All day, those places are hoppin'! My favorite place was Tootsies, which had the best bands AND the "Holler and Swaller". You can probably figure that one out on your own, but basically the band will have the whole bar raise their glasses, everyone hollers, and you take a big swig of beer! That pretty much sums up what we did all afternoon each day.

Best Band at Tootsies!

At night, we tried some restaurants that we chose after thorough online research. The first one was Whiskey Kitchen. The drinks and food were both delicious. I settled for my usual wine, while bf tried a New Fashioned, which is an Old Fashioned with apples and cinnamon in it. Delish! (Well, for those bourbon fans out there at least…) The second night we went to Sunset Grill, which was even better! We split a bunch of appetizers, a hummus platter, a seafood platter, some polenta cheese fries… SO much food! Definitely recommend this place if you head to Nashville soon.

To be touristy, we visited the Ryman Auditorium (original Grand Ole Opry) and the Country Music Hall of Fame. Now, I love the “pop country” that you hear all over CMT, but I’ll admit that I don’t really know old school country (Hank Williams, Tammy Wynatte, etc…) so some of the exhibits were a little over my head. Still great museums though! We did get to go backstage at the Ryman to see the dressing rooms, so we saw the rooms that people like Johnny and June once got ready in.

Being tourists on the stage at the Ryman

Tired of the ridiculous tour group we were forced to walk around with, we decided to do something a little more "us", so we found a local Nashville brewery to visit. It’s called Yazoo Brewery, and it was so fun! They just relocated to a larger building, because they are starting to gain some serious street cred. Before the tour began, which is only $6 and includes heavy samples, we got the beer sampler which contained 6 different Yazoo beers.

All the Yazoo brews!

Then we went on the tour and got to see where all the beer is brewed daily. It’s pretty cool, because a lot of it is still done manually. That will soon change as they keep growing as a company, I’m sure. The best thing that they offer is beer in a giant container, called a Growler. All of the locals were coming in with their empty containers to get refills for the weekend.

Growler o' Beer

The last day was geared towards 4th of July celebrations. They had downtown Nashville flooded with cheesy festival stuff; water slides for the kids (or drunk adults), food vendors, live music, and a beer garden. So we spent the day weeding through the crowds and drinking some beers before settling down on a statue of some sort to watch the fireworks. We ended up having perfect seats, as the phenomenal fireworks were right over our head! I’ve never seen fireworks so fantastic in my life; it was a site!

Happy 4th of July

All in all, a perfect trip to Nashville. I came home about 10 lbs heavier from beer alone, but that’s the price you pay for a great Fourth of July with great company :)


~E