Jordan Lake Campers

This week is my vacation!  We had planned on vacationing in Barcelona or hiking Machu Picchu, however, after buying a new house, our wallets could really only afford a camping trip :)  We headed over to Jordan Lake for a quick night on the water.  It was beautiful and we had a great time.  We even had a special guest for dinner :)

Since our last camping adventure, we added several new pieces of equipment and I was super excited to try them out.  The greatest addition of all was the blow up mattress.  Our backs killed after our last camping trip, but no longer!  Our mattress rocks!

 

 We picked a very pretty camp site.  Clouds play a common theme on my vacations.

  

 The blow up mattress!  I probably should not have ordered the double tall mattress as it barely fits in our tent, but I slept like a baby!

  

  

 Alex's masterpiece

  

 Our camp site :)

  

 Mom came for dinner!

  

  

 We love smores!

  

 My good morning view

  

 We made breakfast on the stove.

  

 It started to rain for a bit overnight, but luckily we had brought our canopy along and just plopped it over our tent.

  

 The sun came out as we were packing up.

  

 Goodbye Jordan Lake!

Foundation

We drove by our house site the other day and the foundation had been laid!  Also, the house next door is already up!!  Hopefully it will not be long before they start building our house!  To build our new neighborhood, an old neighborhood built in the early 1900s was knocked down.  The materials from that neighborhood were ground and used to construct the roads, side walks and foundations of Brightwalk.  Just one of the many ways our neighborhood is green :)

 

  

 The view from the garage.

Charleston Chicas

Kate invited me to go to Charleston with her this weekend to finish up some last minute wedding details.  We stayed at the Francis Marion Hotel downtown and had a fun girls weekend!

 

Our room

  

Oysters, oysters, oysters!

    

 Charleston City Market

  

  

 Cheers!

Labor Day Cookout

Katherine and Tessie had us over for a Labor Day cookout last night.  Kaylyn surprised us with two special guests, David and Sarah!  We celebrated our July birthdays since we had not seen the Regans in so long.  It is always nice having family so close :)

 

The delicious spread!

  

 Happy birthday to us!

  

 Kaylyn and Sarah

Uptown Sound

Alex and I went to Uptown Sound last night in Bearden Park.  Uptown Sound is a weekly event where local bands perform in uptown green space.  We brought a bottle of wine and enjoyed the music on the lawn.  The weather was perfect with low 70 degree temperatures.  We ended up seeing some friends we hadn't seen in a while and had a great time.

 

Uptown Sound

 

The pretty view!

 

  

Enjoying our city :)

Our Future is Bright

Alex and I decided to build a house!  Early in July, we received notice that our rent was increasing $250 a month.  Rather than continue to pay more than we should for something we didn't own, we decided to take the big leap!  We had been looking at houses for sale over the past year and hadn't really seen anything in our style that was worth the asking price.  There was one new neighborhood, however, that caught our attention.  The neighborhood is called Brightwalk and is in the North Charlotte area, just a mile outside of Uptown bordering NoDa.  The neighborhood is an urban renewal project aimed at integrating community with environmental restoration and sustainable living.  We loved the idea of being able to build our dream house so close to Uptown in a neighborhood centered around green ideals.  We have spent the past month picking cabinet colors, working our way through our first home loan, and planning for the future.  We are so very excited about this new adventure!

  

 The first footprint!  We were in the neighborhood today picking out paint colors when we noticed that the frames had been placed for the foundation!  It was such a nice surprise! 

 

Standing in the future garage!

  

 Looking from the garage to the back of the house.

Drive-In Movie

We finally made it to a drive-in movie!  We found the Badin Road Drive-In Theater over in Albemarle when we went camping on Morrow Mountain back in June.  I have always wanted to go to a drive-in movie!  We loaded up the car with blankets, pillows and a picnic basket and drove out to the theater after work on Saturday night.  It was such a fun experience!

 

 Setting up the car

  

 Comfy!

   

Cheers to finally making it to a drive-in!

  

 We were very sophisticated drive-in goers.  We brought a cutting board along to slice our baguette for ham and cheese sandwiches. 

     

    

Heavy Metal Tuesday

Alex, Briton and I went to the Motley Crue/Alice Cooper concert Tuesday night at the PNC Pavilion.  I have never been a heavy metal fan, but I had a great time and actually really liked the music!  We are very glad that we were able to see Motley Crue on their last tour.

 

Waiting for the concert to begin!

  

 The Alice Cooper.

  

 Frankenstein

    

Motley Crue!

  

  

 The drum kit went up on the tracks!

    

   

 Briton and I are rockers :)

  

  

   

   

A Night with the Knights

Alex and I have been dying to go to a Knights Baseball game since they opened the new park in Uptown this year.  My attending gave us a pair of his season tickets so we could finally go to a game!  I'm still not even sure who the opposing team was, but the Knights won and Alex and I had a blast!

 

We walked to the game since it was so nice outside.

  

 We had great seats right behind first base with a great view of Uptown!

  

 Go Knights!

  

 Love the view!

  

 You know you are at a southern sporting event when your beer comes in mason jars :)

  

 Being photogenic on the walk home!

   

Asheville Getaway

Things have been pretty busy around our house for the past few weeks.  Alex had a couple days off so he decided to drive up to Asheville.  Finch is doing his third year of medical school at a hospital in the city so Alex caught up with him.  It has been so long since we spent time with Finch!  Lucky for us, the Shupes moved over the state line and are now just outside of downtown Asheville.  They are only a two hour drive from our house!  Alex was able to visit them and see their new beautiful house(s). 

  

 The Alexs

    

 Bay, Alex, Tessa and Dillon

  

 I can't wait to visit!

  

 Tessa and her boyfriend