Asheville, NC vacation

We're back from our crazy awesome trip to Asheville, NC and man is it hard to get back to real life! We had such a great time hanging out with family for a week, it was just so nice to get away from all the stress of "real life" for awhile and enjoy the gorgeous mountains (which Memphis is sadly lacking.) 

Our trip started out pretty rocky when our GPS misguided us up a VERY windy mountain, which caused both of my kids to get carsick (one in the car, which is my very least favorite thing in the world btw.) After we slowly made our way back down the mountain and finally got there, it was nothing but r&r as we settled into the lake house for a week. We did a lot of shopping, pontoon boating, and LOTS of hot tub time. Consequently I've decided I need a hot tub in the very near future (husband, if you're reading this take notes.) Nothing major, just a nice big hot tub. With cup holders for my wine, because hot tubbing becomes super classy with wine.

Of all the things we did all week though, my favorite thing was the gem mining. It gave us all instant gratification - you buy a bucket full of sand with gems buried in it and sift the sand out so you always get gems in your bucket - and it was SO much fun for all of us, me included! You just dump shovels full of sand into the little sifter thingy (there has to be an official title for it, but there you go) and just sift all the sand out until you find your treasures. Connor even got into the fun, but we had to rescue several of the rocks from being eaten. We got a lot of great gems, and I plan on posting a tutorial soon on how to make jewelry out of some of the gems we found!

All in all it was a pretty great week but it went by way too fast. I guess vacations are like that though, aren't they?