8 years with my BFF

So the busyness of the business and babes, doesn't do the best things for  Beach and my marriage.  But we want it to strengthen and grown and realize that this is crucial.  Relationships are hard, especially when you don't have much time together and there is a little that sleeps between you!  So I was very thankful for a night away with my man to celebrate our 8 year wedding anniversary!

My dad blessed us with some of his hotel points, but in that life is busy, I didn't think about booking a hotel until a few days before the weekend, on a Labor day weekend.  Yikes, this meant that the ONLY hotel open within a three hour drive was in Charlotte   I had no idea what we would do there, but after some searching on the Internet, off we went. 

I found this awesome Groupon for a wine tour and testing (and bottle) an hour outside of the city at a cute little place called Treetop Vineyard.  

The weather was perfect and how fun it was to try some muscadine wines (I had no idea that you could grow them without pesticides).

They had a live band playing as we walked through the vineyard.  Cheers to our love!

I, also, found a Groupon deal near by for some Mexican food. 

This was probably the definition of "hole in the wall" and we were the only ones in there on a Saturday night.  But the food was really good. 

Not bad for all the food being 6 bucks!  Man I love a good deal!

We headed in to Uptown Charlotte and had a time getting to our hotel.  Floods of people were out for the evening, roads we needed blocked, and it was a bit intimidating.  But we made it and found this sweet handwritten note, chocolate covered strawberries and champagne in our room from the staff!  Nice touch!

After doing some web surfing and hearing from some friends familiar with the area, I found some things around town the next morning!

Not Just Coffee was a block from our hotel and I have actually been following him on Instagram for a year (without even knowing where he was from).

The vanilla bean lattes were out of this world and beautiful made as well!

You know Beach enjoyed this!  I love to see him able to relax with his favorite pastime.

Then just a block from there was a Elevation Church.  I have recently listen to some of their podcasts, so we were able to wonder in for the service.  Actually on the way in they were making a video, which we were featured in and they later showed to all the campuses.  I don't know how to actually see how it looks and it is a bit old knowing that it is out there.  But an old friend emailed me and stated that she was shocked to see me (on video) at her church that day!

We had several recommendations for NoDa and headed there for some yummy pizza and then to Amelie's bakery for desert.  So many choices and I was very overwhelmed.  I tend to want to try everything but we shared a small plate of some of the best looking ones.

My man puts up with quit a lot from me.  I know sometimes I can be difficult and challenging,  especially when we don't have much structure, but he is so patient. Even when I'm sick of me!

I was looking at the map wrong and got confused, so we scratched what we were going to do for the evening, grabbed some yummy food at Trader Joe's, and found another interesting site to picnic at.

It was at this random park called Big Rock that was in the middle of this neighborhood.  It, in fact, had many big rocks.  I wanted to explore some of the trails, but alas Beach pulled me back to reality and the fact that we needed to head home and get our babes!

A blessed time to be together.....here is our picture from prom 16 years ago (it still cracks me up as my hair had started falling down at dinner before we even got there and Beach's face!  He was excited to be there and we had a great time dancing.  Let's just forget about that I had a bf at the time - long story) ...and our wedding 8 years ago.  So blessed to have known my BFF for so many years and shared so many things together!  Beach I'm so proud of the husband, father and adventure that you are!