Sister Weekend

This weekend my sister got to come visit!  It was a weekend filled with eating, shopping (mostly of the window variety), and laughing.  She got in Friday afternoon and that evening we went and ate at The Firehouse.  She got to meet a lot of my co-workers and we split a piece of home made pumpkin pecan cheesecake that was amazing!  Well, we ate normal food too, but the dessert was the highlight.

Saturday morning we hit up a few shops in town and then headed to Asheville, North Carolina.  This would be her first trip to Asheville, so not only was I excited for her to experience it, but I was super excited about the drive there.  The leaves are absolutely gorgeous right now and I couldn't wait to see the mountains covered in them!

Once we got into Asheville we stopped by Mast General Store and French Broad Chocolate Lounge.  French Broad is a very well known chocolate shop, especially in the south.  There was a whole wall of framed magazine articles that they had been featured in, including Martha Stewart Living and several from Southern Living.  The wait was only 12 minutes or so, which wasn't bad.  I've waited close to 25 minutes before!  Amanda got a French macaroon and I got a piece of shortbread dipped in chocolate and sprinkled in pistachios.  It was very good, as I expected.

After that we stopped in Malaprop's and Bookends, both book stores.  Then Tops for Shoes, a shoe store where I petted all the Toms, and L.O.F.T.  L.O.F.T is a funky little shop with all sorts of cute and odd knick knacks.  I've gotten lots of gifts there over the years but didn't find anything this time.  By this time we were getting really hungry and went to put our name in at Tupelo Honey Cafe, because I knew there would be a wait.  The hostess told us it would be about 30-40 minutes, but it ended up only being about 20.  And in that time we were able to look around in the store next door, so it went by pretty quickly.

Amanda and I ended up ordering the same thing - their massive grilled cheese and tomato soup.  It had havarti cheese, goat cheese, ham, bacon, a fried green tomato, and basil on sourdough wheat bread.  Delicious!  The original sandwich actually had pimento cheese on it, but I subbed goat and Amanda subbed cheddar.   When we left we were stuffed and moaning about wanting to put our stretchy pants on.

We headed home after that, and encountered the weirdest weather along the way.  It started out fine, then out of nowhere it started pouring, and then it started sleeting!  A few minutes later everything stopped and there was a huge rainbow.  It was quite bizaire!  I had wanted to stop at the scenic overlook on the way home, so I was glad that all the bad weather stopped a few miles before the overlook.  These views never cease to amaze me!

We were having some issues with the self-timer...

...and then a cute little old man offered to take our picture.

After we got home we wasted no time changing into comfy clothes, watched tv, ate popcorn and went to bed early, even though we knew we were getting an extra hour of sleep.  Sunday morning we stopped by Panera for bagels before church, then went to church, and after that Amanda headed back to Blacksburg.  I'm so thankful for a great weekend during my favorite season, with my favorite sister - ok, my only sister - before I move away!