This weekend, Tony and I were in Asheville, NC. We took a walk downtown and spent Sunday hiking at Chimney Rock State Park. We finally got to see some of the fall color we’ve been missing, it was breathtaking and absolutely everything we hoped it would be, and I took a ton of pictures.
It’s late, and I’m exhausted, so just click through the photo for more photos, k? :)
On Saturday, I celebrated my 25th birthday. I have one word to describe how I feel after this weekend: lucky.
We took a short trip to the beautiful town of Chapel Hill, NC on Saturday to hunt for used vinyl. I had about $25 to spend as well as a $50 gift card from my co-workers for dinner.
I was nervous to bring Howie along, but last week he had surgery to remove a benign lump from his neck. The surgery was minor and he’s recovering well, but he has staples in his neck from his incision, so we didn’t want to leave him at a boarding facility.
He was thrilled to come along, of course, and it ended up working out wonderfully. All of the record stores that we browsed were happy to allow Howie to come in with us, and we had dinner on the patio at a dog-friendly restaurant. They even brought Howie a dish of ice water.
Having him with us was a little inconvenient at times, but I’m glad I was able to celebrate my birthday with my whole family, including our perfect little dog.
We found 7 albums from our list and stayed within our $25 budget, and the restaurant was so affordable that we were able to order two beers without going over budget. Overall, it was one of the greatest birthdays on record, all thanks to my incredible little family. :)
Click here for more images from our adventure.
September 2009 from Karen Sams on Vimeo.
As much as I miss the beauty of autumn in the Midwest, I’m slowly learning to appreciate just how beautiful this time of year is in North Carolina.
The leaves are changing slowly, and though it’s still a little too warm for me, the weather reminds me of those beautiful fall days when the sun is warm and the air is clear. It’s like Indian Summer every day. It’s different, but equally beautiful in a lot of ways, and I’d be lying if I said I won’t miss it just a little.
Click the photo for more images of North Carolina’s Indian summer.
Today my husband turns 26 years old.
I apologize for the blurry image, but Tony refuses to smile whenever a camera is within 100 feet of him. This smile was purely by accident, which is why I didn’t even have time to focus properly before I snapped the picture. But he has such a lovely smile, doesn’t he?
We didn’t start dating until January 2006, but it was this time of year in 2005 that I realized I was in love with him. He was my best friend then, and he still is. Only now I get to kiss him whenever I want.
There’s nothing that he wouldn’t do to make me happy, and I absolutely can’t wait to see him as a father. I hope our children inherit his generosity, compassion, and genius-level intelligence along with his beautiful blue eyes.
For his birthday, I surprised him with the remastered mono box set of all the Beatles albums. It was an extravagant gift by our standards, but you should have seen him moping around the house like Charlie Brown for the past few weeks since its release.
Usually, Tony will tell me what he wants for his birthday, and I’ll tell him to go ahead and order it since he knows where to find it and exactly what to get. For the past few years, he’s failed to ever order his gift. He thinks it through, plans on it, and then decides it’s not worth the money.
This year, I didn’t give him the opportunity to do that. I ordered the box set the day of its release, and kept it a secret for weeks. It may be an extravagant gift, but the happiness it brought him was absolutely worth it. It threw off our budget for this month, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Believe me, no one on Earth deserves it more.
This weekend we went to the art museum (free admission yesterday thanks to Museum Day), then we saw “Food Inc.” on campus (free), and ate at his favorite pizza place (courtesy of his parents who sent us money for a dinner out). And this morning I made him a delicious apple streusel coffee cake that you must try.
Happy birthday, sweetheart. I’m so very glad you were born.
For more pictures of the festivities, click here.
This weekend was Rosh Hashanah, the celebration of the Jewish new year. Tony and I aren’t Jewish, but we love to learn about and appreciate the spirituality of other cultures (especially when there’s delicious food involved), so we decided to make a traditional Jewish new year dish in honor of Rosh Hashanah.
One of the foods traditionally served on Rosh Hashanah is challah, a round sweet bread, to symbolize the cycle of the year. Apples and honey are often served to symbolize a “sweet” new year. In honor of both of these traditions, we baked apple-honey challah, and oh my goodness, it was more like a cake than a loaf of bread.
We drizzled it with honey and served it for dessert last night and breakfast this morning. It’s a lot like a coffee cake: sweet, but not overwhelmingly rich. And the recipe is so simple.
I hope you all had a wonderful weekend, and to all of my Jewish readers, L’Shana Tova a day late!
Yesterday was one of those days when our city didn’t seem so bad. A huge block of the historic downtown was closed to traffic for an annual Art Walk. Artists displayed their work, and we were free to stroll from tent to tent viewing everything from paintings and photography to crafts to homemade candles and soap.
We finally had a chance to stop at the record shop around the corner from our house, where we found four great vinyl albums in the $1 bin. We’ll be taking all of our CDs there sometime soon so we can sell them and make the switch to all digital music. We’ve started rebuilding our collection of vinyl albums, but we’re only buying those when we find them cheap.
We spent the evening sipping wine, listening to our new albums, and dancing in the living room. Well, I danced in the living room anyway. Tony isn’t much a dancer. Howie tried, but he decided he’d rather wrestle than waltz, so I gave up on both of them and danced by myself.
Click the photo for this week’s slide show.
Yesterday we took a spur of the moment drive to Charleston, SC for the day. I’m glad we did the trip in a day instead of spending a whole weekend there last May. After walking around downtown, there just wasn’t much to see. As usual, we brought the dog and ate cheap, so the trip cost about $40 including gas.
I told Tony when we bought the camera that I wanted to be in the pictures, too, so he’d have to take camera duty every now and then. This plan isn’t working out. As you’ll see in the slide show, this picture of me in the side view mirror is the only picture I’m in from the whole day.
Click on it to see the rest of our photos.
P.S. Would you let me know if the bigger images I’m posting look funky? Even though Tony is using the same browser and operating system as me (Firefox and Mac), these bigger images are overlapping with my sidebars on his computer. Please let me know if you’re having this issue, too.