not alot in charlotte

Before returning our rental car and catching our plane, we headed into downtown Charlotte in search of a bite to eat. Most of the restaurants and cafes were closed, so we settled for breakfast at the Monticello Restaurant located in the historic Dunhill Hotel.

The food was nothing out of the ordinary (pancakes and omelettes) but we enjoyed seeing a bit of a new city and know our food was better than what we would have found at the airport!

happy birthday

We celebrated Grandpa Gene's 90th birthday along with about 50 of his friends at a party held at their church. We enjoyed a potluck dinner with lots of southern home cooking, cake and ice cream and Gene Melton trivia.

Happy Birthday, Grandpa!

a spring in our step

Even though we're traveling this week, we stuck to our normal routine of running followed by breakfast. Unlike normal, we ran on a trail along the Blue Ridge Parkway and then enjoyed breakfast in downtown Asheville at the Tupelo Honey Cafe.

Heidi enjoyed the Petunia’s Pain Perdu (Two pieces of New Orleans style french toast made with City Bakery challah bread topped with cinnamon sugar, blackberry skillet jam, and toasted almonds) while mike dug into a southern jambalaya egg plate (the special of the day).

the early bird gets the worm

Mike and I had done a bit of research on restaurants in Asheville and so had my mom. We had all heard about the Early Girl Eatery (which was also stop for Rachel Ray on a recent episode of '$40 a Day') and were anxious to try it.

The Early Girl features local meats and produce, many of which are organic. Together with my parents, we sampled the grouper sandwich (2, actually), blackened seafood salad, the cheeseburger, the chocolate cake and a cobbler. Yum!

on the road

heidi is now traveling to des moines each tuesday for work. in march, she'll add a few more days to this weekly schedule while she fills in for a project manager in the des moines office going on maternity leave.

this weekend we're traveling to north carolina to surprise her grandfather on his 90th birthday!

this rocks

we both think that valentine's day is an overrated hallmark holiday, but we do enjoy using it as an excuse/opportunity to indulge in chocolate! after work we stopped at Christopher Elbow to enjoy some drinking chocolate and picked up a bar of No. 6 Dark Rocks chocolate (dark chocolate and pop rocks) to enjoy later. after a dinner of homemade pizza we rocked out with our chocolate!

brought to you by the letter C

Our friend Jami Leahy was visiting from Colorado along with her 2 boys and I enjoyed an evening of 'C's with Jami and her sister-in-law...catching up, chinese food, cupcakes and clowning around (the boys took care of that!)