Thanksgiving - a little late

Wow. I can't believe that it has already been a week since we left for our Thanksgiving trip. We started out in Marion to visit Paul's parents. We had a great time eating and catching up - we even saw Andrew & Gary!

Traffic was extremely heavy on I-40, I guess it didn't hurt that gasoline finally came down a few more cents - we bought for $1.99 at our house! It's sad that we were excited for it being under $2...

We met up with my parents in Asheville on Thursday afternoon and then headed over the Grove Park for our Thanksgiving meal. We ate at the Grovewood Cafe ("we have reservations!") and then took a walk around the Inn. The gingerbread houses were amazing, of course. However, they were spread out ALL over the place. I don't think we even saw them all. We did see most of the winners - they were absolutely incredible. (I took pictures - but they are on Paul's laptop since our camera's memory stick had a breakdown.... long story, but thankfully I have a few pictures of our trip).

Not your typical gingerbread creation, but it was stunning!
(Adult 4th place)

And so was this (Adult 1st place)

(pictures from the GPI website)

We took it easy the entire time we were in Asheville - except that I had mom get up EARLY on Friday morning so we could catch some sales. We didn't make it out of the hotel until 7am, but we were done shopping by 10am, so that was a SCORE!

On Saturday, we took a little drive on the "new" I-26 from Asheville to Johnson City. My parents did want to check out the JC Penny store at the Johnson City Mall, and we just wanted to get out of Asheville for the day (seeing that a large chunk of the parkway was closed due to snow). On our way into Johnson City I recognized the road that Becky-Lu lives off. As we passed the exit, I could see her apartment in the distance and knew that on our way back we HAD to stop and at least see if my instincts were right. After shopping at the mall and lunch we headed back out on I-26 and turned off at Becky-Lu's road... low-and-behold, we found her! And bad me for not calling in advance! She was the perfect last minute hostess and we stayed and talked for a little bit. It was so good to see 'Lu!

Ok, enough rambling, I'll post some pictures soon. All in all it was a great trip, even though Paul and I were both sick!