This weekend….

This weekend was a bit more chill than last weekend… Thursday, Lynette threw a going away party for us… which featured awesome food… awesome drinks.. and amazing conversation late into the evening….

Once again, I was slacking with the pictures… really, the only one I took was:

I need to get back to taking pictures more often… I always bring the gear, and plan to do it… but… it’s more fun to socialize than to sit there snapping away the entire time… I need to find a happy medium…

Today, we went to Asheville to spend some time with Courtney and Ashley… we started off with lunch at 12 Bones, a BBQ place that apparently President Obama eats at when he comes to Asheville.. it was some pretty good swine…

We then went for a walk around Asheville, which was unseasonably warm… but they were having some sort of art / craft sale thingie…

So… we walked around… Courtney tried to talk us into buying some sort of air plants…

I don’t know what they are… but… according to Courtney’s excitement about them… they make you fly. They make you have x-ray vision. They may even make you be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Courtney was rather excited about these things..

So.. we walked around… looked at stuff… then… of course it was time to get back to our regular scheduled programming… so… we found a wine shop that was doing a tasting… sampled some tasty white wines from New Zealand… then walked into a store that specializes in: Potato Chips. …. …. Really. They had all kinds of chips… a  menu you could order from… and even free samples of their plantain chips with a Nutella dipping sauce… they were pretty dang good… but… a whole store that sells nothing but potato chips? I’ll be looking to see if this store still exists in the future…

We also went into a pretty cool beer store… they had a rather amazing selection, but their prices were a bit higher on the beers that I recognized… They did have a huge selection.. and the above super-cool beer cabinet made out of a monk… the front of his robes do close… so.. yeah.. I’m adding this big burly beer bureau to my birthday list… I’ll figure out how to hook up a refrigeration system in his organ cavity….

After walking and sampling wine… and chips…. of course, it was time to eat again… so we hit a place that specialized in chocolate… beer… and ice cream… I had a macaroon brownie… Virginia got a “Stout Float” … yeah… Stout beer with 2 scoops  of vanilla ice cream in it…

It was an awesome trip to Asheville… spent with good people… eating good food… having good times… add trips like this and people like Courtney and Ashley to the list of things/people we’ll miss from Boone…

Farewell Boone….

Well… our time in Boone is coming to an end… and we’ve been making the most of it…

Last Friday, one of Virginia’s coworkers, Angel, hosted a going away party for us… AKA Trovatopalooza.. you may have seen the event on Facebook.. it was the biggest event in Boone in recent history. Given that it was such a huge event… I didn’t take many pictures….

The above is a wonderful creation that Josh came up with… it’s an awesome ham biscuit… with a deviled egg in it.. and a piece of teriyaki chicken… basically a combination of almost all of the foods available…. I made cannoli because Angel didn’t get to try the last batch, and I made some teriyaki wings… and some special hot wings…

The above would be a handful of Habaneros that I smoked on cedar planks… then, after getting them smoked to the point I wanted, I cranked up the heat to get a bit of flame on the cedar… just for picture purposes…

But.. the party was awesome… I just didn’t take pictures…

Saturday, we slept in a little bit… skipped the Farmer’s Market (we’re trying to eat all of the food out of our house…) Then, we went to Peabody’s for our regular Saturday afternoon wine tasting… we met there with Courtney, Ashley, and Josh to do the tasting… then to sit outside and have a few drinks before heading to our evening activity….

We drank some wine… it rained like crazy…. we had some cheese and crackers… then… we went to the Roller Derby.

I didn’t bring my good camera to the Derby… just the point and shoot… but, with the point and shoot I did make the video that I posted up last week…. so… this little ELPH 300HS isn’t a bad camera…

We started off sitting on the floor.. the “Suicide” seating… but.. my back wasn’t cooperating… in fact… my back hurt like hell… it hurt to stand.. it hurt to sit.. and it sure as hell hurt to be bent over, sitting on the floor… so… Saturday night, I headed home to a heating pad and the absolute strongest over the counter drugs that I could find..

Then Sunday… it was back into the car….

Then, on Sunday we went and visited Amanda in Greensboro… the above is a piece of campus artwork at Guilford College where she works… it’s an interesting campus…

The Hut … So… this sign belongs to the following building…

... and this building is apparently where the head Quaker dude on campus hangs out… they have meetings there… and… I dunno… they… make Oatmeal? I dunno…

According to the signs and whatnot around the area, Quakers decided to settle in the Greensboro / Guilford area…

We didn’t see a lot of these people walking around…

But… word on the street is that the Quakers run the college… in fact, Amanda was telling us something about all decisions by the governing bodies of the various parts of the school must be decided by consensus… which begs to raise the question… How do you fire someone? “Well, the board has reached an agreement… you’re fired” …. “See… I don’t agree with that.. I am in fact, not fired.” …. I see a flaw with the way they do things…

More to come soon….

Quick update from the Roller Derby....

So... a lot was going on this weekend... but... here's the easiest part to report.. the trip to watch the Appalachian Rollergirls....

Sunday Afternoon…

Well… after blogging this morning… we decided that we should get out of the house for a little bit… so… we hopped in the car.. drove over to Jefferson… and went for a little hike.

Mount Jefferson has a lovely hiking trail up at the top of the mountain… it takes you along the ridge of the mountain, and unlike 90% of the other trails around here… this one actually makes a loop…it also provides some great views along the way….

There were hawk/eagle-like birds flying around….

…and you can look down over huge sections of Ashe and surrounding counties….

The trails were well maintained… and there were the awesome flowering bush things all around…

Looking down on the surrounding areas made the towns look like models..

All in all… totally a fun trip…. a good hike.. not overly strenuous… but.. it had some great views….

The move from Boone….

Well, our time here in Boone has flown by… and it’s nearing time for us to leave. So, Thursday, we hopped in the car at 10AM and drove to Staunton so that Virginia could sign some papers at the HR office at Mary Baldwin. We then spent the night with the Newhalls… which is always fun.. we got to play with Jade… and Virginia went to do some yoga with Lisa… Virginia really enjoyed this, because apparently, this Yoga class is led by some kind of Adonis of a man…in Virginia’s words… he’s a beautiful man… I can’t provide my input… so we’ll have to take Virginia's word for it… but… for those folks in the Staunton area… looking for a yoga class taught by a male model… talk with Virginia. She’ll let you know where to go.

Meanwhile, Jonathan and I were hanging out with Jade…. so… I think we had the better half of the deal.

Friday morning, we started off our day with realtors… So… we were looking for something to rent… I still haven’t nailed down a job yet… so.. we’re planning on renting a place for a little while… then buying a place when we’re all good and settled in. So… I was ready to just get either: A) The cheapest place we could find or B) The first place we looked at. … … So… the first place we looked at was a house on Baltimore Street …

So… it was about a block off of Route 11… behind the Fisher Auto Parts… and next to Staunton Steam Laundry….

This place was absolutely dripping with character… Built in probably the early 1900’s…

Plaster walls… dark wood floors…

A “Sleeping Porch”….

Big rooms…. central heating…

Recently redone tile floors in the kitchen and entry…. decent appliances… somewhat dated kitchen….

And… it had a nice little back porch and a back yard….

But… the central heat was gas heat…. and the porch was kind of falling apart… and the back yard meant that I’d have to mow… and the charm of a old house is negated when you think about some of what that means… for example… the back door really doesn’t close… so.. it had one of these numbers on the back door to actually keep it somewhat closed… or… to at least keep it from swinging all of the way open….

All of the windows in the house are single pane… there are doors all over the basement are that you can see light around… air leaks are present all over the house in the form of covered chimney access holes… covered fireplaces… windows that are no longer square, so no longer close all of the way.. So… all of that money spent on natural gas heat would be rather rapidly lost through these many holes and crevices. So… even though we loved the house… I would have been more interested in buying it than renting it..

The Condo

I suppose at this point… I should say that we looked at many places… but the only places I ended up taking pictures at are places that I saw as a possibility… so.. the house with the back porch falling off that was $850 a month… no pictures… the house with access only by a dirt pull-off on the street, and then a 150ft walk uphill to the house… no pictures… the house that the door frame was pieced together after damage from what appeared to be a dozen break-ins…. no pictures…

But… another possibility was a condo off of Statler BLVD….

This place was 2BR, 1 BA… but the location was pretty cool….

The kitchen was a nice size… new appliances… fans in every room… A/C… gas heat and gas water heater…

The master bedroom had an awesome view of a retaining wall…I liked the feel of this place… but I don’t think it even rated on Virginia’s radar…. but.. it was a condo… it has gas.. and it was one of the smallest places we looked at….

The coolest thing about the apartments we saw through Remax was the real estate agent… She was from the midwest… but moved to Staunton when she attended school at Mary Baldwin…. she stayed in Staunton after she graduated in 1958… Since then, it seems like she has sold every building in Staunton at least 3 or 4 times…. Mainly, she worked with large, expensive, historic properties…. ranging from old women’s colleges to houses that belonged to cartographers from the Civil War…

She also showed us another place that was located on the first floor of a “multi-family” home… that place was…. interesting… It was early 1900’s… but fairly updated… but… it was 1 bedroom…and had a gas range/stove… the interesting thing was that utilities were included… that seems dangerous… if someone else is paying the utilities… I’d be tempted to have a 60 degree house all summer, and a 80 degree house all winter… but… neither the condo, nor the lower floor of a house really screamed out to us…

So… what did we end up with?

After reading the above posts… you may be wondering… “Did you find a place? Are you going to live in a box? Will you have to dig a hole and create a series of tunnels to be able to park your car?” … Or you might not be wondering these things… but… in any case… here in the last installment… you’ll find out where we ended up… so.. grab your popcorn and a soda.. and stay tuned.

Ok.. so.. this actually came earlier in the day… but in order for the flow of the posts to make sense… we’ll say that this happened latest…

So… upon starting the search for a place to live… I thought I knew what I wanted… I wanted a house #1… townhouse #2… or apartment / condo #3…. however.. the houses we looked at… well.. weren’t the most exciting… but… on the other hand… we looked at a rather nice townhouse… it’s located here….

hmmm…. so.. that patch of trees to the left of Seth Drive…… towards the top… there are 6 buildings there now.. with 10 townhouses in each one… Google Maps is a little bit behind with their satellite images… but… the townhouses are just outside of Staunton on 252…. just under 2 miles from Virginia’s office at Mary Baldwin….

All brand new appliances in a nice big kitchen….

A small back porch with a view of the mountains and room enough for my grill…..

2 Large bedrooms…

A full bath upstairs… and a half bath downstairs…

and a nice, large living room off of the kitchen, as soon as you walk into the place….

Here’s the kicker… the place has NEVER been lived in…. it’s got a heat pump for heating and cooling… and since it’s modern construction, heating and cooling costs should be relatively low… also, there is a “garden apartment” below us.. so in the winter, our floors should be heated by the people below us… so… we’re pretty excited about the new place… looking forward to making the move… once we make the move and get all settled in.. we’ll be sure to distribute the address accordingly… but… if you’re in the Staunton area, and want to drive by and take a look at where we’ll be living… the name of the complex is Windgate… and it’s just off of 252 on Seth Drive….

Long Awaited Leah and Brian Wedding Part II

Okay, when we left off we had just gotten to the beautiful Claxton Farm. The girls got ready in this tiny cottage-like shed. I wish I had pictures of it, but sadly no. To look at this thing, you’d never believe that we fit Leah, Leah’s Mom, four bridesmaids and two guest book ladies in it, but we did!

Meanwhile, Brian and the gentlemen got ready:

Doesn’t he look dapper? Here’s what the ladies looked like:

Leah did a beautiful job picking out the dresses, no? Of course the bride herself looked amazing.

The ceremony was so beautiful, with a special recognition for the parents, a song from the brother of the bride, and Leah and Brian wrote their own vows which was really special.

After the ceremony I got to sign the marriage license. I don’t think we had witnesses at our wedding, maybe this is because we were married in Virginia, or maybe it’s because we aren’t really married, who knows?

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. and Mrs. McGrath!

One of the super nice things about the wedding was that there was all this space to play games and frolic…

Another nice thing was that there was pie!

Doesn’t Leah look just like Suzie Homemaker??! I will say that while Leah didn’t make these pies, she does make a delicious pie.

Guests got to choose from blueberry, strawberry/rhubarb, and mixed berry. Brian enjoyed his.

And then there was dancing!

Leah and her dad…

I’ll say it again, her dress was amazing!

And Brian and his Mom…

So that was the wedding. We had a great time. Hopefully I’ll get more adventures up on the blog soon. Happy spring!