964.8 miles

chris and i are both feeling kinda bummed today.  we had such a fun whirlwind trip visiting beca, doug, sammy and patrick, and seeing tennessee, a peek of georgia, and asheville, north carolina.  we're happy to be back with flojo and kona, but knowing that the tumbleweeds are 7 hours away has us feeling lonesome; it can be bittersweet having such rad friends to hang out with.

i didn't take a ton of pictures at the southern blogger mixer mainly because i was too busy eating plate after plate of delicious hors d'oeuvres, but to see more of the event, the food, the people, and the project, you should peek at beca's blog.  i am super, super shy until i can feel people out and see what they're like, so i was really nervous going to the mixer.  it was a great group of girls though, and it was so nice doing blog talk with people that understood!  i think the smaller group made for better discussion, and it made the event more intimate, like a lunch date with friends.

we decided to go home from tennessee via asheville, north carolina, which wasn't really on the way, but it's somewhere chris and i have wanted to visit.  our friend patrick met us in downtown asheville and gave us a tour and local architecture history lesson before we ate a late lunch/early dinner at a delicious thai restaurant.  i could actually go for another plate of phad pak right now...

964.8 miles later, i'm wishing we could be on our way back with flojo and kona in tow, of course, that way we could stay until we decided to come home.  it must be tennessee wanderlust.

from film with love

it's been way too long since i've done a 'from film with love post' so i couldn't wait to get back some film pictures from the beach to use for this post!  we took four cameras - two of them film - so we aren't lacking pictures!  my favorite camera, hands-down, is my old (super old) olympus pen-ee half frame camera, so that's always the one i reach for when i go somewhere pretty!

no matter how expensive film processing may be, how difficult it may become to find places that process film, or how obsolete film and film cameras may become, to me, digital will never have the same novelty and surprise that film does!  do you use film cameras?  what kind(s) do you use?  and do you develop the film yourself?

shopping spree day

well, last saturday was it - the day i'd been looking forward to for several weeks - shopping spree day. and believe it or not, it was chris's idea! the mission: find clothes that fit in stores we don't have around here, so i'll stop whining about things being too big. we headed south to raleigh, nc and shopped until we felt like we'd collapse. after shopping we wanted to go downtown since it's so pretty... and free. we used one of our film cameras, and i just got the pictures developed yesterday!

there seemed to be a whole lot of horses downtown on saturday, which i don't remember seeing other times i've been, but i love horses, so it was definitely a treat! we spent most of our time around the capitol building as the flowers a so colorful, the sidewalks are shaded, there are lots of birds, and the nearby architecture is so pretty. i think my favorite thing from our time downtown was walking up on these little sparrows in the 7th picture that would sort of hover by this one monument, and although you can't see it as well in the picture i've added since i had to resize it, the bird that had just flown off has it's wings sort of spread and curved so in the picture you can see each little feather! i think my heart exploded. i'll be sure to show you what all i bought later this week!

we're back from our island

i don't even know where to begin. we had such an amazing time and discovered such a gem, that i can barely process everything i want to tell you! let me just say that it was absolutely gorgeous; an island that hasn't been excavated, or built up with hotels and restaurants, and is just pure, natural beauty for as far as the eye can see. i'm not sure of the exact number of people that were on the island while we were, but i can tell you that we pretty much just saw the same 8-10 people maybe once a day each day we were there, so it definitely feels like you're on your own private island!

we went down a day early so that we could explore beaufort, nc and morehead city, nc before we took the 1 hour ferry ride over to the island. sadly, we barely took any pictures or videos (i think it's because we were so busy conch shell collecting, birdwatching and sleeping), but here are a few from our day on the mainland.

chris and i have already decided that we're going to make this our new vacation spot, but because of the undiscovered and uninhabited quality of the island, and the fact that the people who have been going there for 30 years like to keep it hush hush, i can't say too much about it! once the rain passes and i can see sunlight again, i'm going to try to get some pictures of the treasures i came home with!

i hope you've had a good week since we last chatted. have you done anything exciting or taken any trips lately?

roadtrip: north carolina pt. quatre

Back to the good ole road trip series. After a few random stops, we make our way to the first city on our tour: Chapel Hill, NC. I know there's more to Chapel Hill than just Franklin Street, but there is so much to do that you'll spend an entire day there, promise. From vintage shops to restaurants and everything in between, it's the bee's knees. I thought the sticker on the door to this cupcake shop gave sound advice:

It's never as much fun jumping on your own bed, but don't take my word for it, have a look at this site! http://www.hotelsbycity.net/blog/bed-jump/

roadtrip: north carolina pt. trois

Moving on from Clarksville and well on our journey to North Carolina, we met up with an interesting artist, Tommy Winn. His medium is wood and his tool is a chainsaw. Impressive. Since we went a new route, we didn't go through our usual North Carolina border towns, instead, we discovered a new one; Oxford, North Carolina. It was so wholesome and pretty, and I have the pictures to prove it! It's one of those, "blink-and you-miss-it" type towns. I'm glad my eyes were open.