Nephew Preston's Visit and The Biltmore

What a great weekend with family.

As I mentioned last week, my parents brought my nephew and his girlfriend over to Charlotte for the weekend.

Preston and Anna are visiting from Louisiana and it's always good to see P, since he doesn't get to North Carolina that often.

On Friday we enjoyed dinner at our house.

I made lasagna, salad and bread.

Here's one view of our dinner table.

 And..another.

This is the first time I have met Preston's girlfriend Anna and she was just as nice and personable as I had been told.

You know they're a keeper when they jump in and help clean up dinner!

 After dinner we ventured out to a restaurant/bar on the water right down from our house.

I'm totally bummed about the pictures we took.

I was trying to use the night-time vision on my camera and most of them came out blurry.

 Saturday morning we got up and headed out for Asheville, NC to visit The Biltmore estate.

If you aren't familiar with the Biltmore -- it's the Vanderbilt's home.

Ginormous!

As I mentioned last week, this was probably my 9th visit to the estate.

The ticket prices are higher than years past but I have to say they have amped things up and you do get your moneys worth.

It's really turned into more of 2-day visit though. 

We were EXHAUSTED!

I think this is a super cute picture of these two.

Facebook profile picture material.

 Only my Mom and I went with P and Anna.

Brad and my Dad played golf instead.

Brad has never been to the house before and  I think he would have enjoyed it.
BUT.....

He would NOT have enjoyed all the walking getting to the house and then inside, and the fact that The Biltmore has no A/C.

It was sweltering!

We were SWEATING!

 You can tell how hot it was given the fact that Preston took his Polo off and pushed his sleeves up.

BTW - we counted and this is the 4th trip to the estate with my Mom.

 After the tour of the house we headed to Antler Village on the property.

This is totally new since my last visit 3-years ago.

It has shops, restaurants, and live music.

It's located next to the winery.

 Since I'm a hat ho - I had to buy one in the Orvis shop.

That big building back on the hill is the onsite hotel - Biltmore Inn.

 We enjoyed lunch at The Bistro restaurant connected to the winery.

Good food.

I've dined here numerous times.

 Afterwards we headed into the winery gift shop where I found these cute grape flip-flops!

 So clever!

Brad saw this picture and asked, 'Tell me you didn't buy those?!'. 

No, I didn't, but thought about it.

 Then onto our wine tour.

This is also a new part of the experience at the estate.

Never before has their been a formal tour.

Always self-guided.

Now, they're more focused on the wine.

 In the tasting room.

You might notice Anna is pretending she has a glass.

She's not quite the legal drinking age so she was our DD!

 After 5+ hours at The Biltmore we headed back to the hotel and got cleaned up and ventured into Downtown Asheville.

Wish we would have eaten here.
Tupelo Honey.

I've heard great things but the wait is forever.

Instead we went to another establishment that had great live music but sucky food and service.

Since everyone was tired -- we walked around for a little bit -- then headed back to the hotel and went to bed. 

Now, we are back home and into the ridiculous heat wave we're experiencing here on the East Coast.

Believe it or not -- this was our 4th weekend in a row being out of town.

Brad is over it.

I'm tired too but I can't slow down yet because this next weekend I'm headed to Dallas for 4-days, sans Brad!

How was your weekend!?