Oma's visit

 In September my mom was finally able to come visit.  It had been 3 years since her last visit.  We had a few great weeks together.  

Oma got here on a Friday night and we hit the ground running the next morning with football, soccer, birthday parties ect.....it was a full day.

We took Oma out to eat one night.

These two are still best buddies.  They do fight, but overall it is so beautiful to see their bond.  Evan knows how to get under her skin, but usually he is a great big brother and always watches out for Nora.  She is a little momma to him and puts him in his place and tells him what to do.  They play great together and come up with some interesting games.  You can usually find them outside kicking the soccer ball around.  Nora will play Army men with him as well, but her army is a nice army and they all make friends with everybody.  

We thought these Eifel tower fly fans were interesting.....not sure ion they actually did the trick :)

We kept switching them out to see if any of them worked better.....

We had great and warm weather except for one evening at the soccer/football fields.  It was freezing and super windy.....and then the next day we were in shorts again.  I was prepared and brought blankets, but we were still cold.

Oma and I got to go on Evan's field trip......first field trip in 3 years!!!

I remember going on this field trip with Hannah and it is such a fun time.  We went out to Tanyard Creek to explore nature at different stations.

I took my mom around town and we visited Crystal Bridges, the Momentary, went hiking  and enjoyed a lot of quality time together.

The last part of her visit we went on a little mother/daughter trip.  We flew into Charlotte, NC and drove to Asheville for a few days.  It was a beautiful few days.

We had a great VRBO in downtown Asheville....

On our first day we drove to Grandfather Mountain for some hiking and great views.

We had nothing but blue skies for the entire week

We hiked up to the swinging bridge

The wind was crazy and the temperature dropped quite a bit compared to the lower elevation.....I went into the gift shop and almost bought a bunch of winter gear.

The views were stunning.

We hiked a few more trails before having a late lunch. 

On our way back to Asheville we stopped and hiked Linville Falls.

It was a gorgeous day spent outside.

The next morning we went to the coffee bus before heading out for the day.

This was a really cool little spot.

I booked a Kayak tour for the afternoon and it was so fun and relaxing....we did kayak for 6 miles down the French Broad river and never saw another soul out there.....

You can see the Biltmore Estate hiding behind these trees.....the tour I booked was called the Biltmore Kayak tour.....that may have been a little bit of an exaggeration :). This was the only view we got.  Haha.

Regardless we really enjoyed this afternoon!

The place we rented from was very interesting.......this was the meeting place and they shuttled us to the entry point from here and then we ended up getting out at this same spot.

This was the bar!

They had lots of "art" from the river sitting around....

After our tour we decided to sit at the bar and have a drink.  We kept talking about how much my dad would have enjoyed this random place by the river.  It was perfect!

There was also a food truck there, but we were not brave enough for that!

On our last day in Asheville we checked out the River Arts district in the mornings

We went into a lot of different galleries and shops.  Very fun place to explore.

In the afternoon we drove on the Blue Ridge Parkway to a hiking spot.  Just the drive alone was so worth it and breathtaking.

This was called an easy or moderate trail.  There were a lot of rocks we had to climb on.  The trail was also not marked great and every person we encountered coming back told us what we need to look out for and where we should go and what we should avoid.....it was pretty funny, because everybody told us something different.  

We made it to the waterfall at the end

The way back was a little easier to navigate

To finish it off we hiked down to the lower falls as well...

We took the scenic route on the return drive to Asheville on the Blue Ridge Parkway and it was stunning.  After every corner we kept saying how beautiful it was....it just got prettier and prettier.  Sorry no pictures, because I was driving. 

The next morning both of us flew out of Charlotte to go home.