A Weekend Getaway

For my thirtieth birthday, Jeff took me away for a weekend of romance and relaxation in Asheville, NC. We stayed at the Biltmore Village Inn, which is a wonderful bed and breakfast located very close the the Biltmore House. I was a little nervous because we have never stayed in a bed and breakfast, but we would highly recommend this inn. We stayed in the honeymoon cottage which had great accommodations, including a huge bathroom with a great jacuzzi tub (in a heart-shape no less) and fireplace in both the bedroom and bathroom. The three course breakfasts were great and the innkeepers were very helpful and made all our dinner and attraction reservations for us. The house was built by George Vanderbilt's lawyer. It is a lovely place. Take a look at the other rooms, they are pretty nice too.

We ate at a great mediterranean restaurant Friday night called Rezaz. We toured the Biltmore House and winery Saturday morning to satisfy our interest in the history of the place, returned to our inn in the afternoon to watch tarheel football and basketball, and then had a lovely dinner at the Stable Cafe before a candlelight tour of the Biltmore House. It was so beautiful. Jeff and I also learned a lot which I'm sure our students would love to hear about! The wine tasting was pretty cool too. We even saw snow on Sunday morning! The only disappointment was that my tarheel football team lost, but even that was tempered with wine, cheese, and fresh baked cookies offered by our hosts every afternoon. Kate stayed with her Nana and had a wonderful time. Thanks for a wonderful trip, Jeff!

Go Heels!

We had a wonderful time this past weekend. Friday afternoon, Kate's friend Jack came calling for a play date. Then on Saturday we took Kate to her first Carolina football game with Grandaddy and Grandma. As a Carolina alum, I love Chapel Hill and all the memories that come with it-let me give a shout out to my Carolina Girls! Along with the beginning of Spring when everything is in bloom, this time of Fall is my favorite time to visit the campus because the trees are so beautiful. My family has been going to UNC football games since I was in middle school and I can almost measure the passage of time by the height of these trees in relation to the Bell Tower. Here we are on the way to the game. Yes, Kate is wearing a UNC cheerleader outfit, much to her father's chagrin.



Grandaddy taught Kate how to say "Go Heels!" while pumping her fist. She gets really excited about it and likes to dance to the fight song.
Studying the game-she's definitely our daughter.
Our Happy Tarheel!

We finished the day with a visit to Jack's house for a "pajama party" play date and Sunday morning I got a phone call from Indonesia (see the next post)! A great weekend with friends and family.

The Flythe Family

As I mentioned earlier, I got a phone call from Indonesia Sunday morning. As most of you know, my friend since 4th grade, college roommate, and BFF, Heather, is there with her husband, Tripp, and two adorable children, Drew and Ella. They are missionaries with Mission Aviation Field (MAF) and left to serve in Indonesia in August. Right now they are in language school, adjusting to the culture, and are doing great. I so miss my friend, but admire their passion and commitment to serving God. Please pray for them. You can keep up with their adventures through the www.trippandheather.blogspot.com or just click on the link to the right. Thanks for calling Heather! It was wonderful to talk to you my sweet friend. Keep practicing you language skills.

Happy Veteran's (Armistice) Day!

We had a great Veteran's Day. Veteran's Day is observed on November 11th in honor of the end of World War I-on the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month an armistice was signed to end the fighting. There was article in our paper yesterday called "Remembering their Sacrifice" that I thought was a touching tribute to veterans. I used it in class today. THANK YOU to all our veterans!
Jeff and Kate enjoyed working in the yard and climbing a ladder with her dad-I know, kind of a scary picture. Here are a few pictures of all our "children"-very hard to get them all to pose together.
Kate is doing her impression of Precious below. They were so good with Kate-except when Precious stole Kate's sippy cup from her! Kate forgave her (she started crying when Jeff disciplined Precious). Stay tuned for pictures from Kate's first UNC football game!

Election Day

It's a great time to be a social studies teacher. Every presidential election presents a multitude of teachable moments and never is interest so high from our precious teenagers. On the home-front, Kate had her first civics lesson today-you know the poor kid will be getting lots of these from her history-nerd parents. As you can see, she's pretty excited about "voting" and enjoyed going to our polling site. Election day always makes Jeff and I very proud to be Americans, reflect on how blessed we are to live in this country, and be thankful to all those who have served our country in a variety of ways.

Act I: Happy Halloween (In Three Acts)

I have so many pictures from the weekend that our Halloween story will be shown in three blog installments! Our little Butterfly was so cute and so into the spirit of getting candy. Pumpkin carving was a success-good job Daddy! Kate refused to let her pumpkin be carved, but she enjoyed playing with it while Dad did all the work.


Getting dressed was an adventure, the only way Kate would calmly get her costume on is if I continually told her that we were going to Jack's house (our neighbor's little boy who I think Kate has a bit of a crush on). The antenna that I so carefully made for her the night before did not stay on her head long, but that's okay. It was a fun mommy moment.

We are ready to go!

Act II-We're Off to the Races

We met up with our friends. Kate is the only girl of the group. All of our neighbors have boys, so she gets a lot of attention from everyone-it's a great ego booster for her. Our little butterfly was escorted by two police officers (Andrew and Ben), a UPS man (Cody), two turtles (Jason and Connor), and, Kate's favorite, Captain Jack Sparrow (Jack).

Most of the gang-

The cutest little turtles-

Kate was a pro by the end of the night. She really got into saying her version of "trick or treat" and "thank you." She held her own with all those boys.

Act III-A visit to Nana's

After an evening of touring the neighborhood, we headed to Nana's for some food and playtime. As you can see, Kate was focused on her chocolate. We did let her have a Kit Kat before going to Nana's, let me just say her sugar high made for an interesting ride over. Nonnie, Kate insists on calling her Nono, has been visiting this week. Kate loves all her great grandmothers and relishes any time she can spend with them. Thanks for coming Nonnie-we look forward to seeing you in December.
Thanks for dinner Nana, we had fun vising with you, Tom, and Nonnie.

An Encore

Sunday we went to Aunt Heather's house for a house warming party. Heather's house is great-thanks for having us! Kate and Scarlett brought their costumes for an encore presentation. This is the cutest butterfly and squiggly piggly I've ever seen, but trying to get a picture with these two active toddlers is almost impossible!

Posting comments

Just a note to everyone, as several of you have asked me how to post a comment. Click on the comments link at the bottom of the post you want to comment on. Then, if you don't have a google account, you simply choose to post an anonymous comment and sign your name to your actual post. You will then have to copy the letters that are presented, this is a security measure so we don't have random "mass" junk comments or viruses sent to us. Then click publish. We love comments...hint, hint.

Hello State Fair

Was our last post really in August?!!!! I'm sorry! Thanks for the much needed encouragement from everyone...Many things have been going on since our last post and I'll try to fill you in soon, but for now lets just look at pictures of our incredibly adorable daughter! Kate had her first trip to the NC State Fair last week-so much fun. Grandaddy and Grandma joined us and I loved watching the joyous fascination on Kate's face as she took in the sites and sounds. She loved the rides-she rode all the kiddie rides twice (there were only four she was tall enough for) and got to ride a real pony, again twice. Grandaddy took her to see all the amazing farm animals and rabbits there were to see and helped her play go fish to win her very own dolphin. I don't think Jeff and I have ever enjoyed the a fair more.



And look who we brought home with us. Thanks Grandaddy and Grandma!

2008 Olympics

This is a tray of Chinese candy given to us by some friends of ours. I'm hoping my friends that have been immersed in Chinese culture can give me a heads up as to what any of this is. We may or may not eat it in honor of the Olympics being held in China. I, Maria, am a huge Olympics fan. Jeff, not so much, but he humors me. I know, it may be lame to admit this obsession with the Olympics, but at least it gives us something to watch as we drag through the NFL preseason and wait and wait and wait for college football to finally start. I think both my parents helped to instill this interest in the games as we watched them together as a family when I was a child. Of course, always cheering against the Russians and any other communist bloc country that we were competing against-Cold War anyone? Anyway, my Dad's love of sports combined with my Mom's fierce loyalty and love for this country made the two weeks of Olympic competition very important in our home. I'm hoping to pass that love of sport and love of country on to Kate. So, yes, Jeff will be forced to watch the opening ceremonies with me tonight and probably even some of the gymnastics competition later on, but we'll be doing it as a family. Hopefully it will become a sweet memory for Kate (and Jeff) as it has been for me.

Happy Half Birthday Kate!

Kate turned a year and a half yesterday-18 months. I can't believe what a little girl she has become, no more baby here. Her language skills are amazing and she imitates EVERYTHING that I do. It can be a little embarrassing-it makes me reexamine myself everyday. We went to the doctor today for a check up. She was such a brave girl, very little crying. She is, as I write this, asleep on the floor of our bonus room-that one vaccination the doctor gave her has really knocked her out. The nurse started a sentence with, "at her 2 year appointment", and I thought-she's going to be 2! That made me really sad.

For those of you keeping up:

Kate weighs 21 lbs, 6 oz and is 31 inches long
10th percentile for weight, 25th for length, and 50th for head circumference
In other words, a petite girl with a big head!

Lobster Feast

While Aunt Gina was here, Kate had her first encounter with a live lobster. To commemorate Momma Costa closing on her new house-Hooray!-Gina ordered live lobsters from Maine for a celebratory dinner. This was the second time we had lobster that week, the first being Jeff's birthday. Jeff was one happy man. Anyway, back to Kate and lobsters-she really wasn't sure what to think. At least we didn't put them on the ground and let them walk around. Oh well, maybe next time!

PS-Pictures of Nana's new house coming soon!

Champions

So again I've let almost another month pass by without an update, so now you will be flooded with a huge update all at once. We returned safely from California where we went to cheer Uncle David's team in the US Soccer Developmental Academy U-16 National Championships. There were eight teams in the final round and as my mother-in-law said, and I quote, "at times like these there are winners and there are losers and we are not the losers." In other words, Uncle David's team from Indiana won! We had a fun time and we are so proud. Here are some pictures taken after the game, which, by the way, was shown live on ESPNU with lots of interviews of David and a few shots of his family cheering him on.

Bananagrams

While in California David's girlfriend, Meghan, introduced a new game to us called Bananagrams and we were immediately addicted. If you've never played, its fun and you can come over to our house to play a round anytime. (Heather and Tripp-this is your warning-if you come over next week!) Even Kate liked to watch and steal a letter or two.


Our view from the condo was awesome and we were able to visit with Jeff's cousin Christopher who lives in Hollywood.

Long Beach Baby-okay, maybe not!

We went to the aquarium in Long Beach. Kate really wasn't that impressed with the sharks or tropical fish or the over-sized otter as you can see in the picture below. She did however enjoy the birds, except when they jumped onto Mommy's arm. We had a great time.

Daddy and Kate are trying to touch a shark!

Kate's not so sure about that bird!

Happy Birthday Daddy and Aunt Gina!

This past week we celebrated Daddy's birthday and Aunt Gina's birthday. Gina, or Gigi as Kate calls her, was here visiting all week and we had a great time. I think I gained 10 pounds from all the celebrating we did.


On Jeff's birthday, Kate, Jeff, and I had a birthday picnic lunch at a lake with some overly aggressive ducks, but Kate obviously liked them.


We also introduced Gina to banagrams and she's hooked too. Kate's expression seems to convey that she thinks we're crazy, but she'll soon learn of the Costa competitiveness.


We had a great time with you Gigi!