Our Weekend in Blowing Rock

 Good morning! Happy Friday! Today I am sharing about our Labor Day weekend in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. I had hoped to get this post up last week,  but the weeks have been getting away from me-- agh!

For those of you who don’t know, my parents have a house in Blowing Rock, and we go up to visit as often as we can. This past year we have not been up nearly as often as we would’ve liked due to my diagnosis. I am happy to report that I am feeling much better and we had a fabulous weekend there over Labor Day weekend. 

On Friday after school, we packed up and hit the road, but hit some traffic going up there. Usually the drive is one hour and 45 minutes, but we were in the car for probably closer to two hours and 15 minutes. So not terrible, but longer than expected. We were all tired after a long week, so we didn’t do a whole lot once we got there. We pretty much hung out for an hour or so with my parents and then went to bed. 

On Saturday morning however, everybody was up and at 'em, and ready to go for the day! We started the day by driving into Boone, North Carolina, and getting cinnamon rolls from our favorite bakery, Stick Boy. Stick Boy has been featured in Southern Living magazine several times, it is wonderful! Look at the size of the cinnamon rolls! 

We grabbed our cinnamon rolls to go, ate them at my parents' house, and then let the kids play for a bit while we sat on the patio. It was like 65° and absolutely beautiful! 

After a while we had a little shopping to do, so I started to get ready for the day. Here is a pic with no makeup on:

Do you see those teeny tiny eyebrows growing back in? I've been using this Anastacia eyebrow powder and stencil to fill them in while I wait for them to grow back.

And here they are once I've put them on:

Not bad right? They look real enough.

Lily Grace wanted to come in to town with Devin and I, so they went to the playground while I walked around and did a little shopping. Liam, our homebody, didn’t want to leave my parents' house, so they stayed with him.

I loved seeing some of the fall decorations out.

I went into my favorite boutique, The Gilded Lily, and saw these cute ghost earrings. You know you teach little kids when something like this catches your eye!

Liam eventually made his way into the town (with my dad) to come play with us. 

The weather was. beautiful! LG played on the playground and Liam wanted to play tennis (LOL-- he has NO hand/eye coordination, it was hilariously cute). There's a little hut where you can borrow sports equipment, so we borrowed a tennis ball and some rackets & headed to the court. 

After that, it was football time! If you didn't already know, I come from a family of big Ohio State fans.  

We love football season and the kids are finally at the age where they are getting into it!! Let's be real, they mostly love the football snacks, the cheerleaders, and the mascots... but Liam also likes the sports side of it.

After the game, we put the kids to bed and Devin and I went for a walk. 

We noticed one of the neighbors was giving away free apples from their apple trees and thought the kids would love to come back in the morning and grab some.

So the next morning, we took the kids for a walk back to where the free apples were. They thought it was really cool that the neighbors grew their own apples. We ended up making an open-faced apple pie out of the apples-- so fun!

We went into Boone for lunch and headed to the Japanese steakhouse, one of those fun hibachi places. There's LG with my dad... 

and Liam and Devin with my mom. Not the best pictures of everyone haha!! I think only LG was looking?

Guys... my kids have been to a Japanese steakhouse before and loved it, but this time Liam was super anxious about "the big fire". He hid under the table for "the big fire" and then kept telling us he wanted to go back to the car and eat his food out there. Anyone else's kids go through a phase of being scared of the hibachi place? He used to love it!!

After an enormous lunch, we all wanted to go for a hike. We hiked one of the nearby trails for a bit, and then we headed to Cone Manor so the kids could roll down the big hill...

After that we headed back home to Charlotte and had a day to get caught up on all the "stuff" (laundry, groceries, yard work, etc.). Three day weekends are the BEST. I loved having two days to relax and have fun, then one day to get setup for the week ahead. I wish all weekends were 3 day weekends! 

Thanks for reading along today! I hope you have a great weekend. Tomorrow our big guy turns 4 years old!!! Come back Monday to hear how we celebrated him. :)

Today I am linking up with Andrea and Erika for Friday Favorites.