Y'all! Matt won Business North Carolina's 2018 Legal Elite Young Guns award. I can't describe how impressive this is. I've worked for big law and now a mid-size firm and getting our attorneys recognized in this publication is a really huge deal. For most of you who aren't familiar with this award, each year BNC honors lawyers across the state in business-related categories. Winners are chosen by the state’s lawyers and the top vote-getter in each category becomes a member of Business North Carolina’s Legal Elite Hall of Fame. So when Matt told me he won Young Guns this year I was SO proud. I mean, he's done a lot of amazing things and won a lot of impressive awards and been featured in a lot of cool places (let's not forget his TV commercial!) but this is especially huge because they picked him to be FEATURED ON THE MAGAZINE COVER OF THEIR JANUARY EDITION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I seriously cannot get over the fact that my very cute husband's face is on the cover of Business North Carolina this month. So proud! SO SO SO PROUD!
Here's the excerpt with his interview:
And now I'm off to buy one million copies. Go, Matt! You're a rock star!
Today we celebrate SIX years of marriage! I'll save you the sappy post (you can always refer back to last year's anniversary post if you came for sap)! Anyway, I can't think of a more fun way to celebrate on the blog than to recycle one million wedding pictures for ya...
Happiest anniversary, Matt. Thanks for being my favorite person to do life with. And cheers to many, many more!!
On Saturday Matt turned 37 and today Thomas turned two! So on Saturday we combined their birthday celebrations into a double-header party -- a fire truck toddler party for Tom and a late night after party for Matt. Judging by the state of my house the next morning, which looked like a frat house, the parties were a huge success.
Tom Tom is absolutely obsessed with fire trucks these days. He is completely enamored with them and can frequently be heard pushing his fire truck around the house singing "weee-ewwww-weee-ewww!" So for his 2nd birthday party we knew fire trucks had to be the theme!
It took me 3 failed Pinterest crafts before I went the easy route and created "fire" with yellow, orange and red crepe streamers.
Caroline helped.
Harris Teeter nailed the fire cupcakes. I had pretty low expectations since combining three colors of icing is a gamble, but they turned out way better than I had anticipated. And the fire hydrant cupcake holder was too cute to pass up as an add-on during my last prime order.
Orange, yellow & red tulips! For the table runner I picked up a roll of wrapping paper from the Target dollar aisle.
I had pizzas delivered for the party which has been such a game changer from previous parties. I used to get stuck in the kitchen at the beginning of every party trying to heat everything. Not anymore. Once we switched to pizza we never looked back!
Outside I served some toddler approved snacks: goldfish, pretzels, peanut butter crackers, pirates booty & watermelon.
I couldn't resist scooping up that cute Paw Patrol pinata during my Walmart run for all of the paper products. This also doubled as a popular toy to carry around during the party.
Because setting out cupcakes an hour before the party was toddler torture I let Caroline and Thomas eat their (first of many that night) cupcakes. And by "eat" I mean lick all of the icing off and hand the bottom of the cupcakes back to me.
Thomas & Ellerbe -- birthday twins!
The littlest nugget at the party!
Classmates (minus Wade) picture!!!
The last of the toddlers rallied through a bit of the late night party. Hopped up on capri suns and cupcakes, Caroline, Louise and Whit closed the toddler party down around 10 pm. After getting kiddos to bed several dads returned to continue the celebrations with Matt. It was a great party day!
Every now and then Matt and I try to capitalize on daycare hours by playing hooky from work and going on a day date.We spent our last day date in Asheville and loved it so much that we almost did it again but changed the plans last minute to picnic on my favorite mountain -- Black Balsam Knob. It was truly one of our favorite things we've ever done together.
The drive was about 3 hours away so we dropped the kids off at school super early, grabbed some coffee and hit the road. It was so nice to spend time together in the car without the constant interruptions and requests from the backseat. We arrived to the trail head off the Blue Ridge Parkway right around 10:30 am, stuffed our backpacks and set off for the 3 mile hike.
I love this hike so much and have camped along this trail in several places. The first half mile of the hike takes you through the Enchanted Forest -- an endless pine forest with a gorgeous dense pine canopy. See all those trees?! They open up to the most amazing treeless mountains.
As you climb the mountain you can feel the air thinning, the temperature dropping and the wind gusts picking up. It is exhilarating -- truly. Nothing kicks my endorphins into overdrive like climbing a mountain with spectacular views.
Once you get through the grassy and rocky mountain meadows you reach the first knob. From there we continued on another half mile or so on the Art Loeb Trail to get to Black Balsam.
Alas, we made it to the peak...
Views from the summit of Black Balsam Knob!
At 6,214 feet, Black Balsam Knob is the 23rd highest of the 40 mountains in North Carolina.
It was wild how quickly the clouds would pass through us. We could feel them sweep over the mountain as the temperature would drop a good 15 - 20 degrees each time. It was incredible.
Right before his ascent to the top of this rock, Matt made sure to remind me that this is exactly how every good episode of Dateline begins.
After exploring the mountain for a bit we decided to set up camp with a little picnic. To avoid the wind we descended down the side of the mountain a little bit to the most perfect grassy spot.
At 6,000 feet we enjoyed prosecco and a charcuterie board on the side of a mountain. I swear it felt like a date right out of The Bachelor, minus the rose, Chris Harrison...and the awkwardness. It could not have been more perfect.
This lunch could not have been easier thanks to Trader Joe's pre-made snack packs of cheeses and meats!
The spectacular view from our picnic spot! I think I must have said "I can't believe we are here" at least 348462 times.
After a few hours on the mountain it was time to hike back to reality.
And because I'm a huge dork I dropped all of our photos and video snaps into an iMovie to have forever!
