Raleigh

Quick recap of our weekend - 

Friday night hang out in our backyard 

then a late dinner at 131 Main, our fav.  First the trio dip and cocktails at the bar.  

We got seated and Kevin had some pasta dish and I had the best piece of salmon. 

Our waiter Sterling was the best. We had a big time chatting with him. He left this with us and we left him a nice tip.  We love hard working kids just out of school. More power to them on their journey.  I called the manager the next day to tell him how enjoyable Sterling made our night.  Don't forget to compliment the good!

Saturday I was at the dealership all day. My car was sick.  I wasted time by looking at a new one.  We shall see.  

And my sister in law sent me a picture of Sarah all ready for ballet. Cutie!!!

Mills

Saturday night - service at Elevation (do any of you Charlotte girls go here) and dinner at Cantina.  

Sunday we cruised to Raleigh. Had a few extra minutes before the church service so I showed Kevin more of my old stomping grounds.  On the day of graduation, Dad and I went to run Lake Johnson.  On our way back we drove past East Village. He said, "was that your only A+ in college?!"   East Village is a bar ha.  Anyway it's a funny thing that we still laugh about today.  By the way I did get an A+ in golf class and I survived 5 years of engineering school. Grrr!

We went to Raleigh for my bestest's son's baptism.  It was a wonderful service. 

The proud parents. 

They hosted a brunch afterwards at 518 West which was wonderful!  We jetted back to Charlotte and got home in time for dinner and to get to sleep early. 

Good weekend and ready for a good week.  I'm traveling to a state I've never been to before so I'm super excited.  Stay tuned for some pictures or follow along on Instagram!

Tory Burch Caroline Flat and Thora Sandal Review

Just keeping things real today.  When I spend $225 plus tax on a pair of shoes, I expect them to last longer than a year.  Check these puppies out...

Hole in the left sole and on the khaki part of both shoes.  

Thora flops...full disclosure I've had these for two years. 

But the leather has come detached from the bottom on both.  I asked about this at the TB store and she said not to wear them in the rain. Fine. 

So last year I got a new pair and babied the heck out of them.  

And this one has started doing it too. 

Yes they are cute shoes and I love them and let's be honest I'll still probably wear TB but come on!  $115 flops and they don't last a year?  $225 flats and same thing?!  The problem is that they go with every piece of clothing I own and dress up work outfits.  

The swim TB flops I have that I spent half as much on have held up better than these.  

Cost versus quality...?!

iPhone Update

Just some scenes from my phone lately. Heck all the pics I post are from my iPhone!  

Flywheel room. 

Very proud of his new frisbee. 

Parental fans

Couple days at Camp equal being delirious. 

Checking out neighborhood landscape lighting. 

Rise and shine friends!

Kiawah

We've been fortunate to go on a lot of trips over the last 4 years with Kevin's work and those have been fabulous but we always know so many people on them that it's never OUR time if you know what I mean?  Like a 'just us' vacation.  In fact, we hadn't gone away by ourselves since our honeymoon.

This trip to Kiawah Island was just Kevin and I and we were excited.  It started out a bit rough with some car issues and a stop at the dealership in Columbia but we made it down and made it back so I'll call it okay now.  It was not okay on Saturday morning.  I'll spare you the details.

We arrived at The Sanctuary and it is absolutely stunning.  Like Ritz Carlton/Four Seasons style.  Simply perfection.

First things first, drop our bags with the desk and head straight to the beach.

 

I tried the Tropical Breeze and Raspberry Lemonade.  

Then we listened to the band for a little bit before we went to our room for the first time.

It reminded us a lot of the St. Regis in Atlanta which by the way is the nicest hotel we've been to.  We LOVE that hotel.  If you get the opportunity, stay there.  We were there with Kevin's work a few years back.

But I loved the traditional decor of this room. So pretty.

The view from our room with everyone listening to the band.

We had a late dinner that night at the restaurant at the hotel called The Ocean Room.  Kevin had filet and I had tuna.  Kevin's dinner won that night but both were great.  I had a terrible headache basically all of last week but at dinner on Saturday night, it was awful.

We walked around the lobby.

And went to bed early.

Sunday morning sunrise.

We went to The Southern Kitchen for breakfast bright and early.

Then went back to the beach at the hotel.

 

Sunday evening we headed over to The Ryder Cup Bar at the Ocean Course for drinks, dinner and a gorgeous sunset.  It's evidently THE place to watch the sun set.  I tried the Southside drink.

We sat at the bar while we waited 1.5 hours for our table.  We had some crispy shrimp in the meantime and enjoyed talking with a couple from Atlanta that has a house on Kiawah.

We got seated at our table outside and enjoyed a nice lil din!

Crabcake for me (not nearly as good as my Mama's!) and mahi for Kevin.

We took the shuttle back to the hotel and had a night cap in the lobby bar.  Chocolate martini yes please.  Kevin was boring with vodka tonic. 

Good times and we were VERY thankful for the relaxation.  Our motto is work hard and play hard.  But play hard this weekend mostly consisted of laying our tails on the beach and doing nothing....thankfully!

It was good to see this guy not even take his computer down with us.  His first day off in 90 days.  WOOHOO!

But we were super excited to get back to Charlotte and pick up our favorite lil boy!  We actually got back 2 hours early so we drove around Charlotte and looked at real estate we own (and real estate we'd like to own) before we got Mills.  That's always been Kevin's and my thing...drive around and look at residential and commercial real estate.  It's fun to us!

We all crashed last night.  I have a busy work week with 3 day trips in 4 days.  Bring it!