Grace's Vacation in Asheville

For my summer break, I headed home to Asheville, NC and my mom decided it was time we became tourists in our newest hometown.

I flew home early Saturday, like left my apartment at 4:15 am early, but this meant I got in just in time for breakfast! We stopped at one of my favorite restaurants, Tupelo Honey, for a yummy breakfast!

Breakfast doesn't get much better than blueberry french toast!

My mom made sure to keep me busy while I was home for the week, but she was kind enough to give me Saturday to rest! Sunday, though she kicked my dad and I out to go float down the French Broad River. We were both very excited about this, until we realized that the water level was low which meant the river was flowing slower than normal. This meant that our 2 hour trip became close to 4! Oh well, lesson learned.

We also did Lazoom Comedy Tour one evening. It was a great way to spend an evening laughing and even learning a little bit about Asheville! We also finally learned about the male Nun we see riding a bike around downtown! He is an ongoing story line for Lazoom!

And what's a bus tour without a selfie! 

I also managed to convince Kimmie to go zip lining, and she did amazing!! She only chickened out at every zipline, but she made it! Wootwoot! (No selfie was taken due to Kimberly's request...she was too stressed to smile)

We also spent one very hot afternoon painting pottery! It's almost as fun as adult coloring books, but way more stressful!

My Mom's

And mine!

Our final activity and probably my favorite, was the High Roller Food Tour of Asheville. This was a walking food tour of 8 different restaurants with a small bite to eat at each! The food was divine and usually we were able to speak with the Chef! It as a great way to learn more about Asheville and the restaurants it offers!

Although, I loved being busy and having a different exciting activity each day, my favorite part was just being home! It was nice to sleep in my own bed and have someone make me chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast! Also, it was nice to see this big guy before he had his little haircut mishap.

If you are in need of a laugh, check out Boomer's new look
https://khoffmanfamily.blogspot.com/2016/06/poor-boomer.html

Until next time Asheville!

xoxo,
Grace

Christine's Beach Break!

Hello everyone!

This past week was our week off of school for break. Abby, unfortunately did not have a break because she was on co-op, but fortunately, she got a long weekend and a few days to spend with a friend from home. My family and I went to Carolina Beach in North Carolina. We have been planning this trip for about 6 months because with Drexel's system you don't get much time off to vacation.

We headed down south Saturday morning bright and early at around 5 am. It was a 10-hour drive ahead of us and we had 2 adults, 3 kids, 2 dogs, and 2 vehicles. It was quite the drive, but with a few coffee breaks and of course, a McDonald's break for Colin we made it there safe and sound!

We rented a lovely beach house for the week that was three short blocks from the beach. During the trip we spent a lot of time at the beach, and fortunately, I didn't get nearly as sunburnt as I did in Wildwood. We also went on a half-day deep sea fishing trip where we caught over two dozen Spanish Mackerel, and not to toot my own horn but I caught the majority of them because the boys ended up sleeping and Mark and my Mom wanted us, kids to do the heavy lifting so they could relax. 

Me and my prize fishy!

During the trip, we also took my dogs, Harley and Winston, to the beach almost every day. We had to take them a little ways up the beach because they aren't allowed on the beach we were staying at, but they never turned down a little truck ride! After the first few tastes of the salt water they got used to it and loved every minute of it! Since they went almost every day we thought we had it all figured out, until our last day, when my mom got a parking ticket for not having a parking permit. Whoops!

Winston and Harley absorbing the rays!

Overall, it was a great break that I definitely needed. Well spent with my lovely family, who isn't all that lovely sometimes, but hey, you can't choose your family can you? But even if you could choose them, you would probably pick the same ones. 

Here's to the best family, that loves to be goofy!

But, family fun is over! Time to get back to classes and the best summer of my life with the best friends possible!

Till next time...

xoxo, 

Christine

National Donut Day

2 blog posts, 1 week...woah! Are we on a roll or what??

For those of you who don't know, today is National Donut Day so make sure to get your fill of this wonderfully delicious treat!

Christine and I set our early this morning to trek to Dunkin' Donut for our free donut with purchase of any beverage...we obviously both purchased iced coffee.

Notice the wet sidewalk, it was raining this morning, but that did not stop us from getting our donuts!

Soon after finishing up our breakfast, Christine headed to class, Abby got dressed, and I did nothing of real importance. I was up and ready early this morning because today was the day I was joining Abby and Christine at the nail salon. For those of you who know me, are probably asking yourselves, "Grace gets her nails done?" but I was in desperate need of a pedicure so I tagged along!

Christine got back from class and we set off for the nail salon, but first pit stopped at Starbucks...can you tell we like coffee? We decided to take the Drexel shuttle into the city because it was still raining and we, well Abby and Christine, decided to try a different nail salon! Abby and I ended up choosing the same color for our toes, a light shade of blue! 

We returned from the nail salon, famished and decided to warm up our leftovers from dinner last night. I had been craving Zavino all week and last night we decided to go. Abby and I ordered the most amazing pizza and we ended up ordering another one for take away. It was so so good!!

Sometime during this period, I became distracted by our fish tank. We have one fish who likes to hangout behind the filter and I could not find her. Finally, Christine came over and pulled the filter out of the water and I found the fish...stuck to the bottom of the filter. We believe that our frog tried to eat the fish and trapped her underneath the filter. We are all greatly upset about this tragic death and hope that our frog will not try this again. 

We had a short funeral(flushing) of the fish. We all know that fish can be replaced, but the love we shared with her can't be. 

xoxo, 

Grace

GAC plus 1 take on Wildwood!

Hello, everyone!

As many of you know this past weekend was a scorcher. Everyone finally traded in their long pants and sweatshirts for shorts and tank tops. (Let's cross our fingers it stays for awhile!) But anyway, I hope you all thoroughly enjoyed it, we sure did!

Last Thursday Grace's friend, Danna came to visit. Grace and Danna had their own weekend kind of planned, so Abby decided that we should go on an adventure. She told me we were going somewhere and that her plan was genius, but she wouldn't tell me where she planned to kidnap me to. She eventually sent me pictures of sandy beaches and the ocean and made me guess what beach and I couldn't figure it out. Finally, I realized, we were going to WILDWOOD. 

The trip began being planned and Grace and Danna were pretty jealous, so we extended the offer so that they could tag along too! Abby and I were so excited, but we didn't have a lot of the basics to go on a trip to the beach, so we went to Five Below to purchase what we needed. We got beach towels, the only thing we actually needed, but on top of that, we bought matching shirts and sunglasses that we were going to wear. Oh, and I almost forgot! We got a selfie stick because what squad goes to the beach and doesn't bring a selfie stick?! We also bought new swimsuits which were not in the budget, but hey they were 40% off so our parents would be proud... I think. 

Squad rocking our lovely matching T-shirts

Saturday then passed by with an amazing breakfast, a trip to the farmer's market, a visit from an old friend, some delicious cookies, and a movie to wrap up the evening. The next morning we headed out at 7 AM to the grand ocean blue. 

We stopped twice, once for breakfast and the other to get some chips for our guacamole that we bought the day before at the farmer's market. We also ended up at ACME buying this lovely guy (below), his name is Iggy and for a mere $6.99, he brought more fun to our beach day than any other man could. 

Grace showing off her muscles to all the boys

Selfie stick, take one

After our day relaxing on the beach, we headed up to the boardwalk to ride some rides and finish off with some nice boardwalk snacks. These included ice cream, pizza, and a tasting of fried delights. These fried foods were not all great, but they included fried Oreos, a Reeses peanut butter cup, a Twix bar, and even some cookie dough (our least favorite, I would say). 

On our trip back we jammed out to some lovely music. Overall our beach day was a success! But once we were back to reality the approaching week and the sunburn began to set in. So Grace headed to CVS to stock up on aloe and aloe lotion which we have plowed through. In our defense, the beach was super overcast and we went through an entire bottle of sunscreen but somehow we still ended up sunburnt. Some more than others... whoops, my bad. 

Here's to many more summer adventures with my best friends!

xoxo, 

Christine