Luke and I had the best time in Blowing Rock, NC this past weekend. We took time to rest, explore, reflect and celebrate what the Lord has done the past year and thank Him for helping us survive (and for the most part, thrive) during our first year of parenthood! We do our best to set aside time every January to plan and dream for the year, but this year we decided to go a little deeper, get out of town and really focus on making our time together a retreat. I know getting out of town may not be feasible for us every year, but for future times that we do, we will probably aim for 3 nights instead of 2, because one more night would have the cherry on top, even though we were excited to get back to our girl (thank you to Andi + Coop for giving her the best weekend!)

We couldn’t have asked for a better AirBNB (except for one small detail which I’ll explain later…) It was SO cozy, well decorated (still for Christmas, which was lovely), was the perfect distance from Blowing Rock and Boone and had a beautiful view! We were so excited that the weather was actually VERY cold and that there was snow everywhere – it made it feel like a true winter getaway! Especially since Christmas was so warm this past year in Rock Hill!

Here’s a quick little recap, just for my memory!

Friday: Chickfila for lunch. Pit stop at the Charlotte Outlets. Drive to Blowing Rock, arriving at our Airbnb at 4pm but because of our little hiccup (detailed below), we went into Downtown to get some chips and queso at Town Tavern. After settling in that evening, we ate dinner and spent time reflecting on 2021 and encouraging each other.

Saturday: I slept in. We ate cinnamon rolls and bacon and spent time reading our Bibles … Luke was finishing up his year in the Bible recap and I was reading in Exodus. It was so nice to sit by the fire and just let the morning be slow. We eased into some planning time for a little over an hour and then decided to get ready and go into town. We enjoyed some appetizers at Mellow Mushroom and then spent about 2.5 hours browsing the stores downtown and chatting along the way. The shops in downtown Blowing Rock are so precious and everyone is so nice. We had a reservation for dinner at the Chetola Resort, but they had to cancel due to maintenance issues. We decided to just go to Outback instead, but then they were only doing takeout…so we got our outback to go, drove through the Chetola Resorts to see the lights and people sledding down the hill and then headed back to our cabin to eat our dinner by the fire, which ended up being just perfect. We played Quixx together and then read some in Jeff Bethke’s book “Take Back your Family” and chatted about family discipleship.

Sunday: I slept in (haha, surprise!). I spend some time sitting by the fire and journaling and then it was time to checkout. After checkout, we headed into Boone to grab brunch at The Local and then we went into a few stores downtown Boone, including Mast General store. We also found a cute children’s consignment shop right outside of downtown and spent some time there … we laughed that we probably spend the most $ on Anna Stephens while we were away, even without her being with us. I guess that is the life of a parent!

To touch on the one not so great thing about where we stayed … the hill it was on! This is what I wrote for my instagram post…

“We had the sweetest time visiting Blowing Rock this weekend to rest, ask God for vision for what he wants us to prioritize in 2022 and to celebrate almost a year of being parents lol because let’s be real … this raising a tiny human who needs you for everything is hard but also so fun and worth the tiring parts.

We asked the Lord for a sweet time to connect and for laughter and He gave it to us, from the start, in an unexpected way. When we got to our Airbnb at 4pm, it was 19 degrees, had snowed the previous day and although magical to look at, the hill to our cabin was iced over. After going back and forth with the owner, it sounded like it would be cleared within an hour so we went into town, enjoyed some chips and queso and came back to find out it was too cold to clear the road with any success and we would indeed be carrying all of our belongings up the hill 🙈😅 glad we fueled up with cheese!???

We began to psych ourselves up, put on extra clothes and change into boots and decide who would carry what. Let’s just say Luke made two trips because he’s a way better person than me. We underestimated how COLD it was and how the higher you climb, the less you can breathe 🤣❄️ I thought carrying a 24lb pound baby everyday had made me strong but not strong enough. We were dying. Buuuuut WE MADE IT and the next day, we were able to get the car up the hill and I think I’d say the cabin and the view were worth it but also please don’t let this happen again hahah.

The moral of the story is God hears us, Luke is my hero and I’m just really thankful for this weekend and that he’s my person 💕”