More house pics :)

Ta-Da!!!  The top portion on the right is our bedroom (complete with porch on the far right :) ), and to the left is our bathroom.  The front door is underneath the bathroom with, yes, tree posts!!

Part of our bedroom.

Old Man Oak--thanks Angela!!

Walter.  He doesn't come with the house, but he was excited to help out!

Our front yard and a quite large cumulus cloud coming over the mountain.

Our house and address

WE HAVE OUR ADDRESS!!!  WOOHOO!!!

7 Bethel Dr.
Asheville, NC 28803

Our beautiful guest room complete with HUGE dormer window!!!

Handsome T and John Sanke working on roof...can't complain about the more-than-perfect weather!

Our House!!

Handsome Taylor and I are building a house (yay!!)!  We looked for places around Asheville, but we couldn't find anything that fit both our price range, as well as location.  We found the cutest little house in a cute little neighborhood (see previous blog post), but that was bought within the weekend that we found it!

Anyway, in high school, I was able to take an interior design class that I absolutely LOVED.  (I think it's my secret passion, besides biology).  Well, I designed my dream house in that class, as well as picked out all of my furnishings by scoping out Pottary Barn catalogs.

Taylor's family gave some beautiful pasture land in south Asheville that we decided to build on, and obviously we couldn't build out exact dream house, but a mini version of the design with some minor changes (sans Pottery Barn).  And since I couldn't figure out how to put the plans on the blog so you could see the final product, here are some pictures.  Enjoy!

The foundation on Valentines Day!

The kitchen, and one of our builders, Greg.

This is a "pop-out" office, modeled after some of the old Victorian style homes in Asheville, along with the bathroom (which hasn't been walled off yet).

Bottom floor--garage is on the right (it will have several windows), the kitchen in the middle, and the living/dining area on the left.

Left to right: living room (modeled after craftsman style), dining area with bay window, and kitchen.

Window seat in the living room.

Pop-out office and garage on left.

We have stairs!!

The second story is up!  Our bedroom is the one with the partial roof over it right now.

Looking at our bedroom above the living room--pop-out office is to the left beside the garage.

Yay for roofs!!

Framing for second guest bedroom.

Framing the dormer over the garage (hi Greg!).

I'll be sure to post more pictures as we're moving along.  By the way, we have AWESOME builders!  John Sanke, Greg, and David (sorry, I don't know their last names), are by far the most amazing people to have for this job.  We have been building since February and already they're done with framing!!  This house will be done by May!  More pics to come!

A new use for air plants :)

This past summer in Asheville I went to an arts festival and found these at one of the unique vendors. They are air plants, bound in wire, to be worn in your ears. I would've bought them if I had an occasion to wear them--but they are unbelievably cute and artsy!! Love Asheville :)

Brussel sprouts aren't that disgusting, turns out

Lucky you!  Two posts in one day!!  (More like two posts in two months...sorry I've been ever so lazy).  Anyway, here is a fantastic recipe for brussel sprouts (and they don't stink as much while cooking as I thought they would):

Not your mama's brussel sprouts!

Ingredients:

• 4 cups brussel sprouts
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tbsp H2O
• 1/2 lemon (the real kind...don't get slack on me here with the squeezy lemon bottle!)

Cut brussel sprouts in half.  Pour 2 tbsp. olive oil in saucepan over medium heat and place halved b. sprouts (half-side down) in pan.  Pour remaining olive oil over sprouts.  Cover and cook for 3 minutes.  Remove cover, pour H2O over sprouts and cook 2 minutes (they should be carmalizing by now).  Stir and squeeze lemon half in pan over sprouts.  Stir again.  

They should be ready by now!  That's it!!  And they are actually very refreshing and delicious and you needn't be concerned over calories since all you're eating is mini-cabbage, olive oil, and lemon.  Yay! 

Hotlanta!

In November, I made a pilgrimage to the Atlanta, in Georgia, like there was ever any other Atlanta.  My spectacular cousin, Tiffany, and her family live down there and it was high time for a visit.  Not to mention we had purchased Atlanta City Pass tickets for the weekend as well.

We had it all planned out--from the two hour commute from her house into Atlanta, to the time spent eating, and all of the places we were going to visit...which we did in this order:

Sunday morning:

1. Drive to Atlanta from Macon (Sunday morning...I had driven to Macon Saturday and spent the day with the family picking pecans and eating)
2. GO TO ATLANTA AQUARIUM!!!
3. Enjoy aquarium to fullest extent
4. Take loads of pictures
5. Go to Coca-Cola musem
6. Speed through museum and head directly to tasting room and gift shop (yay!)
7. Go to CNN building and take tour--sorry we weren't allowed to take pictures
8. Eat yummy dinner and McCormick and Schmidts (mmm delish)
9. Drive back to Macon

Monday morning:

1. Drive back to Atlanta from Macon in two cars...so I could later drive back to NC...not as fun
2. Go to Zoo of Atlanta...mm not as much fun as I expected
3. Walk around and pay wayyy too much for overpriced zoo food
4. Drive to Natural History museum...also a let down...but they did have a fabulous Darwin exhibit
5. Drive to mall--a girls' got to go shopping
6. Leave Atlanta at rush hour and spend over an hour driving 10 miles on I-85N--f**k!

Anyway, here are some pictures of our trip!

A lot of people were sporting "Frazier"--damn good name if I've got anything to say about it.

Atlanta is a BIG city.  I don't miss the traffic.

Yay for the aquarium!!  

One of the four whale sharks on exhibit that they were feeding...that's right....we got backstage passes!

I think this was the coolest part--unbelievable!

Even though this is classified as a "kid's station" (psh), I still LOVED touching the nurse sharks and sting rays!

(Tiffany did too)

And we most certainly went into the kid tunnel to have our picture taken!

COCA-COLA here we come!!

FRAZIER!!!

Little Tysons and Butterballs all over the place!!