I love weekends.

I saw this image on Pinterest the other day, and it made me happy. 

As much as I love social media, I can understand how it can cause depression in some people. I follow people with amazing social lives & the coolest careers known to mankind. I don't have either of those things. For the most part I'm good with that, but I'm human and every so often I wish I had tons of friends and a job that sparked envy in strangers. 

This little image made me realize it's okay not to have an exciting life, as long as I'm happy with the one I have. And I am. I love my life, and even though Graham & I aren't the most exciting couple in the world, I wouldn't change it for anything. 

You guys know what's crazy? As much as I love sushi, we had our first sushi dinner in Virginia on Friday night. We moved here the last week of July... It's going to take time to discover restaurants we love as much as we loved our spots in Little Rock, and I think I'm so scared of being disappointed by a restaurant, I'd rather not give them a chance. We chose Kero Sushi in Yorktown, and the sushi was excellent.  More on that later. 

Graham is testing for a promotion on Wednesday, so he's been studying non-stop lately. While he studied, I spent my Friday night drinking wine and working on a puzzle of Boston. 

Saturday, we headed to the Home & Garden show in Richmond so I could FINALLY meet John & Sherry from Young House Love! They didn't come to Little Rock during their book tour last year. The closest they got was Dallas, which was six hours away! So, I was definitely going to make the hour drive to Richmond to meet my fantasy BFF's & get my copy of their book signed =)

We arrived in Richmond early and stopped by Homegoods, Hobby Lobby & Whole Foods before going to the convention center. Stopping in Whole Foods of course means getting some macaroni & cheese from their hot bar. Speaking of Whole Foods, I found out the other day that one is opening 1.8 miles from my apartment in Spring 2015. We will have this stuff for dinner every night... And vegan chocolate chip cookies for dessert. I'm not vegan, but those cookies are amazing!

We got to the home show, and while the show itself was disappointing, John & Sherry were every bit as adorable and charming as I was expecting. Graham kept noticing similarities between us and them. It totally sealed my belief that we should be friends with them. And Hermione should be friends with Burger.

So excited to meet them! I went completely star struck and forgot how to talk. Graham was very cool though. He complemented them on the built-in's in their new nursery while I stammered and blushed. 

All throughout Virginia, they have these cute LOVE signs at rest stops. We've passed this one a few times, and finally stopped for a picture. Luckily there was a nice lady there taking photos of it, and she took a few for us. 

We got home that night, and Graham went back to his studying, and I returned to my puzzle. A 1,000 piece puzzle, and when we finished we were missing three pieces. I wanted to curl up into a ball & cry. 

And for dinner we had epic homemade tomato soup & pesto grilled cheese sandwiches.

We had leftovers for dinner tonight. I took my sandwich to the next level by adding slices of tomato. I used to love adding tomato to my grilled cheeses when I was a kid, and this was so, SO good! The sandwich had a Caprese salad feel to it, with the mozzarella, tomato and basil pesto.

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend! 

Northwest Arkansas

So... I meant to post this last week, but things are a little hectic right now. My last day at work is July 19, we're moving on July 23. We're going home to NC for a few days first, but I got a call for a job interview on the 24th. So, we're making the very long drive home to Charlotte, and then the very next day we're getting up at the crack of dawn so I can interview for a job and we can spend a little time in our new home. 

We haven't sold or rented the house yet (*gulp*), so we've taken the opportunity to clean up a few loose ends... like returning the bold walls to a neutral color. Goodbye beautiful blue accent wall =(

Anyways, we were really impressed with Northwest Arkansas and I wanted to share more photos from the weekend. 

After all, it is my blog, I'll do what I want =)

The trails at Crystal Bridges were so beautiful.

I adore him.

Adorable tea & spice shop in Bentonville.

Sam Walton's original Five & Dime store. Graham bought taffy and was happy all weekend =)

Sam Walton's original pick up truck. 

Definitely the cutest town ever. 

The most interesting place we found in Bentonville was a restaurant/hotel/gallery called the Hive. This place was freaky. Everything in here was odd and eclectic, and down right creepy.

Very cool sculpture at the Hive. 

The next day we went hiking at Devil's Den State Park. It wasn't as pretty as some of the other hikes we've taken, but it still had some pretty scenery.

I was higher up than it looks.

Graham & his man bench. 

Bentonville & Northwest Arkansas is a fantastic day trip/weekend trip! It's about three hours from Little Rock and there is a lot to see & do. Besides the museum, there are lots of shops, more places to hike and explore, and the University is about 30 minutes from Bentonville.

Crystal Bridges Art Museum

Bentonville, Arkansas is quite possibly one of the most interesting towns I've ever been to. I'm not kidding or being sarcastic. This little town (population 35,000) is home to the original store Sam Walton started many, many years ago, a very freaky hotel-museum right off the town square and Crystal Bridges Museum. Some of my coworkers told me that we HAD to check out Crystal Bridges, so when we found ourselves in Northwest Arkansas this weekend, that was the first thing we did. 

Source

Lake Catherine State Park

Saturday morning we packed up Hermione and about five huge bottles of water and headed to out to Hot Springs for this weekends hike/Arkansas exploration. 

We went to Lake Catherine State Park and did a four mile trail. It was a relatively short hike, but it was categorized as strenuous. The hike itself was easy enough, but the drastic elevation changes were brutal (my legs were still killing me on Sunday).

The hike was one of the most beautiful we've done, and I'll say it's my favorite. Unlike last time, we didn't encounter a single tick. It was hot, but the heat wasn't brutal, and the scenery was gorgeous! I absolutely LOVE water views, and this trail wrapped around a portion of the lake. It was stunning. Hermione loved it too. We let her off of her leash, and anytime there was an easy opening that lead to the lake, she was instantly down there. 

I hate that we found this place when we only have 24 days left in the state, but I'm glad we went. 

Check it out if you get the chance. The area has more than a hiking trail. There is a marina, a swimming beach, and campsites.

Ready to go!

Another long drive with nothing to look at...

"Come on, guys! The water is this way!"

Our little fish beat us to the water!

She's really good at going after the stick.

She sucks at bringing it all the way back...

Can not get over how pretty it is!

Once again, right in the water...

She wasn't really steady on the rocks though. 

Tornadoes tore through the area in 2009 and did a LOT of damage.

So many trees down. Totally crazy!

Never so happy to see my car in my life!

Passed out almost as soon as she was in the car!

Blanchard Springs Caverns & really good food!

I hate seeing perfect weekends come to an end. And this was such a good one!

It started off perfect, with an EPIC breakfast! Scrambled eggs with herb butter, Petit Jean bacon, toast with homemade strawberry jam from Holland Bottom Farms, and homemade hash browns (I'll share the recipe later!). This breakfast was SO good. Not the healthiest thing ever, but oh my gosh it was good!

After breakfast, we had to try and lure the cat our from under the bed...

And then we were off! Two hours of absolutely nothing!

After a two hour drive, we finally reached our destination: Blanchard Springs Caverns.

They have three tours that you can do: the dripstone, the discovery & the wild cave tour. We did the discovery tour, and it was wonderful. It was about 1.2 miles and took about 1.5 hours from start to finish. Our tour guide was really nice, very informative and passionate about what she did. I wish I would have taken more pictures, but I didn't bring a real camera, only my iPhone. I doubt pictures would have done it justice anyways. It was absolutely beautiful and completely amazing. It's hard to believe that everything we saw was created naturally over time.

They said that they don't have an advertising budget, and most of their visitors are word of mouth. So if you read this, and you're in Arkansas, take a day trip to go check out the caves, you won't regret it!

After we left the caves, we were starved and headed to a local restaurant for lunch: JoJo's Catfish Wharf. The little town we were in was small, but had so many cute places to stop at. This place was in a pretty area. There were pastures on one side, and the White River on the other. They weren't busy, so we were seated quickly. We had just missed their lunch specials, but we both ordered catfish anyways. It was served with a green tomato relish, pinto beans and a big basket of hush puppies to share.

Not too long after they brought out the hush puppies and the sides, they brought our lunches.

Everything we had was delicious. Everything needed a little more salt, but everything had great flavor. The fish had a very light breading, and was perfectly moist & flaky. The fries were some of the best I've ever had: perfectly crisp on the outside, soft on the inside. The relish was vinegary, spicy and quite good.

All in all, everything was absolutely delicious, and if you're ever in the area, you should definitely stop by!



We were both so hungry after the caves, we left before looking at the springs, so after lunch we headed back. The water was so beautiful. This was the most water we've seen gushing out of or over something in Arkansas. It made me wish we had taken Hermione, because she would have loved splashing around in the creek.

Sunday was spent doing stuff around the house and more delicious food! We started with more bacon, homemade waffles, and blueberries from Holland Bottom Farms.

Graham and I don't have kids, but he's the best fur dad our pets could ask for, so I let him decide what we would have for dinner. He picked steak, asparagus & mashed potatoes. We grilled the asparagus and it was amazing. The mashed potatoes were perfect as well. Lots of cheese was mixed in, and they were topped with crumbled bacon & basil.

Hope all the dad's out there have had a wonderful day!