day 21: we're back!!

this will be short and sweet, with much to elaborate on later...

we made it to our final destination... raleigh, nc!!

we have seen both of our families, ooo-ed and ahhh-ed over what will be our new home come mid-august(!!), started training the pup with the invisible fence, unpacked the car, started getting our game plan together for the week, and ended the evening with the viewing of the bachelorette finale... what a day!

i will write much more soon, but here are a couple of photos from the day. a huge 'thanks' to our families (especially my sweet bro!) for welcoming us home to raleigh and for being so supportive and loving during this transitional time! we are so pumped for what's to come!!...

much love from these southern digs!
the mobleys

day 20: it's great to be a garrett!

please let me start by saying...

we cannot thank the garretts enough for such a wonderful, relaxing, entertaining, and welcoming day!

we met ryan + candice many years ago when paul + ryan found themselves in the same engineering classes at ncsu. they studied together and played racquetball together... and the rest is history! since their days on the wolfpack campus, we have been honored to watch ryan + candice be married, they celebrated with us on our wedding day, the four of us have enjoyed 2 fabulous garrett visits to california, they were the first to see me after i took my PT national board exam (and they were the first to know that i had passed!), and we were some of the first shout with pure happiness upon finding out ryan + candice's family of 2 would soon become 3! though we have lived a country apart for the past 5 years, we have remained such great friends, supporting and loving each other through all of our lives' journeys. words cannot describe how blessed we feel to have found such lifelong friends!!

we arrived to the garrett homestead (in randleman, nc) just after 1:30pm and were welcomed with the very best hugs on the face of the world, the most thoughtful spread and decorations, and the cutest 1-year-old abel... oh my gosh, how is he 1-year-old already?! (did we mention how much we love these guys?!)

after a gourmet classic carolina lunch, candice + i took some time to catch up in the kitchen while the boys took abel (a.k.a. the most adorable little boy) in the backyard for some fun times on the swing. as you can see, all the fun must have completely worn abel out! yep, he is flat-out asleep in his car swing. precious doesn't even begin to describe it.

he woke up shortly after being taken out of the swing, so we traveled down the road for a walk along the river with livi excited to join. it was a gorgeous walk... so very serene to listen to the river rolling by.

we went back to the house for the boys to participate in some much-anticipated ping-pong matches while candice, abel, and i played with livi... livi is, of course, already in love with this sweet little dude.

we continued to eat marvelously with an amazing meal of grilled london broil, caprese salad, sweet potato chips, and corn... what can we say? we have been spoiled the past couple of days with these amazing home-cooked meals!

after the cutie patootie went down for the count, candice broke out some HOMEMADE FROM SCRATCH gluten-free brownies and champagne to celebrate our 'homecoming', our upcoming wedding anniversary, and the garrett's upcoming wedding anniversary (we were married 364 days after the garretts :)). i have got to get candice's recipe for the brownies... especially since paul exclaimed that they were, undoubtedly, the best gf brownies he's ever had (i immediately agreed)! we continued the evening with introducing ryan + candice to the joy of watching 'modern family' and laughing non-stop.

we love you so much, garretts! thank you so much for hosting us on our last evening of this once-in-a-lifetime adventure... we wouldn't want to spend it with anyone else! you both are the kindest, most self-less and genuine people we know, and we are incredibly blessed to be able to call you our good friends.

we cannot wait for the next garrett-mobley adventure now that we will live only an hour (max) apart from each other... let the trip-planning begin!

livi dog photo of the day:

not able to handle the excitement of the day... and cannot believe that she will arrive in her new hometown tomorrow!

(p.s. thank you to my partner-in-crime candice for the ridiculously-kind gift card to make my duvet cover dreams come true!... you are so fabulous.)

we leave early in the morning to travel to our final destination... raleigh, nc!

we cannot believe that this trip is coming to an end...

safe traveling and much love!

the mobleys

day 19: moo-tastic!

another great day in asheville!

(and my apologies for the delayed posting... i think we just had too much fun last night... before we knew it, it was time for bed!)

always wanting to get in a good hike and some waterfalls, we headed over to dupont forest!

we had been here many times, many years ago... but now, it is the site of where the 1st of the hunger games movies was filled! we were excited to see it all through different eyes this time!

a boy and his dog...

triple falls... simply jaw-dropping in its beauty and wonder

overcast and starting to dribble rain, livi was the only one who insisted on jumping in...

(please note: this post of photos will likely make up for the lack of livi dog photo(s) of the day in yesterday's post!)

river dog!

shake, shake, shake!

'but dad... it's better to jump from far out here!'

'how did i get myself into this situation?'

soakin' it all in... literally.

quite the wonky-looking tree...

our little family of 3 at the falls

one happy dog.

livi thought paul would like a big slobber along his arm to commemorate the hike... turns out he didn't like that and kept scowling at her as if she knew how to respond...

... but they're still buds, of course.

at the end of our hike, we met a downpour and drove back home to take cover and rest for a little while. after the sun showed up, we headed over to uncle mike's dairy farm... this time with livi  at our sides!

we couldn't wait to see how livi reacted to the cows, and she did not disappoint!

she was beyond-fearful at first (all of her hair raised, tall so far between her legs that it reached her neck... she did not leave our sides and was insistent on hiding behind our legs at all times), but she warmed up after visiting the newborn calves...

be prepared to see some of the most precious photos ever below...

getting her first sight of the situation

hey there, jersey beauties...

which one do you this is snookie?

baby cow... just born!

another curious baby cow...

starting to separate from mom + dad and doing a little investigation...

nose kisses! melt our hearts.

baby cow may be getting a little too fresh for livi's liking.

the curiosity overcomes her...

'yeah, maybe i could dig this place...'

but she wasn't so sure about the teenage cows...

she looked to aunt louie for reassurance many times.

sniffing it out.

'we could be twins, you know...'

and back to the baby cows... because they are too cute for words!

a ton of the heifers were birthing the past few days... 2 even birthed in the fields, so uncle mike had to go retrieve them...

paul helping out with the mild cow herding to get the babies back in...

hey, you farm cats... y'all are baller.

finally comfortable with the big jerseys.

cows are typically a little more fearful than horses... it seems. only the babies are curious enough to lick your hand and let you rub their head... but this cow was awesome! she let me give her a nice little pat... livi decided to keep her distance.

sweet uncle mike doing his thang.

i was truly in awe when i saw how absolutely passionate he is about his cows and the farm... and he is BRILLIANT at what he does... seriously, i have learned that dairy farming is a very complex science. i will say that one of the biggest things i got out of this trip was the inspiration i felt from seeing uncle mike at work.

with all the wind and rain, we returned home to find one of the dead trees in the yard had fallen!... just missing the subaru!! we like to live on the edge...

the rest of the evening, we enjoyed watching livi loving being in a huge backyard, warded off mosquitos (we are back in the land of mosquitos?! ahhh!!), ate an amazing home-cooked meal (i even went as far to get 3 helping of the squash... and as my mom and my best friends on the west coast would attest to, this is nothing short of a miracle! this squash was good, yo), and stayed up late chatting and drinking bailey's (but not from a shoe).

we have had the BEST time here with aunt louie and uncle mike. i told aunt louie the other day, but this was the first time in probably 3 months that i have been able to really feel relaxed... what a huge blessing! and, of course, we couldn't have asked for better hosts... there's nothing like family, and i'm so happy that we were able to spend some quality time with them over the past few days. we love you, aunt louie + uncle mike!!

right now, we are packed-up and about to meet uncle mike for breakfast.

then we will hit the road and head to randleman to see the great garretts!! we cannot WAIT to see those lovelies!

safe traveling and much love,

the mobleys

day 18: lovely north carolina mountains...

we started day 18 with a nice, quiet morning (something we haven't experienced for quite some months now with all that's been going on)... a welcome blessing!

we 'slept-in' until about 7:30am, got ready for the day in a leisurely fashion, and enjoyed our coffee + breakfast... courtesy of our wonderful hosts.

paul was so gracious to be the laundry man while we chatted with aunt louie (uncle mike had gotten up early to feed the cows) and caught up on internet happenings. livi lay at our feet, occasionally waking/growling to the 'strange' noises outside (livi, have no fear, those are the sounds of nature, my dear).

livi was joyful to have a mid-morning romp in the backyard, but had to be put back on leash when she got a little too curious about what existed beyond what we deemed to be acceptable boundaries. nevertheless, she had some nice exercise and came back inside with a great big smile across her face.

once we decided that we should not let the day get away from us, we headed into hendersonville for some oh-my-gosh-i'm-so-beyond-stuffed-but-happy-after-eating-this mexican food at 'papa's and beer'... one of aunt louie + uncle mike's favorites (it seems to also be a favorite of many of the other locals).

paul had a monstrosity of a chili relleno burrito...

i gobbled up my delicioso enchilada...

and aunt louie enjoyed her fajitas!

we left full... obvi.

we then walked around downtown hendersonville and had a great time looking in all the shops...

we even found a perfectly-used washing machine to replace the one at uncle mike's farm while strolling through the hospice home store... boom! rockstars!

here are some of the artfully-displayed philanthropic bears that were spotted throughout downtown...

while aunt louie took care of payroll, we got a chance to tour around her family's dairy farm. i had visited 'tap root dairy' once before (many, many years ago... paul and i were still dating at the time), and i loved going back! like uncle mike's dairy farm, it is such a fascinating facility... and, of course, the cows are precious!

alan: these next few photos are especially for you and your love of cows!

just chillaxin'.

we swooped by the corn patch (aunt louie + uncle mike's home) for a few minutes to meet up with uncle mike and prepare for an evening of fun! we took off to the highland brewing company (a regional craft brewery located here), and continued our beer-tasing tour of the country! paul was in heaven, as expected, and even found a few new brews that he really liked. of course, we had to purchase some pint glasses to commemorate the trip... like we have done during so many of the stops along our way (although it was quite the tough call to decide between 2 types of pint glasses today... aunt louie has photos on her camera so we can all remember paul's ultimate internal struggle... pure hilarious-ness).

we had some downtime between the brewery tour and our dinner reservations, so we took advantage of aunt louie's year-long biltmore estate pass and wandered around the grounds. oh, this place is beyond beautiful! while i have been here several times as a child, it seemed particularly stunning today...

even the trash bins are fancy... i shall call it a 'receptacle' instead...

the first line of defense to the estate (you can see the humble abode in the background)...

gorgeous...

while there had been a prediction of rain, the weather held out for us.

take a look at this pretty carolina sky...

oh hey there, fishes...

while on the grounds, we spent some time in the antler hill village where we participated in the wine tasting (bought our first bottle of the biltmore estate vino) and had a beyond-amazing meal at 'cedric's'.

we were full... but not too full for a trip to dairy queen (david, we thought of you!).

on our way home, the sun quickly dipped below the mountains with the sky radiating behind it.

what's even cooler is that you can see an isolated rainfall in the distance... breath-taking!

we are excited to see what tomorrow has in store for us!

right now, i think we will go be soothed to sleep by the sound of  the rain falling outside with thunder clapping in the distance... music to my ears on this summer evening. :)

safe traveling and much love!

the mobleys