North Carolina - Part 2!

Whew! It's been almost a week since I last posted; things have just been crazy around here, but crazy GOOD! John and I have been busy taking lots of pictures as Lotus Blossom Photography is starting to really take off. And I have been even busier editing all the photos we've taken. I'm just about to wrap up the editing of a post-bridal I did last Sunday and then I'll be starting on an incredibly fun engagement session we did yesterday. But right now I'm taking a break and finishing my North Carolina blog post :)

After the winery we drove over to the Biltmore Gardens. The first plant we saw was a Castor Bean Plant and that had us in stitches! John and I have a running joke that we are going to kill each other with castor beans after we saw a show on TV where a wife tried to kill her husband with them. Apparently they are a really difficult poison to detect, LOL. Anyway, here's a picture of the plant. If you notice these growing in your garden, call the police!!



There were so many beautiful flowers, here are some pics of the gardens and the grounds:











After we finished with the garden we headed to our hotel. Since we were there for a conference for my job, we stayed at the resort where the conference was being held, The Grove Park Inn. It is a historic hotel with an incredible view of the mountains. The room we stayed in sucked, but I can't complain since work was footing the bill. Here are some pics we snapped around the hotel one night.








The rest of the week was spent with John exploring the area's golf courses and me sitting through a series of paper presentations. It's amazing how tired sitting and listening can make you, LOL!

That concludes our North Carolina edventure! I'll be back Wednesday for "Want Me Wednesday" that I have been neglecting and a suprise later in the week :)

North Carolina Pics!

I didn't make it back to the blog yesterday to post some of our North Carolina Pics so I made it a priority to get to it tonight! I'm in the middle of editing some post-bridals I did for my friend Amber yesterday so I didn't take a lot of time to edit these which means you'll just have to deal with the random people in the shots and my frizzy hair, LOL!

We drove down on Friday night after work so that we would have all day on Saturday to explore the Bitlmore. That place was truly amazing! It is just mind blowing to think how far ahead of the time it was when it was built. My favorite part was for sure the indoor swimming pool. How cool to have underwater electric lights when most of the country didn't even have electricity yet! Here are a few pics before we went inside(they don't allow photos in the house)









We made it inside just in time! As soon as we got in the house it started pouring down rain. While we weren't able to take pics of the inside, we snuck a few pics out on the back porch:







After the house tour we drove over to the winery to try and wait out the rain so we could visit the gardens. I have tried and tried to like wine, and I am happy to report I finally found a wine that I like during our wine tasting - Chenin Blanc. No suprise that it was a dessert wine. I think I'm just naturally inclined to like anything sweet!
















Thankfully after we finished the winery tour and tasting the rain had stopped and we were able to walk around the gardens, but those pics are going to have to wait until tomorrow!! I've gotta get to bed!

Finally Home!

I've been "out of the office" for most of the week. I traveled to Asheville, NC for the ART Forum - a conference on Advanced Research Techniques for Marketers. The conference was really interesting and totally fed into my nerdy love of analysis. There were some less-than-friendly equations, but on the whole it was a good experience. I especially enjoyed it because John was able to join me. We traveled up a day early to tour the Biltmore and John kept himself entertained while I attended classes by golfing. It's always nice when you can turn work travel into a mini-vacation. I've got lots of pics from the week, but have just unloaded them from the camera tonight. I'll try to sort through them and hopefully have some to post tomorrow.

For now I wanted to share my major SCORE from the thrift store today!! I went ribbon shopping with Chasity and Lynette this morning and we got side tracked and ended up on a 6 hour thrifting excursion. We had a blast and I was so tickled to find this:



It's a Polaroid camera circa 1966! I admittedly paid too much for it as most Polaroids are only worth between $2 and $10 and I paid $12.99, but I believe my utility for old cool things such as this well exceeds $12.99 (said in my best economist voice!). I think it is going to look quite lovely sitting next to the old typewriter that I bought around this time last year and the same thrift store, LOL!

I'm off to bed as I have a trash the dress session in the morning with my friend Amber, but hopefully I'll be back tomorrow with some North Carolina pics!

Want Me Wednesday 6/11

Oh my goodness, I can't believe a week has gone by already!! I've determined that I WILL finish my wedding scrapbook before our two year anniversary the end of next month so I've been busy working on that among other things. I did, however, take a break long enough to choose this week's want me Wednesday pug - Merry.



Merry is being fostered through Southeast Pug Rescue and Adoption and I actually had the pleasure of meeting her a few weekends ago. She is such a sweet girl I know she will brighten the lives of whoever her lucky forever family may be. Here's what Merry has to say:

Hello, my name is Merry and I am about 8 years old. If you think I look familiar you are right, I was adopted by a wonderful family but it just was not a good fit. Her pug did not bond with me so I was sad and the family decided that I deserve to have the perfect forever family. I think that I would prefer a family with a fenced yard and someone that will be willing to work on my housetraining. I am doing well but after years of no training I need some patience. I seem to bond well with male pugs more so than females but either way they need to be somewhat laid back like me! Mostly, all I have ever known is being a mama, however, now I am RETIRED! I have been spayed and had my teeth cleaned and some of my teeth removed. I am loving living inside with a family and get along great with my foster pug brother. This is all new to me and am so thankful for every day of my new life! I still very active, sweet, alert and happy. However, I am ready for my new forever home!

If you think you are the forever home Merry is looking for, please fill out an application today!!

RAK Winner and Want Me Wednesday

The RAK winner from the SATC weekend was........MELLY!! YAY! I'll get it to you next time I see you. Don't let me forget!

Now on to our Want Me Wednesday Pug!! Meet Ebony. She is being fostered by Southern Nevada Pug Rescue. Would you just look at the nose roll on this girl??? I'd just like to scoop her up and give her a squeeze! According the the website she is 8 years old, very calm, and loves other dogs, cats, and children. She sounds like the perfect dog!! If you are in the Southern Nevada Area and are interested in sweet Ebony please fill out an application today!