It had increasingly become a matter of personal embarrassment to John that his wife, despite having lived in North Carolina for ten years, had never been to the Outer Banks. (To be clear, he had also never been to the Outer Banks in these ten years, but since he had visited several times as a teenager, he felt that absolved him somehow.) Admittedly, I was also feeling increasingly chagrined, and so when our Michigan plans changed (due to two family pregnancies whoo!), we all jumped at the chance to experience the Outer Banks together.

Here are a few favorite pics, if you’d like to see!

We were accompanied by the East Coast Thomases, including John’s parents and his sister, our brother-in-law, and their daughter, who is a few months older than June. For weeks in advance June talked about how much she was looking forward to sleeping in the same room as Maisie, and I don’t think the experience disappointed – there were many heart-meltingly sweet convos overhead on the monitor! :)

Being a little behind in the planning game because of our late-breaking change in plans, John searched the whole Outer Banks for rental properties. We landed in Corolla, the second most Northern town on the beach (this is the house we stayed in). It ended up being a perfect fit for us – beautiful, quiet, and historic!

Our house was a one-minute walk from the beach and next to some sort of protected area, which made it feel extra serene. We spent plenty of time at the beach – including one full morning – but it was wonderful to be so close so we could pop back and forth throughout the day, which we did frequently. Our favorite time to go was after naps and before dinner, when it was a little cooler and the sun wasn’t so strong! We did bring our pop-up canopy to help shade us on days we were out for a few hours.

As you can see, the beach was basically empty, and the sand was gloriously soft!

As you can also see, Shep’s preferred beach activity was napping – he was not the ocean’s biggest fan :)

Though Corolla was farther up the Outer Banks than some more well-known destinations, there was plenty to do aside from the beach! We played mini golf, visited a farm stand, and made several trips to Whalehead, a historic home and park that includes the Currituck Beach Lighthouse.

Both kiddos hiked up all 220 lighthouse steps with nary a peep of complaint, though the wind at the top was a little much for June!

Though we opted not to do a wild horse tour (we have been spoiled from seeing them on Shackleford Banks and Cumberland Island!), Joe, John, and I snuck away one naptime to the Corolla Adventure Park. No pictures of that, but trust that it was REALLY fun!

I am a well-known scouter of charm wherever I go, and historic Corolla Village did not disappoint. Don’t miss The Shack for coffee in the morning and drinks in the afternoon (photo from Our State above!) and Corolla Village BBQ for dinner!

Other food favorites: bagels at Lighthouse Deli, acai bowls at Island Smoothie, and Italian at La Dolce Vita. We also, of course, got Duck Donuts from the original location – yum!

On our last night, we ordered pizza from Wave and ice cream from the shop next door, then took in the sunset from the Duck boardwalk – the perfect way to cap off an evening!

Of course, as much as we enjoyed finally experiencing the Outer Banks for the first time (together), the best part of the trip was the stuff that could have happened anywhere, but was made more wonderful by the picturesque setting: cousin giggles, leisurely naps spent reading, memories made being chased off the beach by a crazy windstorm (!), a pastel sunrise, plowing through a well-stocked game closet, and cobbled-together meals around the table.

Wishing you some of all of those things wherever your summer adventures take you! And if you have more OBX questions, I’m happy to answer them :)

Ever since I completed up my 60 Before 30 project, I’ve been considering options for a new iteration. My experience with longer-term goal sets has been overwhelmingly positive; I love allowing them to shape and mark a chunk of my life!

But how to theme it? 65 Before 35 just didn’t sound as jazzy. As I pruned and shaped my collection of ideas for a potential next list, and considered what our life is likely to look like for the next few years, an idea began to take shape.

The driving force in our family right now is paying off our mortgage*. We expect this to happen in the next three to six years, depending on the market’s performance, and until then, we will be making some aggressive trade-offs and sacrifices – forgoing vacations, reducing our grocery budget, delaying clothing purchases, cooking at home, (almost) never going to the movies, not purchasing alcohol, and more.

We believe the freedom of owning our home will be more than worth it, but we’re also not willing to put our young family’s life on hold for the next five years, eating PB&J every night and spending only the absolute minimum.

And here’s the thing: we’re convinced we don’t need to. The fact is, there are amazing amounts of fun and memories to be had for very few dollars. In fact, I’d argue that this list gets at the very best parts of life, the ones we’ll continue to chase long after we’ve put our mortgage to rest: the patience to move slowly, the softness to be delighted, rich and agile minds, deep relationships, confidence in our own ingenuity, a deepening bench of skills, and – above all – golden-hued memories. If these things aren’t luxury, I don’t know what is.

Each item below was carefully chosen, for reasons that may not be immediately clear. Some are unusual, some are pedestrian, and many you might never think to raise to the level of being put “on a list.” You might find it amusing that I included them at all, or worse, Not Fun.

Am I “flattening things that should be enjoyable into tasks“? Am I not fun??

Perhaps not. I am a creature of habit, and despite my best intentions, it’s easy for life to become routine. So, just like we put extra mortgage payments into our budget instead of hoping to stumble upon “extra” sums of money, I am intentionally setting out to create the conditions for delight instead of hoping delight will somehow shoehorn its way into my full life, with the financial constraints we are voluntarily putting on it. What we prioritize, happens. It’s always taken someone’s effort to plan the picnic, organize the lake day, or flip bunny-shaped pancakes. Just because something has been considered and planned doesn’t make it any less magical.

Alright. After that very lengthy preamble, I present to you…

Start: February 28, 2019
End: ??? (Somewhere between 2022 and 2025!)
Items completed: 16
Last updated: July 2022

1. Host a croquet tournament
2. Make potstickers with Mama Jean (December 2021)
3. Teach June the Lord’s Prayer (March 2019)
4. Make a month-by-month landscape tending list
5. Go trail riding at the farm with my family
6. Visit Hammocks Beach State Park (June 2022)
7. Camp at Grayson Highlands
8. Take June to a local high school’s musical (April 2022)
9. Complete a month of thank you notes
10. Host Chinese New Year fun for friends
11. Dance at a ceili
12. Go to BINGO as a family (July 2019)
13. Undertake a nature scavenger hunt for each season (spring 2020)
14. Spend two weeks in a row at the Island
15. Update our Advent calendar with our home’s colors
16. Eat at Waffle House (epic late-night visit with some of my dear coworkers in August 2019!)
17. Go swimming in a mountain lake
18. Host a book swap party (July 2019)
19. Work on a Habitat build
20. Take June to tea at the Carolina Inn or Fearrington (May 2021)
21. Order historical photo albums to get us up to date (2005-2009, 2010-2014, 2015-2019)
22. Enter something in the State Fair
23. Square dance at our town’s arts center
24. Lake day with the Rays
25. Buy bunting to hang on our home for patriotic holidays
26. Listen to all of the Harry Potter books
27. Finish my EFM guide to the Triangle
28. Host a pie party
29. Become an expert at French braiding June’s hair (officially given up on my own)
30. Lead another service at the Island (July 2022)
31. Watch a review at the CGA and go to lunch at the Officers’ Club
32. Take another family on an outdoor souffle adventure
33. Do a home swap with a friend or acquaintance in a place we want to visit
34. Make a new neighborhood BFF couple
35. Put together an ice cream sundae bar, just for us (August 2019)
36. Commission a special art print and give one copy to each family member
37. Take June to her first outdoor movie and pack excellent snacks
38. Organize another Great Island Race
39. Do something with the upstairs bathroom (shared February 2021!)
40. Host a chocolate chip cookie taste-off
41. Touch up the paint throughout our home
42. Teach June to sing patriotic songs
43. Go to rooftop yoga at The Durham with friends (April 2019, with Lisa)
44. Make “For God so loved ____” art for June and Shep
45. Golf as a family at Knight’s Play
46. Take the train somewhere (May 2019 – to Charlotte with June!)
47. Hike another bald
48. Have a full family sleepover with the Rays
49. Teach June to jump rope, trace her body with chalk, and play hopscotch and Spud
50. Finish the path in our alley
51. Plant lots of daffodil bulbs in our backyard
52. Memorize a favorite poem
53. Learn to cut June’s hair (and John’s and Shep’s – May 2020!)
54. Borrow a canoe and go on an adventure
55. Get back in a regular rhythm of playing tennis with the Terhunes
56. Party it up in a glow stick bath
57. Make a better display for my jewelry
58. Real estalk and visit the playground in Trinity Park
59. Explore Morehead Planetarium
60. Introduce June to the art of painted toe nails (May 2019!)

Many of these cost no money. Some cost more than that. More importantly, they all require our attention, capacity for delight, and thoughtfulness. I hope to get to tell many of these stories over the next few years, but if you’re particularly curious about one, by all means – ask away!

*As you may have gathered, we have changed our approach to paying off our mortgage. A Marvelous Money post addressing the topic is coming soon! :)

In October, I shared the happy news that my sister was moving to North Carolina. It was exciting enough to have Kim in Nashville – in the South! a short flight away! – and Nat and Joe in Northern Virginia – a reasonable weekend trip! – but this development was a revelation. Kate and family are now outside of Charlotte, a little over two hours away from us, and that’s closeness of a whole different order.

Since my sister’s arrival about three months ago, we’ve gotten to taste the sweetness of proximity – taking the girls to the Nutcracker, organizing their new home together, texting about North Carolina happenings (since they now matter to all of us!), celebrating birthdays around the same table. And we’ve made plans, so many things to look forward to – trips to the zoo (the perfect halfway point between us!), shopping my favorite consignment sale elbow to elbow, weekend visits with scooter rides and cousins piled in the same room.

You have to understand that I truly never thought this would be our reality. My family always desired to be closer to each other, but everyone seemed firmly ensconced in their separate – widely scattered – states.

So, over the last almost ten years since moving South, we built our own life here. We’ve (slowly) made friends that have become family. We’ve worn traditions like grooves that have become part of our family identity, ones that were once new to us but will always be familiar to our kiddos.

Away from our hometown and our extended family, we turned homesickness into homeyness out of necessity – begrudgingly at first, and then with gusto. We had to make this place our home, even if our family wasn’t her. We couldn’t just wait for them to show up one day.

And I know that even as this was sometimes hard and lonely, it was also a gift, because some new couples in the literal shadow of their parents or hometowns are never quite able to set themselves apart, to establish their own traditions, celebrations, and identities. And we were.

And therein lies the rub. It happened almost immediately: Kate and Co moved in October, and the conversation quickly turned to Thanksgiving. Of course we were going to spend it together, since we were now so close! And of course we wanted to be with family on this most family-centric holiday!

But but but. For the last six years, we’ve eaten Thanksgiving dinner with our dear friends and their parents. Air travel at Thanksgiving is SO expensive, and besides, John has only ever gotten Thanksgiving Day off, making multi-day travel impossible. The Terhunes may not be our actual family, but Thanksgiving at their house has become a deeply-cherished tradition – the only Thanksgiving setting June has ever known!

But how to explain this to our flesh-and-blood family, who understandably assumed we would spend Thanksgiving with them?

It all shook out – we spent Thanksgiving Day with our friends, and then drove over to Charlotte after John finished work on Friday – but not without a small sense of disappointing people, at least on my part.

We are tasting a little bit of what those with family close by know well – the push and pull of obligations and expectations for time and presence. This is not the last time we will face this kind of quandary, and while our lives may be slightly more complicated for it, all I feel is grateful. After all, the only reason we now have more family expectations to navigate, is because we have more family. Thanks be to God.

Friends, I would love to hear what this has looked like in your life. Do you live close to your or your spouse’s immediate family? Have you always done so? If so, how often do you see each other? What have been the best and hardest parts?

Above, the North Carolina welcome box we sent Kate and Co before their move, filled with some of our favorite reasons to love the Old North State: popcorn from Asheville, peach candy, Chapel Hill toffee, a bucket list map, Cheerwine, Videri chocolate, the Western NC jam we served at our wedding, Duke’s mayo, cheese straws, an NC coloring book, the best magazine, and a CAT earth mover in honor of their presence in the state. It was so fun to collect and put together!

At first glance, it might seem odd that Asheville has a big piece of my heart — and that’s because Asheville is, without a doubt, unabashedly, unapologetically… odd. Quirky. Weird. Yes, it has an elegant and refined side, too, but as a more straight arrow myself, it’s not the first place you’d picture our family returning year after year. But we have (clocking our twelfth or so visit a few weeks ago!), and its magic has never waned. I’m excited to share our guide with you, just in time for a fall visit!

WHEN TO GO

We road trip to Asheville every year in the fall, and it is an absolutely lovely time to visit. If you’re hoping to see colorful foliage, schedule your visit at the end of October or beginning of November. (If you’re a little earlier in the fall, be sure to head to the Blue Ridge Parkway – with the higher elevation, the leaf switchover happens sooner!) A summer trip is also a great way to beat the Southern heat.

WHERE TO EAT

We often joke that our biggest puzzle when planning an Asheville trip is coming up with activities to slot between the zillions of meals we want to eat – ha! With an unusually large number of distinguished chefs for such a small town — being nominated for a James Beard award seems more like permission to play than a differentiator here! — readers who love to eat will not be disappointed. Whichever spot you decide on, you’re almost certainly guaranteed happy animals, locally-grown vegetables, and fair wage workers — that’s the Asheville way.

For a classic Southern meal, head to Tupelo Honey Cafe or Early Girl Eatery. As with most AVL restaurants, both often have a long wait, but that just gives you time to pop into a few of downtown’s charming shops — see below! I love the burger on Early Girl’s menu and the chopped egg and avocado sandwich on Tupelo’s — plus, the latter’s complimentary biscuits and jam are heavenly.

For barbecue, try Buxton Hall (in an old roller skating rink!) for Eastern style or 12 Bones (only open on weekdays).

Asheville has a robust roster of ethnic eateries, all with cheeky twists. Chai Pani dishes up Indian street food – my favorite is the chicken tikka roll, and we love getting the bhel puri to start. Bouchon has decadent French food and a delightful little patio to eat it on, and All Souls slings creative pizza in a humble, string-light-lit yard.

Last but in no ways least is White Duck Taco, without which a visit to Asheville is NOT NOT NOT complete. Our favorites include the buffalo chicken and lamb gyro, and their queso is never to be missed. Amen. (They have two Asheville locations; we prefer the River Arts District one because the location by the river is beautiful!)

For all its funk, Asheville of course has options for elegant meals. Katie Button is the queen of class in town, helming two standout tapas options: Nightbell (tapas Appalachian style – we loved the sumac roasted carrots and the smoked duck breast) and Curate (Spanish tapas). We also had a delicious meal around the refined and rugged table of chef John Fleer (formerly of Blackberry Farm) at Rhubarb. Both are perfect for special occasions.

If you’re still hungry after a meal at any of the above (and weren’t enticed by their respective dessert menus!), there are plenty of stand-alone sweet spots. Like any good destination, Asheville has a Kilwins, or there’s the pretty French Broad Chocolate Lounge (don’t miss their menu of drinking chocolates).

Finally, Asheville might shine most brightly in the morning, as evidenced by brunch menus all around town. Our favorites include Biscuit Head (where you can get a gravy flight with your biscuit!), Sunny Point Cafe (with an amazing garden to explore while you wait), and Hole Doughnuts (the cutest little shop that makes crunchy-on-the-outside, airy-on-the-inside donuts to order, an arm’s length in front of you). Warning: expect a wait at all of these spots – but it will be worth it!

WHAT TO DO

Downtown has a number of adorable shops to browse, which comes in handy when you’re waiting for a table. Our favorites include Curio (packed with charm for the littles!) and Asheville Bee Charmer (with a honey tasting bar!). Flora, a coffee/flower shop combo, and Well Played, a board game cafe (!), are on our visit list. I also enjoy poking around in the cavernous stalls of the Antique Tobacco Barn.

I’m probably the last person you should ask for brewery recommendations, but Asheville is well-known as a beer destination and so I’ll give it a shot! :) We loved our visit to New Belgium, which has a beautiful walking trail along the river. Sierra Nevada is supposed to have a great tour, and my sweet tooth would like to visit Urban Orchard, a hard cider tasting room.

The Grove Park Inn is an Asheville institution — the choice of visiting presidents! Even if you’re not staying the night, come to pull up a rocking chair next to the massive fireplaces in the lobby; sip a cocktail and watch the sun set over the mountains from the stone patio; or snag a day pass to the underground, rock-walled spa (only during the week if you’re not a guest!).

Speaking of Asheville institutions… there’s the Biltmore. The basic tour, while not inexpensive, is SO interesting and well done, and the gardens are not to be missed.

We’ve rafted twice with French Broad Adventures and would happily do it again – SUCH a fun activity for a group! The guide banter on the bus ride back is one of my favorite parts :)

Alright – that leaves us with the Blue Ridge Parkway, the spectacular marvel of public works industry and possibly our favorite attraction in Western NC. We’ve traveled it in all sorts of weather, and the view is never less than breathtaking. I hope to write an entire separate guide just for our favorite stops along the Parkway, but here are a few in the meantime: Sliding Rock (a natural water slide!), Craggy Pinnacle (an easy hike through a rhododendron tunnel with a great view at the end), Graveyard Fields, and Linville Falls.

Off the Parkway, we’ve loved visiting Justus Orchard (cider donuts and pick-your-own apples), Catawba Falls (a BEAUTIFUL hike to a lovely waterfall), Black Balsam Knob, Chimney Rock, and the botanical gardens.

WHERE TO STAY

We’ve stayed almost exclusively at Airbnbs on our trips and have been happy with all of them (including this one and this one). A friend has stayed at and loved the Inn on Westwood, and we’ve also stayed at the Aloft once downtown. No matter what you choose, it’s super important to book early for the best selection – we booked our October visit this year in March.

I know this guide only scratches the surface of all that this vibrant, ever-changing city has to offer, so please, if you’re an Asheville fan, leave your favorites in the comments! I’m going to add a few honorable mentions to kick us off. I’d love for the comment section to be a resource for readers just as much as my post! xo!

Previous Asheville posts:
Hiking in Asheville
Antiquing in Asheville
Eating in Asheville
The Blue Ridge Parkway

White Duck Taco photo by Map & Menu. Buxton Hall, Chai Pani, Hole Donuts, and Grove Park Inn photos from respective sources. All other photos personal!