Life with the Betsills

Last weekend I got to visit a dear friend of mine. We met a couple years back through small group at church. We really hit it off and became close friends, but due to the nature of her husbands work they've moved around a lot. With Matthew and I moving to Hawaii soon, I've been trying to visit friends since I know traveling from Maui will be less appealing. When Marlee and Christopher bought a house and started to settle down a bit, I thought it would be a great time to visit. Marlee wrote a blog post about my visit. You can read the original here, Eventually I might get around to writing my own, but in the mean time...

My friend Katie came to visit for a long weekend. We met her and future husband, Matthew, in Dallas when we joined a small group. They ended up getting engaged and married just like us, plus, we had so much in common. They're wonderful friends and I'm thankful we keep in touch although we live miles away. They are actually moving to Hawaii in January and Katie decided to make a trip to see us before they leave.

An old pic of us a year and a half ago going out for Mexican food and margaritas when we moved back to Dallas for a short time.

We figured out that we share a common interest in drinking hot tea. High Tea Friday afternoon it is!

I ordered the Sugar Plum and Katie ordered the Vanilla Rooibos. Narrow down to only one choice? It was hard because we wanted to taste it all, but we LOVED the ones we did end up drinking. We couldn't get over the awesome tea warmers that used only a little tea light (could that be where the name comes from haha). Katie found it on Amazon so we'll both be ordering that handy thing.

Courtesy of Katie's photography skills

Oh, man, the dessert. Scones and clotted cream. MY FAVORITE.

We stocked up on tea to have at home and enjoyed quite a few cups during her visit. Drinking tea and watching Netflix was definitely how we relaxed.

Katie grew up in California and when I tossed the Food Truck Friday idea out there, I was surprised to find out that she use to have food trucks at her high school during lunch. She hasn't had food from one since then and was definitely up for giving it a try.

Looking up what trucks would be there beforehand was definitely a smart idea because we knew it would be so hard for us to pick what we wanted once we walked by them all and smelled the delicious food! We got there right at 5:00 when it opened to beat the crowds and lines. It worked out because we were able to find seating.

We shared the shawarma, parmesan fries, and pork & chorizo tostada. WOW. Would order that again in a heart beat, so good!

South End was a trendy place I kept hearing about and we were not disappointed. After hitting the jackpot on the truck we picked to order from (The Herban Legend), we walked around and did a little shopping where we stumbled upon a great handmade store called The Boulevard.

The store owner asked "Would you like some wine while you shop?" Um YES, thanks. We knew we liked this store.

They had a bunch of the bracelets I love making (thanks to Missy for teaching me how). Definitely inspired me to get back into making some.

Saturday afternoon, Christopher, Katie, and I all headed to downtown York to see what it was all about. We found a couple restaurants and shops.

^^^This place was a surprise. It had everything you could imagine for a dog from a Dog Bakery to an upstairs filled with dog ornaments. If you are a dog lover, it would definitely be your spot.

Billy Graham Library on a cool cloudy Monday.

Next stop was downtown Charlotte to first check out The Green, which is a park with some neat statues and signs. I was excited to take Katie since she is a fellow book lover.

L'Oiseau De Feu Sur L'Arche (The Firebird) 1991 by Niki De Saint Phalle and the Andreas H. Bechtler Arts Foundation.

Had to stop in for a hot beverage and sweet snack at the famous Amélie's.

Katie and I stopped by the Epicentre to see views of the city from the top and then walked back to the car passing by Romare Bearden Park. A perfect photo op!

When I was driving around our house, I had spotted a street sign with Katie's maiden name. I told her about it and she had to get a picture. We had a blast over the weekend and did quite a few things off my Charlotte Bucket List. It was wonderful to catch up, but also to experience and explore new things with her. We're excited for their new adventure and hope to return the visit when they get settled in Hawaii.

That is when we'll be arriving in Hawaii. Matthew booked our nonrefundable tickets (including the animals). That's right, in 140 days we will be living on Maui.

We're flying out from San Diego though so we have to figure our how we'll get there first. We're pretty sure we'll be driving with the animals. By flying out of San Diego we got cheaper airfare on Alaskan Airlines (pretty much the only airline that will allow pets in the cabin on flights to Hawaii), and we save money on shipping a car because the port is in San Diego. I'm not really concerned about the drive with the dogs, I'm not sure how Walter will handle it though. So if you have any advice on driving across the country with a cat, I'd appreciate it.

We've already starting packing up stuff we know we won't need. Matthew brought down everything from the attic too so we could go through it decided what we're keeping that needs to be repacked and what we're getting rid of. Needless to say, the house is a bit of a mess. We're planning to ship our stuff sometime in December though, so it has got to get done.

This is what our hallway looks like.

And the view from the other side.

Our guest room has been converted to storage for the boxes that have already been packed. I took this picture before we went through the attic items and now the bed is covered in boxes and what we're calling 'filler' for any empty space in a box.

The office isn't looking much better. That's our giant stack of packing paper in the bottom corner. I ordered it from Amazon and it came in a box that could hold a mini fridge.