Memorial Day Weekend in Western NC: Part 1

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather just camp in the back yard," I asked on Thursday afternoon ... with plans for a camping trip to the mountains after a hectic/stressful week at home (including a newly broken and casted arm for Caleb) still quite vague.  It just seemed like so much work!  My sweet husband is really not sentimental about ANYTHING, but I could tell by the look that he gave me that we were GOING TO GO CAMPING IN LINVILLE GORGE and that there wasn't much use in discussing it.  

Ten years ago, this very weekend, a handsome young medical student packed up a bouquet of wildflowers, a guitar, a couple of rings, some freeze dried Pad Thai and a tent and sped to the wilderness of the NC mountains to ask a girl to marry him.  She said yes and they said "I do" just 5 months later.  Now WE are six...and Josh just had to share our mountain adventure with our four little sidekicks.   And so...the 10th anniversary of our engagement looked a little like this:

According to Josh, all trips to western NC begin with a meal at Waffle House...

Next Stop: Gem Mountain to hunt for...you guessed it...GEMS!

No new gems on my finger this time around, but we did end up with bags full of uncut rubies, emeralds and amethysts! 

...to be continued...