Couldn't have planned it better myself!

This weekend was incredible. Let me tell you about it.
My mom came up on Friday morning and watched Carver for us here in Gainesville while Val and I headed to Winston-Salem/ The Dash/ Winston, to look for a place to live, celebrate her birthday, and to just be on a trip together, without the sweet dude (This was one of Val's 2010 goals). By the way, my wife accomplished every one of her 2009 goals and is halfway through her 2010 list. I am not this type of person. I do, however, have a list of goals. If you look back far enough in this blog you'll find it!
Anyway, we stopped in Charlotte for Friday night and stayed at Melissa's (Val's great friend), and spent Saturday with Lauren and Nick, or friends from the Dirty Jerzzz. We went to an awesome place for breakfast and then, of course, went to IKEA. Isn't this what everyone does on their birthday? It was awesome to see Lauren and Nick. We miss them a lot!

We continued on to W-S, with the help of Melissa's GPS, which helps you get places while making you a dumber, more oblivious human being. Side note, we spent about 10 minutes Saturday night looking for Cha-Da-Thai (Thai rest.), because the GPS keeps saying we've arrived. We needed to look across the street. We ate at Bonefish when we decided the Thai place has closed down. HA!

Anyway, Saturday night we kinda scoped out the neighborhood we wanted to live in (Ardmore), checked out Harris Teeter to see how it compares to Publix (eh, it'll do for a couple years. Good beer selection. Did I mention N.C. gets New Belgium beers?) In fact, North Carolina places third in the nation for numbers of breweries distributing beer into the state. This is the opposite of Florida, which believes the best way to foster economic development is through a hodge podge state code that can't decide if this should be the colorful lawless swamp it should be or if they should regulate everything anyone thinks of...or lobbies for...and I'm pretty sure most of it dates back to prohibition...

Anyway, we ate at Bonefish for Val's birthday and then went back to the hotel, where we decided we'd go to this small Anglican church the next day (Easter). It's called Christ Church and it is very similar to St. Andrew's, our church. Well, we walked in about 20 minutes late and sat in the back behind a young couple about our age. The husband is about to finish med school at Wake and his wife, who introduced herself to us, is an IB middle school teacher (only IB middle school in the country). Nerd alert! They invited us to an Easter BBQ at some folks' house, which we stayed at until about 6:00 that evening! The priest showed up and brought some of his homebrew, which was great. Valerie and I kept looking at each other and not understanding how we already found a church we like (did I mention that we liked it?), people that are fun to hang out with, and I already have an interim brewing partner or two while we're in W-S. Could it get any better!

Well, it did. For the sake of brevity I'll just say we signed a 24 month lease (bargained down the rent if we signed a longer term) on a house we LOVED. It was built in the 20s but has been totally restored. It has a big front porch with a swing, 3 bedrooms, crown molding and beautiful hard wood floors, a big back yard, a new garage out back, and the street is lined with young families. I can't tell you how thankful we are!

We got home last night (Tuesday). Carver and grandma had a great time, although I'm pretty sure they were both ready to see us! Anyway, thanks for reading. Long post I know.

Oh, I forgot to say, we found a place called city beverage, which has the best beer selection in North Carolina. I took a video. Actually we took a bunch of videos on our trip, including one of the house, but I can't figure out how to get them uploaded to the blog. As soon as I can, I will. Until then, monomedia for you.