Road Trip... anyone?

Ryan has been interviewing for dental GPR's (General Practice Residencies) the past two weeks. He was out of town for 5 days going to two of his interviews. By the time he got back I was ready to go with him to his next two. He planned on driving to North and South Carolina for interviews in both states. Road trip here we come!

We packed up the bags, put the kids in the car and drove off for an adventure!

An adventure it was.

The kids did great! The car ride was about 7-8 hours the first day, 3 hours the next and 8 hours for the trip home. I was ready for it to be miserable but it went really well! Sam was content to watch movies on the portable DVD player and Russell is at a very good age for car travel because he can't really move around yet.

We drove to Ashville, NC on Wednesday. Thursday, while Ryan was at his interviews I took the kids and went out to see the sights. I was so excited because I did some research online before we left and found out that every year The Grove Park Inn (A popular hotel in Ashville) has a national gingerbread house competition. The actual competition was on Monday and Tuesday but the houses went on display starting Wednesday, the day before we got there! What luck!

I was so pumped...it's a tradition of ours to make a gingerbread house every Christmas...I was looking for inspiration and I found it! There was 3 categories, adult, youth & child. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, & 4th place prizes awarded for each category and one Grand prize winner. There were over 100 houses entered in the competition. I took some pictures of my favorites! There were so many I just had to pick a few to show you. The pictures do not do these masterpieces justice. The hours of work and creativity was seriously overwhelming, I was in gingerbread heaven...

A castle!

A Pagoda

The details were incredible! Everything was edible!

The grand prize winner! The details were pretty amazing.

A lighthouse (I thought of you, Mother)

And many, many more!

The hotel itself was gorgeous!

What a view!

After Ryan's interview on Thursday we drove to Columbia, SC. The next day, after we dropped Ryan at his interview, we once again went out for some fun. This time we went to the RiverBanks Zoo. (Thanks for the tip Lindsey) The Zoo was so fun! It was a perfect day! The weather was mild but the locals thought it was cold so nobody was there. The sun was shinning and it was about 50-60 degrees. I guess that's cold if you live in SC, anyhow, it felt at times like we were the only ones there! The animals were extra spunky for us. The monkeys put on a loud show, we got to feed the giraffes!(I love giraffes!) and the gorilla came right up to Sam and touched the window in front of him. I wish I had gotten a picture of it. Sam was really enthusiastic and interested, so it made for a good time. I hope he doesn't think that was the typical zoo experience because he's bound to be disappointed the next time we go:)