Chai Latte and Chicken Twisties

I know, I know - it's been forever, so grab a comfy chair and a yummy drink and sit down for a nice long read. Now where were we?.......
Day 13: Had a bit of a sleep-in at Charleston. Yay!! Then caught up on the washing (wish the room service took care of that too).  We went for a drive and found some beautiful old plantations but it cost more to look in them than what it was worth so we didn't bother.  Afterwards we found some outlet shops and Tiahna bought some nice Kenneth Cole boots whilst I found a nice pair at Nine West - gotta love the cheap labels here.  Tiahna and I also bought some sunglasses (shhh, hers are for Chrissy - it's ok she knows). Had dinner near the shops and then noticed a frozen custard place across the road.  Gary has been telling me about frozen custard since our last trip but I've never seen it and was beginning to wonder if he had mixed it up with frozen yoghurt. We headed across the road only to discover that it had closed three minutes earlier - oh well, there's always tomorrow.
Day 14: Oh no, discovered late last night that my gold anklet was missing.  Tore the hotel room apart hunting for it and felt most upset.  It was a gift from Tiahna several years ago and has been broken and repaired several times in Oz - how silly of me to bring it to the US!! I couldn't remember putting it on the day before so rang the last hotel to see if we had left it there - no joy:( We prayed as a family that my anklet would be returned to me (and my drivers licence that Gary had managed to drop out of my wallet somewhere in the car at the start of our trip - didn't give him the passports this trip, didn't think he'd be dangerous with my wallet in the car!!!).
We checked out of the hotel and headed back to the frozen custard shop.  I decided to run into the Kenneth Cole and Nine West on the off chance that my anklet had fallen off whilst trying on boots.  Nine West had it sitting in a drawer hoping that I'd come back - Yay God!!
Headed across to have some frozen custard only to discover that the shop didn't open for another two hours, so I'm still waiting to try this 'amazing' dessert.
We drove on to Asheville where we stayed in the basement apartment of David & Janie who attend the C3 church in Asheville (no internet so therefore no blog for several days).  We had dinner with our friends Steve, Gerorie and their daughter Jess at Longhorn Steakhouse.  Steve and Georgie also have a daughter Amy and a son, Daniel who stayed at home to complete homework.
Day 15: Today we started at the Asheville Mall so that Tiahna could buy some clothes for her 'Build-A-Bear', Ashe-leigh which we made for Tiahna at the same store during our visit three years ago.  We also made a Koala 'Build-A-Bear' for Nick and Emily's new son - David who was born last week.  Nick and Emily are the Pastors of C3 in Asheville.  We named the Koala 'Kenny' to tie it in with the Gold Coast and also because we thought Emily would sound cute saying it with her Southern accent.  Tiahna and I then went shopping at Victoria's Secret - gotta love it.  We had dinner at a lovely Italian restaurant called 'Nona-Mia'. They gave us the left-overs in an alfoil swan, Tiahna loved it.
We then had a dessert stop at Nick and Emily's place and had our first Peanut Butter Pie - a little bit rich for all of us.  Aria (Nick's daughter) has been looking forward to meeting Tiahna for ages so we all had a great time.  It was weird, it didn't feel like it had been three years since we last saw them, more like three weeks.  Everyone just fitted back into old conversations and acting as if no time had passed at all.  We knew then that it would be hard to leave them again.
Day 16: Gary spent the morning with Steve while Tiahna and I shopped (again!).  In the afternoon we all rested and then went to see 'Sherlock Holmes' with Steve, Georgie and Jess.  I had one of those HUGE enormous popcorns that are in a round tub like the large KFC meals (it's ok, I shared with Jess and we only finished half of it).  It was somewhere around this date that the bears got into the bird feeders at the back of the place we're staying. Nice bear!!
Day 17: Today we met Nick and Emily for breakfast at a cute cafe called 'Morning Glory'.  It's walking distance from their place, they live in a really quaint town called 'Black Mountain'. In the afternoon we drove to the mountains to a pre civic war house next to a river with a huge outdoor fireplace.  The house belongs to David and Janie (they own half of Asheville I believe) so we could use the facilities whilst still freezing outside near the fire.  We went with Steve, Georgie and family and their friends, Tim, Alyssa and daughter Olivia (their older daughter, Julia wasn't ready on time so missed out). We made smores - yummy.  Will have to do that with y'all when we get back.  Gary and Steve took the kids four-wheel driving and nearly killed them all but weren't laughing as much when they blew a tire. Lucky for us all that Tim 'Bear Grylls' was with us to change the tyre (Gary and Steve were failing with both of them trying), and make us a fire to stay warm.  We would have died out there if we were only relying on Steve.  So cold, but so much fun.
Day 18: We attended C3 church in the morning and had planned to head to Richmond, Virginia straight after church but everyone convinced us to stay and attend the Leadership dinner that night.  Kind of felt like we were imposing but with Nick's puppy dog eyes and Steve's constant nagging we agreed.  We had lunch at a Jamaican place - Nine Mile - the best.  Have to figure out how to cook like that when I get home. After lunch we went to 'Grove Park Inn' to look at all of the Christmas Trees and Gingerbread houses.  We went there on our last trip and I wanted Tiahna to see how amazing it was.  We bought Georgie and Gary a 'Redneck' wine glass each.  It's a jar turned into a wine glass (Georgie was drinking our of a glass jar on the day we arrived so it was very fitting).  You'll have to google the place, it's amazing!!
In the evening we went to the dinner and said our goodbyes to everyone. Sniff.
Day 19: Travel Day.  Left Asheville at 10.30 and headed towards Richmond, Virginia.  First stop was to Henry River Mills where Tiahna was able to walk around one of the sets of the upcoming movie 'Hunger Games'.  We went scrounging to see what 'souveneirs' we could find that were left behind by the cast and crew.  Managed to locate a pen with the name of an agency on the side so we're sure someone important (like Alexander Ludwig - what is her fascination with him?) must have used it to make changes on their script - that's our story and we're sticking to it! Got lots of happy snaps so that when the movie comes out we can say we've been there.  We then continued driving until we stumbled upon Duke University and went for a look see, couldn't get a park anywhere though because the 'Boys Choir' was performing that night - seriously. Booked into our hotel and washed clothes and hair - boring.
Day 20: (Phew, we're almost there).  Today we went sightseeing.  We drove around Richmond and went inside the Capitol Building (where Gary snuck into the Senate Chamber gallery and proceeded to do a jig) and the Governor's mansion.  The architecture is awesome!  We then drove past the Coliseum (Joe, WWE is on there tonight, you should have seen all of the trucks outside) and then around the Richmond International Raceway (the outside, not the actual track).  We had dinner at Chipotle (Mexican) and received an email to advise that the tour we had arranged for Christmas day was cancelled.  We were meant to be doing a 'National Treasure' tour at Mt Vernon but someone had stuffed up and it wasn't meant to have been advertised for Christmas Day. Hmm, what to do for Christmas now?
Now for a few trivial points:
-Did you know that Buffulo sauce is really, really hot? Me neither - my poor mouth.
-The weather has been unseasonably hot here.  Everyone is quite surprised - pooh. Soooo, you all need to pray for a white Christmas for us.
-The water here is soft and awesome.  My hair is soooo soft and shiny all of the time.
-My driver's licence was located after a very thorough search of the card - Yay God again!
-It's really annoying having to dry clothes in a dryer - the clothes shrink, especially my jeans (and no wise cracks about it being the take-away food and not the dryer).
Finally, in case you're wondering about the title for this blog - they are the things I'm desperate for. Chai Latte and chicken twisties, it's all I want.  Starbucks does make a chai, but it's the spicy tea kind - not that great.  And chicken twisties!!! They don't even have anything close, everything is cheese and they're not good.  So if you head out today, have a chai latte and some chicken twisties and think of me.....
Until next time
xxxx