Holiday Roadtrip 2009! Hendersonville, NC

Stop #1: Hendersonville, NC

Emily Anne's Hometown

On December 10, 2009 Landon took his first trip on an airplane! He and I flew from St. Petersburg to Greenville/Spartanburg, SC on Allegiant Air where my dad, "Grumps", and his friend Jane picked us up and drove us 45 minutes to my hometown of Hendersonville. My sister Kelly lovingly let us borrow her infant carseat so I didn't have to travel with one. It was hard enough with two suitcases packed for three weeks, a diaper bag, a purse and an 8 week old baby!

When we arrived in Hendersonville, we met up with Kelly and Jackson for lunch at "The Living Room" downtown. My body was a bit in shock because when I left Tampa it was 80 degrees and when I arrived in Hendersonville it was 30. Whoa. Thankfully Kelly brought a coat for me to wear!
Shortly after lunch, Kelly took Landon and I to her house where my mom picked us up. "Nana" was soooooo excited to see Landon! Jackson was really cute and not quite sure why Nana was holding Landon and not him. He kept pointing to Landon and saying, "this, down". Too cute.

Once at Nana's house we were able to get settled in. She had set up a very nice suite for us upstairs, complete with crib and table for changing! Her house looked so good all decorated for Christmas. That was a nice change for me since I hadn't put up the first bit of decoration...I figured, what was the point?

While we were there we spent many hours visiting with friends and family. Everyone was smitten with our little boy...the center of attention for sure (I made sure to take over while he was sleeping though). :)

Josh was planning on driving up from Florida on Friday the 18th after he finished a work conference in Orlando. However, Friday morning it was predicted to snow...and snow it did! We got over 13" of the most beautiful snow I had seen in a long time! Josh finally made it in that night at about 1 in the morning...thanks to Jerry's Jeep and chain-covered tires! What a wonderland it was!

The snow put a damper on plans to get out of the house though...we were pretty much homebound for about 3 days. Not fun--but tolerable! My high school girlfriends and I finally got together for a mini-reunion. I don't think we'd all been in the same room at the same time in years. Angela, Hilary, and Amanda were all excited to meet Landon and to catch up with each other for a bit.

On the 23rd, we met up with Kelly, Dusty and Jackson as well as Grumps and Jane. The snow made it impossible to get up to Grumps' house, so we changed our plan and let PF Chang to the cooking instead...delicious! After lunch, we met back at Kelly's house to exchange gifts. So much fun!

Christmas Eve morning was our day to open gifts with all of my family. Mom made a delicious breakfast caserole and "monkey bread" (if you don't know what it is then you should!). We opened gifts and shared precious moments together with Jackson and Landon...how did we make it out of there without a family picture? We are so blessed to have each other...and to have the ability to share wonderful gifts and time together.

Around lunchtime we packed up our "sled" and headed off to stop #2 on our trip: Winston-Salem, or Mimi and Pop's house. Here's a picture of Landon in the carseat ready to ride!