Charlotte Getaway

When I got my summer schedule and saw three whole days off, I knew that I wanted to get out of Blacksburg! We toyed with lots of options - going to the beach, going to Williamsburg, going to Roanoke, etc - but ultimately, after multiple IKEA conversations at work, we decided to go to one of my favorite cities - Charlotte!Our first stop was the game in Martinsville on Thursday night. On the way, Mom and I stopped at The Bread Basket for some goodies!

If you are ever in town and want some delicious candies, trail mixes, sandwiches, gluten-free anything, etc. you should stop in! It's a little amish bakery and if I had to guess I'd say they had 100 candies to choose from! You can even get gummy bears by the color, like a bag of just reds! Or blues! Or greens! Yum! I got gummy butterflies and for Steven I got blueberry yogurt covered pretzels and peanut butter/chocolate buckeyes!
The game was a lot of fun since they won :) and they had fireworks! It was like the 4th of July all over again! These were much better because Steven was able to come and watch them with me in the stands.

  Mom and I then headed to Winston-Salem for the night instead of driving late into the night.   The next morning, we hopped on the road and headed to Charlotte! It wasn't a very long drive, which was nice since we were a little tired from getting in late to WS. Our first stop was IKEA. We decided that it's hard not to like IKEA. Even if you don't like the more modern look to their furniture, all of the little things they have for organization, decoration, etc are just too fun! Plus they have great prices. It would be difficult to go inside and not buy anything.

 Mom and I both had really good luck! I mostly got things for my apartment next year...I'm excited to move in and put them to use! We also got to enjoy their food court. I got the Swedish meatballs which were very good! However, the best part of our meal was the chocolate/almond/toffee cake. O.M.G. SO. GOOD.
Our hotel in Charlotte was right across the street from SouthPark Mall, which was perfect since that's where we were headed! It was a gorgeous hotel with a bar and a pool just waiting for us!We had dinner at the California Pizza Kitchen - one of my faves - and then walked around to look at the stores. Shopping occurred on Saturday!

Of course I spent some quality time here! I even found an adorable Callie skirt in Doodle Bug Daisy on sale!My other purchases included an adorable fish flag shirt (like on Claire's blog!) and new hat from Vineyard Vines and some earrings from Francesca's Collection! Man, I wish I had one of those stores closer to me! They have soooo many things that I love. 
After some shopping and some lunch, we headed back to Martinsville for a double header on Saturday night. When we arrived at 6:20 it was 99 degrees and felt like 102. Yucky conditions to be playing OR watching baseball, but what can I say...we're dedicated fans.A walk off RBI won them the first game in the bottom of the 7th - which was awesome! Then, to add more excitement to the night, the second game went into 10 innings! For those that don't know, a typical double header has two 7 inning games, so it really went into 3 extra innings, not 1 like it would appear for a regular game.And as if it weren't late enough, the game got delayed because a bug flew into the ear of one of the other team's players! They couldn't get it out and he ended up going to the hospital.It was crazy! Thankfully, they won the second game too so it's not like we waited around for nothing! Whew! I had such a wonderful weekend, but it went by way too fast. I would have loved one more day in Charlotte and one more day at home with Steven before going back to work! Oh well. Like we say - you get what you get and you don't throw a fit! :) I'm thankful for my three days off!
 Hope everyone is off to a great start to the week!