Springtime in Asheville

Since Mark finishes his Asheville rotation this week, the kids and I spent last weekend with him there as a final hurrah for our Asheville days. I'm sure we'll go back to visit, but it's still bittersweet to see this chapter end. Of course we're ready to have Mark home with us after a long two months, but we've so loved our carefree Asheville retreat. Here are some pictures from our fun weekend hiking, enjoying the gorgeous flowers and the baby animals and springtime at the Biltmore, and finally soaking in the eclectic downtown Asheville feel as we happened upon an Earth Day celebration with live music and dancing and food and interesting people. I've come to really love Asheville--from the amazing scenery down to the amazing dreadlocks.

We hiked well past lunchtime, so the little ones were losing steam quickly...
good thing we had Super Dad to come to the rescue.

The hikers

Kimball wanted to try taking pictures with my new camera

Baby lambs! There was a whole hillside full of baby lambs and their mamas. We watched them for a long time, and it brought back happy memories from my childhood when we took care of bummer lambs during the summer. I love the little lamb bleatings that sound just like they're saying, "Mom! Mom!"

Playing after our picnic

Enjoying the Biltmore gardens

Happy Grant and happy Mom

Yes, it was super sunny, but here are the three smiling troublemakers

Baby ducklings!

I loved driving through the Biltmore grounds and seeing beautiful green scenery in every direction

A window display in Asheville. Such random, cool things to see everywhere downtown.

Heading into the Earth Day celebration

Yes, those are real dreadlocks. Awesome. We were joking that Mark should have tried for dreads instead of the beard this spring.

There's a sampling of our Asheville 2013 adventures. We love North Carolina in the spring.