A weekend with the Lindleys

I have been so excited to share my weekend with you guys! I am just now getting home and it's already past my bedtime, but I seriously couldn't wait to tell you all!

Friday night after I got off of work, I picked Billy up at his away baseball game (we won't go into details about the game--yes, it was that bad), and we drove straight up to the the family cabin in the North Georgia Mountains to meet our weekend guests. As I told you a few days ago, Billy's childhood best friend was coming back to visit from Peru. They haven't seen each other in about 5 years when the family moved back to South America for family and their family business. If you have ever been to Latin America, you've probably heard of their family business. The Lindleys are the founding family behind Inca Kola. If you've never heard of it, it is to them, as what Coca Cola is to Americans, except even bigger. Actually, Coke is now half owner of Inca Kola, and the family still owns all of the bottling companies.. but I digress.

They arrived about the same time we did on Friday night because they took the scenic route to here from their other friends' in Louisville. We were initially a little worried, because we were getting there well past their estimated arrival time. Alas, we stressed for nothing. We gathered around the kitchen, because we were all starving by this point, but we unfortunately didn't take into consideration that Catholics are unable to eat meat on Fridays during lent. Woops! So we had to stay up a bit later before we could eat the pita bread sandwiches we had made for late night snacks. It was well worth it, because they were able to catch up, and I was able to get to know them before we cram an entire week's worth of fun into 48 hours.

The next morning, we woke up to a light dusting of snow, which made for a great excuse to go out for a hike. Every person that comes to visit the cabin has to go to be taken to, Falls Branch Falls, the waterfall about a mile and a half from the cabin, so off we went for a little walk and then hike!

Stanley Creek

Lori (Billy's Mom & Daniel's second mom), Daniel, Maripi (Daniel's girlfriend), and Billiam

Old home of one the "original" mountain families

Maripi and I at the waterfall

After that, we started on our mission to check things off their trip bucket list  #1 on that list, a trip to Rib Country. Now, let me say, if you've never had the opportunity to visit North Georgia and eat at Rib Country, you're not really living yet. Their ribs are their most popular item on the menu, but my personal favorite is their onion loaf. I could only eat that and be happy.

This is lake Blue Ridge on our way to the restaurant. Isn't it stunning?!

Maripi, Daniel, and PopPop (Billy's Grandfather)

Patti (Daniel's mom) and Lori

Billy's food coma :)

Next stop on the fun train, downtown Blue Ridge! At this point, the snow was starting to fall again. So we were trying to make our trip quick and visit only our two favorite stores and get home before we froze to death. Of course, we had to stop by and see Ray and Sandra at the bear store to introduce everyone to them, and then we made our way to my personal favorite, the olive oil store! I am absolutely in love with the new olive oil store that just opened up last fall. I love their garlic infused oil for my favorite pasta dish. Let's just say, they know my order without me having to ask ;) Patti is great cook, so she was very interested in visiting, and then surprised at how many different types of olive oils and vinaigrettes there are. I'll have to do an entire post soon just about how much I love this store!

Patti and Maripi being shown how to mix the oils and vinaigrette 

These are the two that I came home with. The large is organic garlic infused olive oil. The small is a pomegranate vinaigrette, which is going to be great on salads!

Look at how fun downtown looks in the snow!

Yes, we left with quite the haul. Patti purchased over 10 bottles for her friends back home, and a few for herself of course ;) We got back to the cabin, relaxed, caught up on life, and they taught us some things about Peru and their culture. Did you know that in Peru, that temperatures don't really fluctuate like they do here (or at least in the south)? It's a steady temperature all summer or all winter. I also forgot they don't use the metric system like we do--that got confusing at times.

Last night, we watched Argo on ppv, which was awesome by the way! The most impressive part was that they got Jimmy Carter to say more than 3 coherent sentences in a row. That being said, I secretly thing that the snippet of him at the end was from 70's and not actually recently recorded.

This morning, we woke up to another layer of snow!

We went our separate ways for church. They went into town to mass at the Catholic church, and we stayed home and watched online church at North Point like we do every week. Much like every other Sunday, the puppies slept through church. Only being told so that I can share this super adorable picture of the pup

Later, after it started to warm back up a bit, we attempted a trip to Mercier's Orchard (Another thing on the bucket list), but unfortunately it was closed for what we guess was bad weather. Instead, we got our sugar fix elsewhere as you can see..

We were all starved, so we decided to take them to meet another friend and his restaurant which is right by the cabin as well. I had the steak dianne, and I wish I had a picture that capture how amazing it was. It was great to see the renovations the restaurant had undergone since it was destroyed by fire about a year ago. I love the view from the this place overlooking the Toccoa river.

After that we went on one final hike before we had to head back to Atlanta to start the work week again. I hated leaving them. I now see why Billy thinks so highly of their family. They are such kind, sweet people, and I can't wait to see them again already. I started working on my Spanish with Maripi so that maybe soon we can visit them in Peru! How much fun would that be? By the time I actually get good at Spanish (which will take a while), maybe I'll have saved up enough money for a plane ticket ;)