Mountain Activities

Yesterday we went to Sylva, NC. It's about 45 mins from my parents cabin. We went to this wonderful local potter called Mud Dabbers. They're 'signature' are the face pots that Appalachia is famous for. Ced gave Tessa and Ellis these beautiful sun-faces for their births from this place, and my mom and sister have bought several face jugs from them. One of the potters, Brad, was so great with Tessa. I was a little nervous, who takes a jacked up 2-yr old into a pottery place (can you say Bull in a China shop?). But, he took her to the side room where they sculpt and sat her on a stool and let her play with the clay while Omi and I shopped (good business keep, babysit kids so that parents can shop). When she tired of this, he gave her a giant piece of paper that she could draw on and just sat her on the floor. He was really great with kids and just kept playing with her and showing her all kinds of different things to keep her occupied. It was a really neat place.

Next cam my favorite place. In Sylva is a little Brewery called Heinzelmannchen (German for Gnome). They have these "growlers" that you buy and then fill up with beer. Then you can bring the growlers back and they will fill it for $8 (and on Wednesdays it's only $6). They have GREAT beer, my favorite was the Black Forest Stout. They always are brewing different ones, so you can go in and taste to decide what you want. It was AWESOME. The other cool thing, is that my mom has a growler that looks almost identical to the one from the Brewery that belonged to her Grandmother. Since back in those days you couldn't buy bottled beer, my mom's Great-Grandfather would send her grandmother to the local pub with the groweler and get 2l of beer. They actually have the growler up at the cabin and it truly is identical to the one they have at the Brewery.