Madeleine Eversole

There’s nothing I love more than a grilled cheese sandwich and the delicious croque madame with ham, melty emmantel cheese inside, and toasted golden brown cheese on the outside, with a perfectly fried egg perched on top tops my list of favorite foods. There’s nothing I love more than a grilled cheese sandwich and the delicious croque madame with ham, melty emmantel cheese inside, and toasted golden brown cheese on the outside, with a perfectly fried egg perched on top tops my list of favorite foods. None Cheese – Hard cheese, soft cheese, crumbly cheese, melty cheese, stinky cheese, as far as I’m concerned, all cheese is good cheese and this was especially true in Paris. Hard cheese, soft cheese, crumbly cheese, melty cheese, stinky cheese, as far as I’m concerned, all cheese is good cheese and this was especially true in Paris.

Paris was always a little lower down on my list of places that I wanted to go to but when I got an email that there was a deal and we could get round trip tickets for a little less than $300 a person, I couldn’t help myself. We didn’t even take time to sit down because we didn’t want to fall asleep so we went out to get our Batobus Hop On/Hop Off boat/bus tickets and then got on the boat to head to the Eiffel Tower. I had purposefully purchased our timed Eiffel Tower tickets for 4:30 PM on the day of our arrival to make sure we made the most of our first day but still had enough time to get checked into the hotel and change but not enough time to feel like we could take a nap. This included paying for our plane tickets, train tickets, hotel, hop-on hop-off bus tickets, Paris Museum Pass, and a few timed entry tickets in the months leading up to the trip in order to spread out the costs as much as possible.

A few days before January 1st, I was reading a post asking everyone’s resolutions for the New Year and I jokingly said “eat more dumplings, It’s called Hong Kong Chinese Restaurant and its allure is its authentic Cantonese style dim sum. We ordered the shrimp dumplings, sui mai, turnip pudding, baked roasted pork bun, egg tart, fried shrimp ball, steamed shrimp noodle rolls, chive dumplings, shrimp stuffed tofu, and the fried pork dumplings off their dim sum menu. It’s a great way to try a lot of different foods that all come out to your table steaming hot and freshly prepared.

We ended up picking something in downtown Boone without reading reviews (something I never do! ) and were rewarded by finding a newer restaurant called Ransom Pub. After breakfast, we headed about 15 min down to road to Circle C. Choose & Cut Christmas Tree Farm. I wore my older leather boots that have great tread and that I treated a while back to be water resistant. I think the bottom line when you’re going to a choose & cut farm is to remember you’re in a farm in the mountains (steep hills and dirt are a given) and not a store parking lot.