December 2018 - Wyze Traveler

December 20, 2018December 23, 2018

Christmas at the Biltmore

Looking for something truly magical this Christmas season? Take a drive to Asheville and experience Christmas at the Biltmore.

This was our third trip to the Biltmore Estate, the first and third trip we toured the Biltmore House and the second trip we just enjoyed the grounds. The first time we visited they were not allowing photos during the home tour, but at this time they are allowing them on self- guided tours.

The Biltmore is approximately 180,000 square feet and is the largest privately owned home in the United States. It is truly breathtaking to see and pictures do not do it justice.

At Christmastime there is a 55-foot spruce tree on the front lawn decorated with thousands of twinkling lights. They do not turn the tree lights on until later in the day, near dusk.

If you visit for the candlelight evenings, the tree is lit and illuminates the whole front yard. They also place bags with tealights all the way around the drive for the evening tours.

Through January 6th there are two general ticket options to enter the Biltmore House, either Christmas Daytime Celebration or Candlelight Christmas Evenings. Since we have visited before during the day, we decided to buy Candlelight Christmas Evenings tickets.

When you book the candlelight evening tour you have to book an entry time, even on weekdays. We planned our trip for a Tuesday but waited to book our tickets until a few days prior. By waiting we only had our choice of entry times at 8:30 PM and later. This entry time was not terrible, as we did get to eat dinner before touring the house. The Biltmore closes about an hour and a half after the last assigned tour time. As a tip, try to book your tickets earlier to get the time you would like. Also, many weekends will sell out of the candlelight tour times.

Self guided tour of the Biltmore House- Candlelight Evenings

As you enter the home they have booklets you can take on your self- guided tour that provide a brief description and history of each room. You can also pay for an audio guide which will provide a more in depth verbal description of each room of the Biltmore for $12.99, the desk to rent these is located on the right once you walk in.

Most rooms will also have a knowledgeable employee who you can ask additional questions to, regarding the history of the home or the room you are currently in.

One reason we chose the Candlelight Evenings was to enjoy the choir and soloists playing within the house. This added to the magical experience. Most rooms had a fireplace that was lit and the sparkling Christmas lights made the night truly special. When you first walk into the house the Entrance Hall is beautifully decorated with garland. My absolute favorite rooms were the following:

Winter Garden

If you walk to the right when you enter the house you will see the beautiful Winter Garden. We spent a lot of time around this room. The choir was singing in the center and there were a few soloists here too. We enjoyed listening to the music as well as touring the rooms around the garden.

Banquet Hall

This room is truly royal and has ceilings that are seven- stories high. The real Christmas Tree is nearly 40 feet tall and adds to the splendor of the room.

Breakfast Room

This room features two paintings by Renoir: Child with an Orange and Young Algerian Girl.

Breakfast Room with two paintings by Renoir

Music Room

This room was completed in the 1970’s and includes 12 apostle figures and 12 candlesticks made in the mid 1700’s.

12 Porcelain Apostle Figures and 12 Candlesticks made in the mid 1700's — 12 Porcelain Apostle Figures and 12 Candlesticks made in the mid 1700’s

Library

There are thousands, upon thousands of books that encompass this room. It is about half of the original collection George Vanderbilt had. We stood in this room for several minutes enjoying the marvelous decor and number of books lining the shelves. It makes you want to take one of the myriad of books and sit by the fireplace to read.

These rooms were all located on the first floor, so be sure to take your time enjoying them. The other areas of the home were beautifully decorated too and it is amazing to think about how many staff it took to run this house back in the early 19th century when it was running.

George Vanderbilt’s bedroom

For the size of this home, we were surprised about the size of the bedrooms and closets. While his bedroom was not tiny, we would have expected a larger space and bed considering the square footage of the home.

Edith Vanderbilt’s bedroom

Louis XV Room

This room is decorated in french woven silk velvet wall coverings. Both Edith and Cornelia gave birth to their children in this room.

Main Kitchen

The copper pots hanging are the original.

As I mentioned before this was our second time actually touring the home. I feel like we saw more rooms this time and at the end there was an exhibit we had definitely not seen before.

Halloween Room

This was a very unique room that I do not remember seeing on our last visit. Cornelia Vanderbilt, her husband and other family and friends helped paint the walls in this room for a party. This room also housed various displays of pictures and history further describing the numerous individuals involved in building and designing the home. It’s amazing that George Vanderbilt built a railroad to run directly to the Biltmore for transportation of building materials, along with setting up building on site to produce materials. It’s amazing that in the late 1800’s it only took 6 years to build such a magnificent and beautiful home.

In addition to all of these rooms there are many, many more to see. Hard to believe right? I would allow at least a few hours to tour the home so you will not feel rushed and you can thoroughly enjoy and explore each room.

If you are doing only the evening tour take some time to enjoy the grounds and shops either the afternoon before your tour or the day following. While it is fall/ winter at the Biltmore, unfortunately missing their beautiful springtime gardens, the Conservatory sure is a sight to see! There are so many beautiful and colorful flowers and plants which truly bring life to the winter season.

Conservatory

If you are staying on the Biltmore Estate, which I strongly recommend, they have a shuttle that runs every 15 minutes from the hotels to the other areas on the Estate. The shuttles are great as the drivers are extremely knowledgeable. Every ride we took we learned a lot about the Biltmore history, feel free to ask them questions too! Plan to wait for the shuttle 30-45 minutes before your assigned time to allow time in case you miss the shuttle and have to wait an additional 15 minutes and to allow time for the stops on the way. You also cannot use any of the 43 bathrooms that are in the actual Biltmore house so you will want to use the public restrooms before entering the house.

Tickets for this special time of the year are more expensive than usual entry prices. If you book at least a week ahead of time you can get a discount on their website. Costco was also selling a two day pass (has to be consecutive days) for less than $65. This was for Daytime access, but you could pay an upgrade fee of around $25 to also visit during the Candlelight Evenings.

In addition to the house, Antler Village has restaurants, shops and the winery to visit. I will go into more detail on these activities in my next post. You also get a free wine tasting included with your entry ticket to the Biltmore.

If you have the chance I would visit the Biltmore in the spring to enjoy the gardens and the winter to enjoy Christmas at Biltmore. Merry Christmas!

December 15, 2018December 15, 2018

Pregnancy Style during the Holiday Season

It’s December and it is time to show your holiday spirit if you haven’t been already! Being in my third trimester rules out a lot of clothing I have worn in previous years. Luckily there are a lot of sales going on at this time of year and tons of cozy clothing available making this last stretch more comfortable.

While there is no shortage of advertising for maternity clothing, I have mostly avoided buying them as not only are they expensive but I can’t see myself wearing most of them again. I have tried to shop at the same stores I typically frequent and just upsize as I figure I will be able to wear these again.

Here are some suggestions on clothing to buy while being pregnant for the BEST season of the year, where to find them, current sales and just ideas to help you find your pregnancy style!

For Comfort:

It’s time for leggings! Not only because my jeans haven’t fit in awhile… Although, I was able to rig them for a little while with the hair tie trick. Over the past month I have found several pairs of cheap holiday leggings. I bought 2 pairs from Marshalls for $7 and 2 pairs from JC Penney for $7 each. After wearing all of them the ones from JC Penney have held up better, and are my favorite. I have gotten so many compliments on these leggings and the best part is they are cheap, comfortable, and so festive. The leggings from JC Penney are the two pictures on the left and the ones from Marshalls are the two pictures on the right below.

I recently tried out a flannel shirt for the first time in years, after borrowing one at my Mom’s house. They are soooo cozy and I love the buffalo plaid look. Flannel couldn’t be more comfortable and is great for a pregnant belly! You can either button it or layer underneath and leave it open. Another great thing is most are not meant to fit snug to your body so you may only have to upsize by one size. I have the Red Plaid Flannel Two-Pocket Boyfriend Shirt from Express which I bought 50% off and that sale is still going on (picture on left below).

I am also loving cardigans! I layer underneath them to keep the bump warm. These are also great because you may be able to order a similar size to what you wore before pregnancy and thus be able to wear it again. My favorite for this season is the Sherpa Open Front Cardigan from Abercrombie (picture on right above). I bought it for 50% off and it is still on sale for $44. It is the coziest thing I own and feels like you are wrapped up in a blanket! Who doesn’t love Sherpa?

You can’t forget your feet now, to keep warm or just cozy try Field & Stream Cozy Cabin Slipper Socks from Dicks Sporting Goods. They are currently buy one get one free. They are super soft and warm. I have not only bought these for myself (one for home use and one to take to the hospital), but for my husband and a few others as gifts.

For special occasions and parties:

For special occasions or holiday parties, I again didn’t want to buy something I could not wear again. I ordered dresses from multiple stores trying to avoid maternity dresses, just upsizing but they typically didn’t come close to fitting or if they did they had the fit and flare style and just made me look double my actual size! Then I ran across the Reversible Floral/ Filigree Print Knit Sheath Dress at White House Black Market. In being a frequent shopper at this store these typically have a lot of stretch in them. Also, the reversible factor is awesome! You probably have more than one event to attend this season and you can save money by only buying one dress, yet having two separate styles to wear. The dress is $110, but the whole store is 40% off still and if you are a rewards member you get an additional 5% off at checkout. I was able to size up by one size and it fit perfect, just showing off the adorable bump. I paired one side of the dress with the Crystal-Bow Velvet Belt is also found at WHBM (right picture below). It has three different sizing snaps on each one, so I will be able to wear it again after pregnancy, I have it on the loosest snap. They sell the matching Crystal Bow Shoe Clips, but they are sold out online. You may still be able to find this in the store to add some bling to your outfit.

Another dress that is super cute and reversible is the Ultimate Reversible Floral/ Solid V-neck Shift Dress also found at WHBM. On the front side it has flowers along with a nice port color shifting to black at the bottom, perfect for the holiday season (left picture below). The other side is a solid black (right picture below). I also paired the crystal bow belt with both sides of this dress.

For those holiday runs/ walks:

If you live in Atlanta or any big city you probably know about the customized gym shoes that different shoe companies make for big events. In Atlanta every year Mizuno makes a new pair of tennis shoes for the Peachtree Road Race which has 60,000 runners each year. I love unique shoes and just running shoes in general. My husband found the ULTIMATE Christmas tennis shoe for me…. wait for it… the Ugly Sweater Levitate 2 made by Brooks. The shoe not only looks amazing for the holiday season, but it jingles all the way. Literally there are small bells attached to the shoe laces. Don’t worry you can remove them, but I find it fun to leave them on. It’s always amusing to walk by someone and see the perplexed look and smiles while they try to figure out where the jingling is coming from. Every time I have worn these shoes, especially when paired with my cozy holiday leggings above I always get a smile from those at the gym or that I pass while walking, along with a “Don’t you look festive! Happy Holidays!” I bought these when they were 25% off from Dicks Sporting Goods, but other stores carry them too like Road Runner Sports.

For the scrappy:

One issue I have run into is that I can’t button any of my winter coats! I also don’t want to go and buy additional coats and jackets unless I have to. They are expensive and I know I won’t wear them again if they don’t fit like my current ones do. Luckily I live in Atlanta and the weather has been very nice so I have gotten away with layering and wearing baggier sweatshirts that I owned previously. On the colder days you may be able to raid your partners closet to see if one of their coats fit. I have done this a few times and they actually fit perfectly and do not look bad at all, since they were a simple black bubble jacket. Try this before hitting the store for new jackets.

Happiest of holidays! Hope this gives you some additional ideas than just traditional maternity clothes.

December 11, 2018December 15, 2018

Social Media Pregnancy Announcement

It seems like every day one of my friends is announcing they are pregnant on facebook in some unique way. There are ideas all over Pinterest, Etsy and Google advertising cute ways to announce you are pregnant. However, we all want ours to be unique and to fit our personalities, right? Take in all the ideas and think about who you are and what fits you best.

You will first need to decide when you want to make the announcement. We waited until about 16 weeks, so we were safely passed the 1st trimester, had two ultrasounds and baby was healthy. Make the announcement when you feel comfortable in your pregnancy to do so, as you will hear many more times throughout your pregnancy- every pregnancy is different.

Our announcement included “And so our greatest adventure begins….”. It fit us perfectly as of all the travels, experiences and memories we have had this is sure to be our greatest adventure together. Then I tied in LOVE, creating two t-shirts, LO for my husband and VE for me. I opted several times throughout pregnancy to do some do it yourself (DIY) work as these shirts and props get expensive! Once you have the basic supplies it makes it easy to create more.

Think of a good hashtag, so you can use it in with all your pregnancy photos to remember your journey later on.

Items needed for DIY

Computer/ Printer to print design
Pencil for tracing
Freezer Paper (can be found at Walmart)
X-acto knife (can be found on Amazon)
Iron/ Ironing board
Fabric Paint
Foam brushes
T-shirts (used my husbands older white under shirts instead of buying new ones)
Piece of cardboard

Don’t worry too much if you aren’t that artistic, I definitely had some minor flaws in my final product but they were not noticeable in a picture.

Steps to create LOVE t-shirt

1.) Type LOVE in Microsoft Word and print in landscape format. I chose a very large chunky block lettering to make tracing easier.

2.) Put piece of freezer paper over the printed pages and trace the word. While doing this turn your iron on.

3.) Place a flat piece of cardboard (I cut mine out from an old box) behind the freezer paper.

4.) Use an X-acto knife to carefully cut the traced word out. Be careful as that knife is sharp!

5.) Put the letters aside and use the outline of the letters to iron onto the shirt. You will use this as a stencil to then paint inside. For the word LOVE, you will need to also iron on the inner circle of the O.

Tip: Before ironing make sure you know where you would like to iron the letters onto each shirt. Since my husband is taller than me, I needed to drop his letters on his shirt and raise mine up a little. They were not placed in the same location on both shirts as I wanted them to be in a straight line when standing next to one another.

6.) Place the piece of cardboard (or ironing board) between the front and back of the shirt and begin ironing on the freezer paper stencil. Be careful while doing this, as freezer paper is thin. Once the stencil of LO is ironed on securely, add the inner part of the O and carefully iron this on too.

7.) Repeat step 6 for the second shirt (VE) and beware of my tip above for placement. Make sure to iron all edges near the letters as we will be painting over these.

8.) Once both shirts have their stencils ironed on, it is time to paint! Pour some paint onto a disposable paper plate and use a foam brush to slowly paint inside the stencil. While painting keep the piece of cardboard between the front and back of shirt to prevent any paint seeping through the front of the shirt to the back. Repeat this step for each shirt.

9.) Check shirt throughout the next 15-20 minutes and if the color is too light than add another coat of paint to each shirt.

10.) Once the paint is dry, slowly peel back the freezer paper to reveal your fabulous new DIY shirts!

For our announcement we held up a onesie that said “And so our greatest adventure begins….. Baby K arriving January 2019”

Good luck on your announcement, it will be great!

December 6, 2018December 6, 2018

Christmas in Atlanta

The hot summer days have come to an end, planning and cooking for Thanksgiving are over and now it is time for the most festive time of the year, the Christmas season! I’m dreaming of a white Christmas…. Perhaps we don’t want to wish for that in Atlanta, nobody wants to get stuck on the roads for hours if that happens!

Garden Lights at Atlanta Botanical Garden

We have been lucky as the beginning of December started off unseasonably warm in Atlanta, which means we may have longer to enjoy the fall leaves and colors! Just this past weekend we spent the day in Piedmont Park and took some incredible pictures of the changing leaves. If you haven’t done that this season, I would head their soon before all the beautiful leaves fall and are subject to our numerous leaf blowers!

If you are looking for ideas of what to do in Atlanta this season, here are a few of our favorite:

1.) Enjoy the evening at Christmas with Atlanta Master Chorale at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts at Emory University– This has to be one of our absolute favorite things to do this time of year. This year the concert is December 15-16th (Saturday and Sunday). They are absolutely wonderful and this has been a yearly tradition for us the past 5 years. Their voices are heavenly and there is nothing better than spending the night listening to them sing.

2.) Stroll through the Garden Lights at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens– This is yet another one of our favorite traditions. We finally became members this year and every season the gardens surprise us with something new. I don’t know how they continue to make Garden Lights prettier every year. You can even enjoy a cocktail as you stroll through the garden in the evening. One of our favorite areas last year (which they have this year too) was Nature’s Wonders which includes 1,600 strands of lights with over 70,000 color changing lights that are synchronized to music and motion. Definitely a must see this holiday season!

Garden Lights at Atlanta Botanical Garden- Nature's Wonders — Garden Lights at Atlanta Botanical Garden- Nature’s Wonders

3.) See a show at the Fox Theatre– We saw Irving Berlin’s White Christmas this year which was amazing! Unfortunately the last show for White Christmas has aired at the Fox, but you can still catch the Nutcracker and other shows to get you into the Christmas spirit this month.

4.) Join the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra for their annual weekend of Christmas with the ASO. This year it will be held on December 8th and 9th with two shows each day at 3 and 8pm. A perfect time to enjoy Christmas carols and hymns!

5.) Attend Brookhaven Holiday on the Town– This is a great smaller holiday gathering, which includes Santa, reindeer (yes actual reindeer!), sleigh rides, store specials, Christmas tree lighting and more! It takes place in Town Brookhaven which is a smaller community allowing you to avoid crowds yet still see Santa (without reservations) and enjoy the holiday spirit.

Holiday on the Town at Town Brookhaven Reindeer

6.) Drive to Christmas at the Biltmore– If you have time this holiday season take a drive out to Asheville North Carolina, which is about a 3 to 3.5 hour drive from Atlanta to visit the Biltmore House. It is about 180,000 square feet (unbelievable, right?), has 65 fireplaces, a Banquet Hall with 70-foot ceilings and so much amazing history and priceless artifacts within. It is truly a magical place this time of year so book your stay and tickets early! You can choose between the Christmas Daytime Celebration and the Candlelight Christmas Evenings or do both. The daytime and evening visits are beautiful, but if you would like to hear a live choir, soloists, view the house in candle light and enjoy the enormous spruce tree lit up in front of the house than the evening self guided tour is for you. You can choose to take a tour, rent an audio guide or do the self guided tour yourself. We did the self- guided tour this time, as we have already taken a tour on a previous visit. We read about each room through the pamphlet you can pick up at the entrance and there are knowledgeable guides in most rooms that can assist you with any questions and give you more information. Also, don’t miss the conservatory which is filled with absolutely beautiful and colorful plants which certainly brighten your stay in winter.

Christmas at the Biltmore- View of Biltmore House at night

Christmas at the Biltmore- Winter Garden

7.) Attend Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol at the Shakespeare Tavern– The Atlanta Shakespeare Company has been performing this show for over 20 years. You can order food and beverages before the show to enjoy before or during the show and they offer drinks and desserts at Intermission. They do not sell food during the actual performance. You buy seats in a particular seating area and then it is first come first serve for the actual seat in that seating area once you arrive. If you would like a better seat, try to arrive close to when the doors open.

8.) Ice Skate at Park Tavern in Piedmont Park- Enjoy a daytime or evening skate at the rink at Park Tavern. If going during the daytime you can enjoy views of the midtown skyline and Piedmont Park while staying warm under the heated tent.

9.) Watch the Budweiser Clydesdales- They are making a one time appearance in Town Brookhaven on Saturday December 15th. They are arriving at around 3PM and participating in a parade around the town. I have never seen them, but this is something I will not miss!

There are so many more wonderful events going on in Atlanta this season, but these are just some of my favorites. I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!