Week 4-Charlotte (The Hornet's Nest)

Hello Family and Friends,

We don't just look at possible places to live, we also save time for fun. Due to all the rain and snow, we decided to take Atlas to an indoor play place. He really enjoyed the slide, as long as mommy was going down with him. But after a lot of encouragement and multiple torturous slides alone, he started to enjoy himself.

How Atlas felt about going down the big slide alone.

Atlas sliding like a big kid!

And yes, you did read that correctly, we got snow in Charlotte, NC. So for our snow day we decided we would ride the street cars. Charlotte has two train lines, the blue and the gold. The gold line runs through Uptown. The blue line connects various neighborhoods throughout Charlotte. We rode the blue line from one end to the other to see what we could access if we were to live off of the train line. Whereas, the gold line stopped right in front of our AirBnB and took us straight to the neighborhood of Elizabeth.

Atlas riding the train in Charlotte

One of the train stops along the gold line with etched glass.

The view from our AirBNB on our snow day. Just a light dusting.

In the snow at a train stop off the blue line.

I know you guys are dying to know if we ever met back up with Campbell from Target. We did! We met her and her husband Austin at YAFO for dinner. Campbell described it as being like CAVA but better. That is a hard sell to us McKinneys, because we absolutely love CAVA. Back in Destin we would drive 45 min out of the way to go to CAVA at least once a week (Yes we are committed to our food). I will say that YAFO didn't have any lamb on the menu so CAVA, you are safe for now.

Brett, Atlas, Danielle, Campbell and Austin eating at YAFO

We didn't just meet up with new friends, but also got to meet up with family. We met with Brett's uncle, Mike. People keep telling us that he lives in NC, but after having dinner with him, we realized that he does not live in NC, but in Rockhill, SC. He was still so kind to drive to a different state and meet us for dinner.

Brett, Atlas, Danielle, Mike at Landmark Diner. We are standing in front of the desserts that they make in house. I restrained myself and didn't only have dessert for dinner.

We also met with Brett's cousin, Andie (Mike's daughter). We haven't seen her since she was in college in Charleston, SC. She works right in Uptown and we were able to grab lunch together. It was just an absolute treat to reconnect with her. She gave us some more insights into the vibe (or lack thereof) of Uptown. Brett got his first (yes more to come) parking ticket.

Andie, Danielle, Atlas, Brett. And yes, it is cold!

We have been busy meeting up with new friends and reconnecting with family, but in our last post, I left you guys with seven more neighborhoods left to explore. Of course there were some that were instantly a no and there were others that had some potential. Eastover and Elizabeth checked a lot of our boxes as far as proximity to elementary school, grocery store and park. Elizabeth gets extra points because it is also accessible by the gold line and opens up all of Uptown without having to drive. Matthews was a no. Even though its historic downtown was so very cute, there was absolutely nothing practical. Myers Park was just as beautiful as everyone promised with its tree lined streets and gorgeous gigantic mansions. SouthPark had a lot of the same, but with the addition of a high end mall with lots of eatery options. The homes are, as Brett says, stupid expensive and did I mention ENORMOUS. We were driving through this one neighborhood, close to Selwyn Elementary school, feeling very disappointed that there was not one house with less than 5,000 square feet. We won't need to walk to anything. We will get all our steps just walking around our home.

Is that house behind the house a part of this house? Yes.

Is that a mote in their front yard? Yep. (PS over 9,300 sqft)

No, all these homes are not in the same neighborhood. And yes, this is the standard size of homes in South Charlotte.

Brett and I have added a new phrase to our vocab. When we refer to something as being "so Charlotte" it means it is grotesquely large. As our cousin Andie said "I tell myself they just don't know there are people starving." Maybe we'll get one, one day.