Just Enjoying The Journey

The Verdict is in...It's a...

2009-10-26T22:16:00.002-04:00

BOY!!! There was no denying it. I'll scan some pictures soon to verify ;-)
The ultrasound was SOO cool! It was awesome seeing our little baby rolling around and waving his arms and legs. It was such a great appointment! They first measured everything from head to toe before getting to the gender...so much anticipation! But it was great to see that everything was normal and looked perfect, and his little profile was so cute! I can't wait to meet him in about 5 months! Ultrasound pics to come soon!!

1st Movement!!

2009-10-24T09:06:00.002-04:00

This is just a really quick post to document when I first felt the baby move. I still definitely have much more to catch up on, a few more beach trips, a Texas trip to see my family there, and a couple of other events, but those will still have to wait for now.
I just have a minute on here and I don't want to forget when it happened, so here's a quick post to keep the memory.
I am 18 weeks pregnant now, and yesterday as I was sitting at my desk, I had feelings in my stomach like I was nervous, and also kind of like my stomach was gurgling but without making any noises. I had thought I felt a similar thing the night before as I was going to sleep, but I had just eaten some junk food (I know, bad - but it was just a little bit) and I was really tired, so although the thought crossed my mind that I could be feeling the baby, I just brushed it off and went to sleep. Then it wasn't until about 3pm the next day that I felt the same type of feeling while sitting there. This time I was sure it was the baby! It's really cool and weird at the same time to feel it moving a little in there. I have since felt it several more times last night, mostly when I am still. Also it was awake while I was trying to sleep - another very interesting feeling :)
The next big milestone happens on Monday, we find out if it's a boy or girl! I'll keep you posted.

My first recording debut

2009-10-15T20:50:00.001-04:00

Last week a friend of ours, Rob Blackwell, was recording a new album. David has been very interested in the recording process as he has always wanted to have our own studio some day. He went the week before to watch Rob record the very first track and had mentioned to him that if he wanted any female harmonies in any songs that I would be a good choice. What a sweetie, recommending me :-) It turned out that he was looking for female back ground vocals in this one song he wrote for his wife. So David and I went to the studio one night last week to watch him record the vocal track and for me to be available to sing with him if he wanted.
This was my first recording experience, and I learned that it is actually a rather long process. That night he recorded 4 songs, and the very last one was the one he wanted my voice for. By that time it was close to midnight, but I was excited to record the harmonies with him, so it was ok.
It was a fun experience, and one of the coolest things about it is when his album is published, my name will be in the credits! My first taste of fame :-)

- Posted from my iPhone

The Excitement, Disappointment, then Sheer Excitement Again

2009-09-29T19:46:00.004-04:00

This post is long overdue, yet still very timely. I really had planned to write it earlier, but I just haven't had the energy to do so. Most of you already know the big announcement I am finally getting around to making on my blog.
I will be adding another title to my repertoire, and I'm so excited about it! Tomorrow I will be 15 weeks pregnant! With the exception of fighting some cold-like symptoms this week, I feel great! So what I'd like to do now is take you through the journey of the past several months that got me to this point.
I believe it started sometime in May of this year. David and I were beginning to talk more about starting a family in the near future, so we decided to stop all prevention, start the process, and just see what happens. We both had strong feelings that we were very fertile people and that it wouldn't take long for us, but really didn't know for sure since a few of our friends had been trying for a while with no results as of yet. Well, it turned out we were both right about ourselves. The very first time we stopped preventing - not even really "trying", I got pregnant! I had wondered if I did for a couple of weeks. Not too long after we conceived I kept feeling different "symptoms". I would read all about what I thought I was feeling to see if it meant I could be pregnant. Meanwhile I wasn't saying anything to David about it. I wanted it to be a surprise for him. I couldn't wait until I missed my period to find out. I was so anxious! So I bought an early results pregnancy test and tested a couple of days before I was supposed to start. I had so much anticipation about taking the test in the morning that that night I had trouble sleeping and got up multiple times to use the bathroom. I woke up long before my alarm went off and could wait no longer, so I went to the bathroom to secretly take the test. The only problem was I thought I might not have enough urine to make it work properly since I had gone so much in the night. Also it wasn't the "right" kind I thought - you know the strongest, most concentrated morning pee. Anyway, without getting too graphic :), I was able to squeeze out just a little bit and hoped it would be enough. But while waiting for the test results, I kept thinking, "Oh, no! I did it wrong. I didn't have enough, and it's not the right kind! I just know it's not going to work now. I have just wasted this test and now I'm still not going to know!" As I was working myself up over not doing it right, the result showed up.....Pregnant.....I was trying so hard to be quiet, but I nearly hyperventilated! Oh my gosh! I really was pregnant! I wasn't imagining all those symptoms. It was real. I couldn't contain myself any longer. I had waited this long agonizing over am I or am I not? And I hadn't said a word to David. It was all too much. No matter what my original plan was of presenting him with the positive test later in the day, it was all going out the window at that point. So there it was 7am on a Sunday morning and I came creeping back into the room with the positive test in hand. "David?" I loudly whispered, "Are you awake?" Of course he wasn't before I just woke him up, but he said "Yes. What is it?" I proceeded to shakingly, and breathlessly tell him the exciting news with my heart beating 100 mph. I climbed back in bed and just spewed out everything that had been bottled inside me for 45 minutes straight. I think he was dozing off and on during all that because when I was finished, I asked him what he thought or felt, and he said, "I'll be excited later. I just want to go back to sleep now." I said ok and tried to rest too, but I just couldn't. So I just got up and tried to let it all sink in.
Later that afternoon we took a walk and talked about the big change that was about to happen for us. I also explained to him the perfect plan I had to tell our family. We'd wait a couple of weeks, until I was nearly 5 weeks pregnant, and tell them all on Father's day with a Grandfather card. I had found the perfect cards and everything. I was so excited it was going to work out so well. One other thing I was excited about that I had just told David a few days later was that I wouldn't have to have another period for at least 9 months! Little did I know that the next day I would wake up and get mine.
By this time I had told a handful of people that I was pregnant, and I spoke with a couple of my close friends who already have kids about it. One of them told me that with her first baby, she got her period for the first month and that everything was probably fine for me too. I kept trying to believe that, wishing that it would just stop. Her's had been lighter and shorter than normal, but mine continued to be just like normal. I made an appointment to see the Dr. after it was over to be sure that everything was still fine and I was still pregnant, but no matter how positive i tried to be, I just had a bad feeling about it.
Between the time that I started my period to the time I saw the Dr., Father's Day came and went, and along with it went my perfect plans of telling the family with the cute Grandfather cards I had bought. I decided it was best not to say anything until we knew for sure. So in hopes of getting good news at the Dr. I scheduled a dinner with my family. We rarely do this during the week and because of that, I found out later that they expected us to tell them that I was pregnant at this dinner. But that was not to be the news that night. I had just found out earlier that day at the Dr. that I was, in fact, not pregnant anymore, and I must have just had an early miscarriage. I decided against telling my parents about it since I really wanted it to be a happy time when I finally did tell them the good news and not have them worry about me. I knew nothing was wrong with my body and that I would get pregnant again soon, so we just had a nice dinner together without any mention of pregnancy. I later learned that because we didn't give them the news they half expected at that dinner, the next time we planned a dinner to tell them, they were genuinely surprised. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Anyway, we were disappointed, but not too crushed. I don't think we had time to be. It all happened so fast that it really hadn't sunk in all the way I guess. We put it behind us and continued in our marriage as normal, not really "trying" but not preventing either. I reasoned that since I know what it feels like to be pregnant now, I will know when I am again. However this time would prove to be different.
After the very next possible time that we could have gotten pregnant, I felt nothing and told people that I really thought it didn't happen again right away, which is fine. I was sure it would still happen soon. Then came the week that I was supposed to have my period. It never came. I thought that the miscarriage could have possibly messed up my cycle and I researched it online. I went back and counted the number of days in all my cycles over the past 9 months, hoping to see some kind of pattern. Instead of thinking I could be pregnant, I was worried there was something wrong with my cycle. Besides, how could I be pregnant when I didn't feel any of the same symptoms as last time? By the time my period was a week late (which has NEVER happened - I'm so regular), I decided to entertain the idea that I may be pregnant and told David (this time I kept him in the loop about all of it) that I would take a test the next morning. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I probably was pregnant, but I was not nearly as anxious about it this time. I just got up when my alarm went off and calmly took the test. I was half surprised and I had half expected what the result would be. I was pregnant! And having already missed my period put me further along than the last time, so that was good news. I made an appointment to have the blood test done to confirm it, and decided that this time I would wait to tell people. I waited twice as long before telling anyone, but I started taking belly pictures as soon as we found out so I could track the progress. I'll include them in an album at the end of this post so you can see how much I've grown too.
We planned a dinner with my family to tell them when I was 7 weeks. They were so excited, and even though my perfect Father's day card plan didn't work out, it was a great time to tell them. The next weekend we took a beach trip with a bunch of friends and business partners when I was 8 weeks, and I spilled the news to all of them there. I waited until after the first Dr. visit before I posted anything on Facebook though, just to make sure everything was still progressing well. And it is. As I said in the beginning of this post, I have really been feeling good. I didn't really suffer with any morning sickness, and only threw up 3 times in the whole first trimester. The "worst" symptom I guess for me was really fatigue. I was just so tired all the time, and that is my excuse for not writing this sooner. Although, now I am in my second trimester and pretty much over that. We have had two check ups to hear the heartbeat now, and it sounds great! The first time it was 173 bpm, and the second time it sounded about the same, but we got a little bonus - we heard a kick too! I still can't feel anything yet, but I can't wait to start feeling the first little flutters in there very soon. Next month on the 26 of October we have the ultrasound to find out the sex of the baby. I can't wait! We are so excited to know what we are having so we can start planning for his/her arrival.
So that is the story of what's been going on these last few months. There has been a lot more that has happened that I need to catch up on too, but this was the most important to write about first.

Click on the link to the album below to see the belly pics from 4 weeks to 14.

Pregnant Belly Pics

The Fourth, Fireworks, Family and Beach

2009-07-19T18:26:00.011-04:00

David and I went down to the beach for the 4th of July again this year. We arrived late Thursday night and stayed with his dad. The next day, the guys went off to play golf and I headed to the spa for a much needed pedicure (thanks to the generosity of my Mother-in-Law). We ate his dad's famous fried shrimp for dinner and went for a walk on beach.

The next day David and I spent a couple of hours on the beach in the morning, then we all went into Beaufort for lunch and walked along the waterfront. We squeezed in one more hour on the beach that afternoon before heading over to a Fourth of July cookout with David's mom and Everett, and many other people at some friends of theirs house on the harbor. The food, company, and view was great! And I got some good pictures.

After dinner as it got darker, we went across the street to another couple's house for better views of the fireworks over the sound.
We were able to get a few good pictures. Here is one of the best! The next morning, Wimbledon was on , and the guys were engulfed in that ALL day, so that gave me more time to walk, swim and lay out on beach. I had a wonderful time, but realized that I hadn't put on enough sunscreen, and got pretty red in some places. We spent the rest of the afternoon with David's mom before heading home. It was a nice relaxing trip even though I was rather sore and uncomfortable for a few days after. It's strange though, now you can hardly tell I got too much sun a couple of weeks ago, so I've been going to the pool a couple of times here to try to keep some of the tan. Hopefully it's working :-) We have 1 more beach trip as well as a lake trip before the end of the summer, so maybe I can keep the tan....we'll see ;-)

Last Week - Father's Day

2009-06-28T20:31:00.002-04:00

We left Pinehurst fairly early Sunday morning so we could make it back to my parents house for lunch and to celebrate Father's day with my dad. We will be heading to the beach this up coming weekend for a late Father's day celebration with David's dad and of course fireworks on the fourth.
But last weekend we had a delicious lunch and wonderful time hanging out with my family. The guys grilled out steaks and pork while us ladies prepared the rest of the meal inside. After lunch, we had watermelon for dessert - a perfect summertime treat. The we gave Dad his Father's day gift while we had tea. My brother, David and I all went in together on this awesome gift for Dad. I think it was one of the best, if not the best Father's day presents ever. Just look at how happy he is with it!
It was about time for Dad to get a new watch, as he had had his old one for 25 or 30 years! He had been looking for one he liked for a while, and never suspected that he would get one from us for Father's day, so he was very surprised, but very happy too! It's a little hard to see in the picture, but the watch we picked out for him is a two tone Lucien Piccard with tiny diamonds in place of the numbers. He was so eager to wear it that he wouldn't even wait and take it to a jeweler to get the links removed. He fashioned his own "pin remover tool" and worked on resizing it himself that night so he could wear it the next day. I must say, it is a very sharp looking watch. It looks great on him and best of all, he loves it!
We spent the rest of the day listening to a cd my brother's band made and hanging out in the den with golf on in the background so David could watch the US Open. We didn't leave there til after 8pm! But we all had a great time, and enjoyed spending the day with my family.

Weekend in Pinehurst

2009-06-24T23:33:00.021-04:00

Well, it finally happened! We got a date on the calendar to celebrate David's birthday (albiet 2 months late) with a golfing weekend in Pinehurst, staying at Ian & Kathie's (family & friends) house for the weekend. And what a wonderful time we had! We were coming out of a crazy busy week, so it was so nice to just slow down and relax for a couple of days. David got to play golf three times! He was in heaven! :) And we both thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with Ian & Kathie. Just look at the special little touches she added in our room just for us. It was so sweet!They have such a beautiful house in the golfing community of Pinewild (part of Pinehurst). Their house sits just across the street from the number 4 hole of the Pinewild course. We arrived around 3:30 to their house on Friday afternoon, and by 5pm David was out on the course with Ian. Kathie and I took a walk together with their dog, Fairway, and eventually joined back up with the guys to get a few pictures of them on the course before cleaning up and heading out to dinner.We went into the little village of Pinehurst for dinner at the Pine Crest Inn. We spent the rest of the evening dining and chatting over a four course meal, then went back to their house for a late dessert (a special cake Kathie baked for David). We headed off to bed around midnight.

David had to be up bright and early for a 7:45 tee time on the number 8 course in the Pinehurst resort. I enjoyed sleeping in, having a late, light breakfast with Kathie (in her gourmet kitchen with fine china and everything!), and meeting up with guys again for lunch at the country club. We took a few more pictures out there since it was so pretty, then ran by the store to get a few things for the evening cookout.

(Me next to the famous Pinehurst "Putter Boy" Statue)

Even after playing in the 95 degree heat that morning, David and Ian were still up for another (shorter) round of golf on the par 3 course (only 9 holes, not 18). They roped Kathie and me into driving the golf cart so they could walk without having to carry their clubs. We enjoyed driving around the course, looking at the beautiful houses, and chatting, so other than getting bitten by mosquitos, we didn't mind going out there with the guys. Here we are driving the cart with Fairway between us. He was so good. Just sat there the whole time (until he saw a squirrel, then he dragged me to the the tree it scampered up, barking the whole time.)Later that night we grilled out lamb, pork and chicken and sat outside on their beautiful screened in porch enjoying the food, weather, and company. Again we didn't make it to bed til after midnight, and all got up bright and early to have breakfast before they headed off to church and we made our way back home.

It's Ladies Night...

2009-06-09T08:30:00.007-04:00

On Memorial Day Weekend, we had our annual Ladies Leadership Weekend. What a fun weekend!
It started out with a "You're a Star" banquet where we dressed up and walked down the red carpet to our tables for a delicious meal. I'm not going to go into all the details of the night, but it was so much fun to dress up and get together with my girlfriends for a special ladies night out. Here are some pictures of us all dressed up.My good friend, Allanna, came over and styled my hair into a beautiful up-do for the night.A couple of blue-eyed beauties :) (Me and Amanda on the left, and me and Karen on the right)

Here I was being a little silly, posing with the carnation we received as we arrived behind my ear. It looks a little funny there, but you can get a good idea of my whole outfit in this picture.
The next morning I arrived to the hotel bright and early to meet my good friend, Amanda from Michigan, for breakfast before the first session of the conference. It was great to have the time to catch up with her since I hadn't seen her in a few months.

After the morning session we had a special luncheon and a talent show. A few other ladies and I actually had an "act" in the show as well. One of our friends, Shannon, is a really good clogger, so she had choreographed a hip hop dance routine for us to be "back up" dancers while she clogged. It was so much fun to learn the routine and get out there and dance together for the talent show. I know we weren't the greatest "act" in the show, but we did a good job and had lots of fun.

We took a couple hour break to just rest and hang out before the evening session, then had a power packed rest of the conference. A bunch of us ladies then got into comfy clothes and ordered pizza and hung out late into the night. I didn't get home til nearly 2am! But I got to sleep in the next day til nearly 2 in the afternoon! So it was definitely worth it and so much fun!

Belated Birthday Posts

2009-06-08T08:00:00.003-04:00

Well our birthdays were celebrated on time, it's just this post that is belated : )

But I had a such a wonderful birthday a couple of months ago that I just couldn't move on to the present without posting about it. At first I wasn't so sure it would be that good because David was trying to throw me off by saying that this wasn't an important birthday. Since it was my 29th birthday, he said that it wasn't a big one and NEXT year would be the really important one, so for this one he wasn't going to do anything. Well, I wasn't so happy about him saying that. Even though I knew he wasn't serious, I still told him that he should do something because every birthday is a special birthday and it doesn't just have to be the "big" ones.

Since it seemed like he wasn't planning anything, I made sure that we had plans. We were going to go out for breakfast with my family, then go on to a matinee movie, then just hang out and do whatever til dinner, then after dinner we would go see a friend of ours perform at a nearby coffee shop. Or so I thought those were the plans. However, the night before, as we were going to bed, David asked me what time I was planning to get up, then said because you will need time to get ready and pack. "Pack! Pack for what?!?", I excitedly asked him. "You'll see", he said. "Just make sure you have a change of clothes for tomorrow, that's about it." So I went to bed that night excited about where we were going for my birthday after breakfast and the movie.

We met my family at a little Irish pub for a traditional breakfast and I opened presents there. I got a beautiful set of earrings from my brother and the matching necklace from my parents. Then it was time to open David's present. He handed me a big bag and as I pulled the gift out of it, I could not believe that he had given THIS to me!Yes, you did see that correctly. He gave me a bathroom scale for my birthday because I had recently been counting my calories and exercising more and had mentioned numerous times that I'd like to have a scale so I didn't have to go to gym to weigh every time. So he was right in knowing I had wanted one, but NOT for my BIRTHDAY! I was laughing on the outside, but inside I was thinking, "I can't believe THIS is my birthday present!" I kept trying to open it and see what the "real" present was, but that was it, a scale. True he was taking me somewhere as well, but I still wasn't so happy about that present. But, my husband is amazing and knows me so well! He got me the scale as a sort of gag gift (although it has been very useful) to throw me off the real present which he pulled out when he was satisfied with watching my reaction to the scale present. Here was the real present. A beautiful new watch! What a prankster! I love him!
(Aside- not sure why my hair looks so red in the pub pictures. It really wasn't red at all)

From breakfast, David and I went out to a matinee, then on to check in at the special place he had booked for us for the night. I had no idea where he was taking me, and I was so excited to find out. As we headed out of the city, crossed over the highway, and neared the bed and breakfast, I realized where we were staying. A friend of mine had gotten married at this adorable little bed and breakfast just outside town (but felt like way out in the country). The room David had booked for us was actually the same room they had stayed in after their wedding, the honeymoon suite. It was so peaceful and romantic! It rained that afternoon as we were arriving, so we just hung out in the room and took a nice little nap before dinner. We ate at an Italian restaurant that we hadn't been to since we had lived on that side of town, then headed over to the coffee shop. Our good friends, Justin and Allanna joined us for coffee and live music. We stayed until about 10pm, then went back to the bed and breakfast. The lady who owns it was so sweet and friendly. She brought us up cheese and crackers and strawberries and chocolate and drinks for our "midnight snack". We enjoyed the goodies while waiting for the air jet tub to fill up. Then we relaxed in the huge tub with bubble bath and candles. What bliss! Here's me sitting by the tub when we first got there. We slept so well in the soft, comfy bed, and woke up slowly when we were rested. We called downstairs to the B&B owners to tell them we were up and ready for breakfast, and they brought us up a really nice spread with french toast waffles, eggs, bacon, orange juice, etc... It was such a beautiful day, and we sat by this window as we ate and talked. Again I have to say it was so peaceful and such a relaxing, refreshing time together. It was definitely a wonderful birthday!

I'll have to talk about David's birthday (2 weeks after mine) in a later post. But I will mention now, that after he had come up with such a good surprise for me, I wanted to have a nice surprise for him too. So what I did was arrange with some family friends who live near Pinehurst for us to go and stay with them for a weekend so David can play golf and we can go shopping and out to dinner together. And I made him up a little gift certificate entitling him to a golf weekend. The only problem was we only had a tentative date to do it, and as we got closer to that date, we realized that it wouldn't work for all of us. As of right now, we have another tentative date for a couple of weeks from now, and if it works out this time I will definitely write all about it.

Day 13 and 14 - Last moments with family and flying home

2009-06-07T08:00:00.006-04:00

We arrived back "home" to the Gunter's little guest cottage very late that night after our busy day of veiwing the natural wonders of the North Eastern part of South Africa. We knew the next day would be our last and we had a mixture of sadness to leave and a feeling of excitement to get back to familiar surroundings in America. Our last day was spent trying to squeeze in as much time with family as we could. I didn't get any good pictures that day, unfortunately (they all turned out blury :( So I'll just have to write about it instead.
We spent the morning visiting with the Gunters, the afternoon hanging out at Aunt Allison and Jessica's house, and that evening we had dinner with Uncle Warwick (Dad's brother), his new wife, Emmelyn, his two sons, Richard John and Ryan, and Richard's girlfriend, Taryn. It was a full house with the 5 of us and the 5 of them, but they had grilled up enough food to feed an army. We all ate to our heart's content, and there was even food left over! It was a delicious meal and good company. It's too bad we didn't have more time to spend with them.
By the time we got back to the cottage, it was another late night, and we knew we would have to spend the next day packing to fly back. Our flight wasn't until later that afternoon, so we didn't have to rush, which was nice. Most of Mom's side of the family made it to the airport with us to see us off. We said our last goodbyes and we were off to get on the plane for about 18 hours this time. The flight home is always longer than the flight there, and we have to stop to refuel. This time we stopped in the middle of the night in Dakar. Of course they don't let you off the plane, and it's dark outside, so we didn't really see much.
The trip back was not quite as pleasant as the trip there because there was something wrong with the circulation on the plane and it was so hot and stuffy where we were sitting. Also, I don't know what happened this time, but the food was much worse than our first flight. So the combination of all that left me feeling a little air sick this time. The temperature had been a balmy 84 degrees F when we boarded the plane in South Africa, and was a chilling 4 degrees F when we disembarked in Washington DC - a whopping 80 degree difference! But to me it felt wonderful after feeling sick and stuffy on the plane for so long. The cold, crisp air helped me feel much better and I was so glad to get off that plane. Our layover wasn't too long, and soon were were homeward bound. We arrived back just after 10 am on Saturday January 17th, apparently the first coldest day of the year in NC. It was so nice to get back home to our little place even though David had accidentally turned the heat off instead of down, so it was close to 40 degrees inside our house! We immediately put the heat on, climbed into bed and pulled all the covers we could find onto us to stay warm. And that is exactly where I stayed until 4pm that day.
After catching up on some sleep, David and I sorted through our pictures and reminisced about the best trip we have taken together so far. We can't wait to go back again and also take more exciting trips like this one soon.

Day 12 part 2 - The Panorama Route

2009-06-06T08:00:00.005-04:00

Our first stop on the Panorama Route was The Pinnacle and God's Window. In the case of these stops, I believe a picture is worth a thousand words, so here you go.

This is Michael contemplating the large chimney-like rock, known as the Pinnacle.

Here's a great panoramic view from God's Window. They say on a clear day you can see all the way to Mozambique.

This is a great picture of Dad at the top of God's Window.

In this picture, we are all climbing down, heading back to the car where the peaks of the craft huts can be seen in the distance.

From God's Window we drove on to see the unique Bourke's Luck Potholes. The rushing water from the Blyde River created whirlpools that over time formed what is called the Potholes.

Here I am at the source before the potholes are formed below.

In this one you can see the guys on the bridge and the potholes in the right hand corner.

Here's a close up of the potholes.

And this is just a great picture of me and David at the Potholes.

Our last stop on the Panorama Route before heading home was the Blyde River Canyon, the largest green canyon in the world.

This is a great panoramic view of the canyon to be able to get an idea of it's granduer. Of course it is not even a fraction of the size of the Grand Canyon, but does still seem pretty large.
The hut-looking figures on the left are called the Three Rondavals.

Here we are with the Three Rondavals in the background. You can also see the Blyde River far below.

That river runs into this lake on the other side of canyon.
And here are us 2 beauties with the beautiful scenery as our backdrop.
We were able to capture all these pictures just in time before the fog rolled in again. What a blessing to be able to see everything we wanted to see all in one day.

Day 12 part 1 - The Accidental Bribe

2009-06-05T08:00:00.001-04:00

We left Swaziland early the next morning in a thick fog. It didn't help that we were going to have to go up over the mountains to get to the North Eastern part of South Africa. In some places the fog was so thick, we couldn't even see a foot in front of the car, so it was pretty slow going at first.
Once we came out of the fog and neared the border, we were ready to make up some time. We started picking up speed on the South African side of the border, when all of a sudden we noticed blue lights in the rear view mirror. Oh, no! Not again. This time it was a police woman. She nicely explained that we were speeding and with a smile on her face said she was going to have to give us a ticket. We tried to talk our way out of it, but it was obvious that that wasn't going to work this time. She told us that we would have to take the ticket to the police station in the tiny town we were in and pay the fine there. But we were on a time schedule and already behind, so we asked if we could just pay it in Johannesburg. The police woman told us that it had to be paid there in the town where the ticket was written, and either we could take it up there or she could take it for us. At this point all of us realized, from previous stories about the corruption with law enforcement in this country, that this police woman was asking for a bribe - All of us except Mom, that is. So without knowing it, Mom asked the cop if we could just pay her (a clear bribe). The police woman of course obliged and made up some story about how she will write 2 copies of the ticket and staple the money to the copy she will take to the police station, and she will keep the other copy. It was all a lie of course, because she never gave us a copy! But Mom didn't see it that way at the time. She had just taken over the negotiation to help us get back on the road faster. Once we were back on the road, we explained to her what she had just done and she was horrified. She had just been saying earlier how terrible it was that people gave bribes to policemen and here she was doing it herself! It was actually quite a hilarious situation and we laughed about it for a while on the way to our first stop on the Panorama Route.

Day 11 - The Near Kidnapping on our last day in Swaziland

2009-06-04T08:00:00.003-04:00

On our last day in Swaziland, there was one more nearby place we wanted to see - the Mantenga Falls. Now these falls weren't really anything spectacular, but we did want a little bit of a hike before the long car ride we knew we would have the following day, so we thought a hike to a waterfall would be nice. Little did we know that we had to check into the visitors center and then PAY to see the little waterfall. But we really wanted the exercise and view of the falls, so we paid and drove to where they told us to park. We got out and followed the signs down a little gravel hill. But as soon as we turned the corner, we saw the falls right there in front of us. Here are some of the pictures we took of the falls from that view.It was pretty, but we were a little disappointed that we didn't have more of a hike to get there. So we decided we would find our own way to the top of the waterfall for a longer hike and a better viewing angle. There wasn't anywhere to go from the base of the falls, so we walked back up to the car to see if there was maybe a different path. The only other path we saw was a dirt road with a stick across the entrance saying "Do Not Enter". We knew that the sign probably meant what it said for cars and pedestrians. However, we rationalized that it was really only for cars, and if we happened to see anyone who questioned us about what we were doing there, that's what we would tell them. We walked up the road for a couple of minutes seeing no sign of anyone for a while. Then all of a sudden a truck with a few men in it slowly drove up to us and a uniformed guard with a huge machete walked behind it. The truck stopped and the men asked us what we were doing. We innocently said we were trying to find the top of the waterfall and thought it was up this way. The men said it was not up this road and told us that they had been harvesting gum trees up there. They then proceeded to talk to the guard in some African language, and then back to us in English. Pointing to the guard, they said, "We will give this man to you. He will take you to the falls." And they drove off, leaving us with this old African man in uniform with a large machete who spoke no English.
He marched off into the woods and motioned for us to follow him. We all followed silently in a single file line with all kinds of scenes out of movies racing through our heads. My thoughts were, "Oh, great! This man leads us into the woods in the middle of nowhere, Africa, then begins to speak broken English to say, 'We kill you now'. And proceeds to slaughter us with the machete!" I know, sometimes I have too vivid an imagination. Luckily none of the nightmare scenes came to pass, and the guard simply did take us to the top of the falls. We learned then why the road had been closed to this view point. Apparently with the rain they had had, and the very poorly constructed guard rail, there had been accidents of people slipping under the guard rail and getting hurt, so they just closed the access. We definitely took advantage of this forbidden view, taking lots of pictures.

Once we were satisfied, the guard practically took off back through the woods leaving us trailing far behind. But we knew the way back at that point, so we were fine to get back to our car. However, on the way back, we saw this eerie view of Execution Rock to add to the experience. A quick aside, we were told that this is the mountain that was used as punishment for those convicted of a terrible crime. The convict was made to march up to the top of the rock and jump off to their death. So that is how the mountain got it's name.
On the way back to the house for the last time, we all reflected on and talked about the near possible kidnapping experience we had just had. What a way to end our time in Swaziland!

Day 10 - The glass factory and oldest mine in the world

2009-06-03T08:00:00.000-04:00

Another craft, besides the candles, batiks, and woven mats that Swaziland is famous for is it's hand blown glassware made from recycled glass. We got to see first hand the people heating, blowing, and shaping the glass as well as the finished product at the Ngwenya Glass Factory.

Here is just a sampling of some of the beautiful glassware we saw there.

After touring the glass factory, we went on up the road to the top of what they say is the oldest registered mine in the world, the Ngwenya Mine, meaning crocodile because the ridges in the side of the mountain look like those of a crocodile. You can really see that in this picture on the right.

We didn't take the time or spend the money to take a full tour through the mine, we just wanted to see it from the top to be able to say we stood on top of the oldest mine in the world :)

And here we all are on top of the mine.

By the time we left the mine, we were getting really hungry, and couldn't think of anywhere to eat. But David remembered a restaurant recommendation from his golfing partner for what he said was the best pizza in Swaziland. At this point in our trip, pizza sounded like a wonderful choice, so we went to this restaurant for brick oven pizza!Doesn't it look fancy? It was so pretty, and was actually some of the best pizza I've had!
Later that evening we took a tally of all the souvenirs we had purchased so that the next day, our last day in Swaziland, we could plan to go back to some of the craft areas to pick up some last minute curious.

Day 9 - The mini "Car Safari"

2009-06-02T08:00:00.007-04:00

After relaxing all the day before, the rest of us were ready to get out and do something. But since it had been raining and was still a little misty, we couldn't really do too much outside. So Grandpa and Ann suggested we go up the road to Mlilwane, a smaller game park, and drive around in our car for a couple of hours to see if we could see anything different there than we saw at Mkhaya. Several of the animals we saw were the same, but we did actually get to see a few different animals that we hadn't seen on the previous safari. For instance, we didn't see warthogs at Mlilwane like we had seen at Mkhaya, but we saw bush pigs instead. Here are some pictures to show the difference. The warthogs are on the left and the bush pigs on the right.

Also this time we saw monkeys and even a mangy looking ostrich. It was pretty funny seeing the ostrich, since I had the camera, but David was sitting by the window that the ugly bird was walking towards. David kept trying to put up the window, but with the drops of water on the glass, I couldn't get a good picture of the ostrich. So I was yelling to David to roll the window down and he was yelling back that I was not the one that was sitting by the window and going to get pecked. I retorted that it's not going to peck him and that I needed it down for a good picture. Well that big bird walked right up to the window in the mist of our friendly little argument and instead of sticking it's head through the window to peck anyone, it just opened up it's nasty-looking wing, bent it's neck all the way around, and began pulling at the mangy feathers with it's beak. Gross! I don't think I've ever seen a nastier-looking ostrich. View these next pictures at your own discretion.

Ok so I can't end this post with that! So here are a few more nicer looking pictures of the Mlilwane safari to end on a better note :)

Day 8 - Back in the Valley

2009-06-01T08:00:00.006-04:00

After two full safari days, we were glad to be back in the much cooler Ezulwini Valley in a fully enclosed house with fans! The only thing on the agenda for all of us that day was dinner at a little hotel called, Mountain Inn, on top of the mountain where we could enjoy gorgeous panoramic views of the valley. (Pictures from there at the end of this post).

Most of us welcomed a day to relax and do nothing. David, however, had plans of his own. When the guys had gone to book our safari a few days earlier, David had made plans with the booking guide to meet up for golf when we got back. Before we left for the trip he had told me that he just couldn't go to another country and NOT play golf, so this Saturday just happened to be the best day for him to do that. Now, I won't go into all the details of David's Swazi golfing experience since he has already done such a fine job of recounting it himself of his golf blog.

So I'll let you read his blog to hear about golf, and I'll just leave you with some pictures from the Mountain Inn. I would also encourage you to take a look at their website for even more great pictures.

Day 6 & 7 - African Safari!

2009-05-31T08:00:00.013-04:00

We were all very excited as we loaded up the car for the couple hour drive to basically the middle of nowhere Swaziland to meet our personal guide who would take us another 45 minutes from where we parked our car to the camp that we would call home for the next 2 days.
The private game park was called Mkhaya and had all but the carnivorous predators. But since it wasn't as large as the Kruger National Park, we were pretty much guaranteed to see lots of animals up close and personal - which was really cool. Our guide, Patrick, was the oldest (meaning he had been there the longest) of all the guides and very knowledgeable. He took us out on 3 game drives while we were there - one the 1st afternoon we arrived, one very early the next morning as the sun was coming up and the last one around noon before we left. This was our safari-mobile.And here is just a sampling of what we saw while on safari.

The camp we stayed at was supposed to be a luxury camp since it did have running water, but to me it was VERY rustic as it had no electricity. Here is our little open air hut we stayed in for the night, the bed we slept in, and some other areas of the camp.

I think that the stay would have been made more pleasant had it not been over 100 degrees F. Honestly, I have never been so hot in my life, and I have been in some really hot places before. But, literally, it was so hot that I couldn't wear make up because it would just drip off my face, and the only way to stay cool was to take a shower, but as soon as we got out and the water dried, we'd start sweating again. I don't think we slept too well either because under the mosquito net it was VERY hot and also just being out in the wild with HUGE bugs and hearing animals, knowing all we had to keep them out was a little gate.

It would really be impossible to recount our entire time on safari, so I will just hit the highlights.
After arriving at our little hut, we showered (to cool off again) and joined a few of the other groups for a gourmet dinner by candlelight (because of no electricity). We had first class service and a 4 course meal, with kudu (a type of antelope) stew as the main course. It was delicious. After dinner we all sat around the campfire to watch the native Swazis perform authentic African dances and songs.By the time we were ready to go to bed, we had to take another shower, but this time we discovered that we weren't alone in the shower. A little black scorpion had decided to take up residence in our shower for the night. David refused to shower while the scorpion was in there, but I was just too hot not to. So I had David shine a flashlight on it to make sure it didn't move while I showered, then he was brave enough to have me do the same while he showered. Luckily it didn't move. When we were finally ready for bed, we discovered that instead of keeping bugs out, our mosquito net had trapped some in! We must have looked like such silly city-folk trying to get the bugs out, because neither of us were going to sleep with them inside. Finally we devised a plan that consisted of me lifting up the net for David to crawl under with a glass and a piece of paper to trap the HUGE moth. After he got the biggest one out, I had him go back in and get the other couple of little ones as well. After slathering ourselves with insect repellent, we did our best to get some rest before rising early for our game drive and then breakfast.

By this time we had already seen rhino, hippo, elephants, giraffe, zebra, warthogs, water buffalo, wildebeest, and various types of antelope. We even got out of the jeep and walked up to (several yards away) a mother rhino and her calf! We had seen practically everything there was to see except a crocodile. Before our last game drive, I had seen a girl from another group in the bathroom who told me that their guide had taken them right up to a crocodile. As we were embarking on our last drive, I asked our guide if he thought we would see one, and he said, "maybe, uh, probably not." Then I mentioned to him that the other group's guide had taken them right up to one, and that did it. Our guide would not be outdone. Without saying a word, he took us off the beaten path and all of a sudden just stopped the jeep and told us to wait there as he disappeared down a hill into the woods. About 5 minutes later he returned saying he had found one and to follow him. We still weren't sure what we were going to see this time, but he led us right up to this!
Yes, that is a huge crocodile, and that is the guide's shirt on the left, so you can see how close we were to it. Well, since the huge reptile wasn't doing anything, our guide proceeded to throw rocks at it to get it to move. About this time, we were all contemplating how quickly we could get back to the vehicle and if we would be able to find our way back to camp if our guide was eaten by the crocodile. Luckily, we didn't have to act on any of those mental plans since it never even flinched with the rocks pelting it. So we just turned around and headed back to the jeep. But although we didn't see it, we HAD disturbed the crocodile, and from the safety of the jeep, this is what we saw coming up the hill in right in front of us!He HAD been following us! Wow! What a close call! After that, we were ready to be done with the safari and pack up for the 45 minute jeep ride back to our car. Again I will mention that on that jeep ride, I have NEVER been SO HOT in my life! I could literally feel the sun burning and blistering my skin. But even with the tremendous heat, huge bugs, and close call with animals, I can still honestly say that it was worth every minute of it for the experience, and I'm so glad we did it.

Day 5 - Candles and Crafts

2009-05-30T08:00:00.004-04:00

The first day we arrived in Swaziland, the guys took off to see about booking a safari for us, while Mom and I stayed and unpacked and visited with Ann. The men came back later with the good news that they were successful in booking a two day safari for us and that we would leave in two days. We knew we were going to need to bring back some authentic, handmade African souvenirs for lots of people, so the next day we went up to a place called the Candle factory where they sold hand made candles and lots of other crafts too.
The candles were amazing! The women would shape and form the wax into figures of animals and all kinds of other things. Some of them used brightly colored and patterned wax and some were just plain looking, but they were all so well done. Here are a couple of pictures of the beautiful candles.We also looked around the craft market where vendors were not only selling but still making their crafts. In this picture, this man is hand-painting a giraffe he carved, and in the back ground you can see some of the batiks (material that has gone through an extensive dying process) as well as a few other craft tables behind him.After "shopping" out in the African heat, we had to stop and get a drink at this cute little cafe. You can also see one of their other famous crafts on the tables - hand woven mats. We actually did come home with candles, giraffes, batiks, mats, and other crafts as well.

That night we packed again, but this time for 2 days only, heading to the lowveld for our REAL safari!

Day 4 - Arriving in the Kingdom of Swaziland

2009-05-29T08:00:00.003-04:00

We left bright and early to follow Grandpa to his new house a few hours away in the kingdom of Swaziland. That was all of our first time traveling to what Grandpa calls the "Switzerland of Africa". It was a rather uneventful trip other than the gorgeous scenery along the way, and the beautiful views from Grandpa and Ann's (his fiancee) community in the Ezulwini Valley, just outside Mbabane, the capital of Swaziland. Here are some of the pictures that I just love!

Before I move on with the adventures of the next day, I just want to mention a little bit about how the kingdom of Swaziland, the only kingdom in Africa, is ruled. First of all since it is a kingdom, it is ruled by a King and Queen. However, the the King and Queen are son and mother not husband and wife. The current king is allowed to choose a different wife every year, but the new wife must be of a different tribe than the king. The new king is then chosen by the tribal council from one of his wives who had an only son. That way there is no sibling rivalry, and the king is from a different tribe each time. The current King and Queen have multiple residences in the country. The one that we passed had a rock carving at the entrance with a lion to represent the King and a she elephant to represent the Queen.

Day 3 - Jo-burg Tourists

2009-05-28T08:00:00.006-04:00

The next day we slept in a little and just enjoyed being on vacation with no real agenda that day. About mid-morning we decided that it would be a good day to go into downtown Johannesburg and be tourists for the day. My parent's didn't really care to go this time, so it was just us cousins and my Uncle William who took us. We ate outside at this little cafe overlooking a large square near the museum. Everything about being in that location reminded me of Mexico for some reason - the climate, the trees, the architecture, the big square (like the Mexican Zocalos). Here are a couple of pictures to show what I mean.

As we walked back to the car, Uncle William pointed out the DeBeers Diamond Building and explained to us that they have a monopoly on all the diamonds in world and diamonds are not as rare as we think they are. They have thousands of tons of diamonds in vaults there that they only release a certain number of a year. Also they own the entire west coast of Africa called the skeleton coast and they have guards posted there to keep people from collecting all the diamonds that scatter the beaches. That was very interesting to learn.
As we drove through the real downtown Jo-burg, I was starting to feel a need to be more cautious and I was really glad we had Uncle William with us. I would say that that was the most "unsafe" I felt on the whole trip. It felt a little bit like we were driving through the Bronx. We didn't stay downtown too long, and we never got out to walk on the streets (we would have stood out like a sore thumb if we had). Instead we parked in a parking garage and went up to the 50th floor of what used to be the tallest building in Africa, The Carlton Center. It had windows all the way around and you could see the whole city from every angle. It's a pretty big city - about the size of Chicago.On our way back home, Uncle William drove us past an even poorer area so we could see the contrast of lifestyles. This is a squatter camp. It is formed of little shacks thrown together with no electricity, running water or trash pickup. You would think that the people who live there have no work and are dirt poor, but that is not always the case. Some people were arriving home in suits heading back from their "white collar" jobs, but this is all they have known, so they are quite content to live this way. Seeing this area made us realize even more the large gap between upper and lower class in this country.

That evening after dinner we packed up our things, getting ready to leave that country and spend the week in Swaziland.

Day 2 - Lions and Tigers and - oh wait, no just lions...

2009-05-27T08:00:00.009-04:00

The next day, Sunday morning, we went with my Aunt and Uncle to their church that they pastor. Since my dad and brother are so musically talented and since I sing, they both alternated playing electric guitar and bass, and I sang with some of the other women in a little choir. We had had a quick practice the night before to learn the songs, but were able to pick up on most of them pretty quickly, even some of the ones in Zulu. After church we all went out to an old classic little restaurant in Benoni, called Peoples. On the back wall of the restaurant, they have a mural of all the famous people that came from Benoni. If you look closely in the picture below, you can see the actress, Charlize Theron (second from the left on the bottom row in the mural). After lunch, we drove just a little ways out of town to the Lion Park. I had remembered going there many years ago and holding baby lion cubs, so I was excited to bring David this time and do that again. This time, the cubs were a little larger so we couldn't really hold them, but we did get a chance to go in and pet them. This one, that Jessica and I are petting, was so sweet! It just purred loudly and kept licking my hand.
One quick funny story about going into the lion cub cage...While we were waiting in line a bratty little Indian boy (about 4 years old maybe) was pitching a fit, screaming and trying to get in the gate where the lion cubs were. His little sister (probably about 12 years old) was nicely trying to restrain him. But he was just getting madder and louder and was starting to annoy the people (including us) standing in line - to the point where we were all muttering under our breath, "Just let him in if he wants to get in that badly". Finally it was our turn and we didn't pay that little boy any more attention until afterwards. As we were leaving, they were just getting a chance to go in. As soon as the little boy walked up to one of the lion cubs, it jumped on him and knocked him down. You could almost hear the quiet cheering of everyone who had been subject to his little temper tantrum earlier saying, "Yeah! Serves you right! You got what you deserved for being such a brat!" It was actually quite funny that everyone was happy he got "attacked" by the lion.

Anyway, moving on, we got in our car drove slowly around the rest of the lion park, taking pictures out the windows frequently. Here are a few of the best ones we got.On our way home from the Lion park we went to a "Vegas Style" casino with shops and restaurants etc... to meet my cousin, Michelle, and her husband, Richard, and 2 kids (who I had never met before) Rebecca and Noah. Unfortunately none of the pictures I took in there came out well, so I don't have any to show. But the place was really cool. Inside, the ceiling was painted like the sky and lit up. Plus the front of the shops looked like the outside of shops and streets in old world Italy. There were also live trees, lamp posts, fountains, and a stream that ran through the inside of this place. We ate at a nice italian restaurant there and had a wonderful time catching up with family. My dad also had arranged to meet an old friend of his who he hadn't seen in over 40 years, so he enjoyed catching up over dinner as well.
We went to bed that night knowing we would have one last day in Johannesburg before heading over to Swaziland for a week.

I'm Back! - Believe it or not

2009-05-26T08:00:00.011-04:00

Well actually I never really went anywhere physically, but I just took a little sabbatical from my blog. No real reason other than I was just overwhelmed with the number of posts that I knew I needed to catch up on from our trip at the beginning of the year. But I'm not going to apologize this time or feel bad about leaving you all (however few it may be) hanging for nearly 3 months now. I am just going to jump right back into the South Africa trip recount and finish it all in 1 sitting so it's done. But I won't overwhelm you with one REALLY LONG post, so I will break it up by the days I have left and schedule blogger to post one each day. Then I will be caught up to the present and be able to post things as they occur at my leisure. So here goes...

Our 1st Full Day - The Near Imprisonment

2009-03-03T13:22:00.008-05:00

On January 3rd 2009 the day started out nicely. We woke up early because in South Africa the sun comes up BEFORE 6am in the summer! We ate breakfast and discussed our plans for the day. It was supposed to be a pretty low key day, or so we thought! We took the morning to get settled into the little cottage, and decided to head to the mall for lunch. We actually ate in their version of an "American restaurant" called Spur. The food was decent, and after a nice meal, we decided that my mom would go back to the house with her older sister, Susan, and her younger sister, Allison, would join them there. Meanwhile my dad, my brother, David, and I would head over to the Flea Market to see if we could find David and Michael some "safari hats".

The Flea Market was busy and full of all kinds of different merchandise, some hand-made, really cool African items, and some completely useless junk, but no hats that either of the guys could agree upon. So we just bought a few authentically African gifts for a couple of people and headed back the house.

Now, here I should note that my dad was driving, and although they drive on the left side of the road in South Africa, he has a lot of experience with driving over there and is a very good driver. However, he had been given some rather inaccurate information regarding one of the traffic rules from a very well meaning person. You see, here in America, when you stop at a red light and you are turning right, if nothing is coming, you are allowed to turn. We knew that rule was not so in South Africa the last time we were there, but that was 7 years ago, and rules can change. So since someone had told my dad that that particular rule HAD changed, he believed them and didn't think twice about turning left on red.

There we all were in the little Toyota Avanza rental car, my dad driving, my brother in the passenger seat, and me and David in the back. We were only about 2 turns from the house when all of a sudden we saw blue lights in the rear view mirror. So we pulled over and an older policeman came over to our car. We knew we hadn't been speeding, and we had just gone through a couple of lights that were definitely green, so we really had no idea why he was stopping us. My dad smiled at the officer and was met with a very harsh, very Afrikaans sounding question, "Why did you not stop at that rrred light?" (said with a rolled "r") A little taken a back by his tone and question, my dad said, "Oh, did I go through a red light? I..." The policeman angrily cut him off and started waving his finger in my dad's face saying, "That answer makes me verrry crrross, because you KNOW you did!" My dad proceeded to explain that he really didn't know he had done anything wrong, all the while apologizing for any traffic violation he may have committed, but the cranky old man would not even listen. While he told us that it was unacceptable to turn left on a red light, his "side-kick", the younger officer, came over as well. The older one asked for Dad's license and registration, and my dad handed him the little white booklet that served as his international driver's license. The older officer turned to the younger and disdainfully sneered, "Look, they're American!" He asked Dad again why he went through the red light, and this time, my dad profusely apologized saying that he did not know that here it was illegal to turn left on red because in America you can turn right on red. The old man was getting increasingly angrier and was nearly yelling now, asking Dad where he got the license and telling him how it was practically useless. Holding the little white booklet between the thumb and forefinger of each hand and starting to make a ripping motion, he said in a VERY thick Afrikaans accent now, "Well if you don't know the RRRules of the RRRoad, then this is no good!" and nearly ripped the international driver's license in half!

It was at this point that David and I both started praying under our breath in the back seat. The officer stopped before tearing the license and asked my dad for his passport which he unfortunately didn't have with him. Dad explained that he had thought it safest to leave with his luggage at the house. Oh, that made the older policeman really mad, and he just said very matter-of-factly, "Then I'm going to have to arrest you. You must have your passport with you at all times, and since you do not have your passport, then I have to arrest you right now." Now we were all getting really scared, and David and I were praying even more fervently in the backseat. Here it was our first full day here, and Dad was going to be thrown in jail!
The policeman proceeded to ask us an absurd question about what happens in America when a foreigner is found without his passport. We all said we didn't know, so the officer said, "I'll tell you what happens. They get thrown in jail and deported immediately!" We knew that wasn't right and thought it really odd that he would tell us that, but we were not in the place to argue. Instead Dad pleaded with the man saying that we were here on holiday and he really did have his passport. It was just around the corner, literally, at the Gunter's house, and if he could just get over there, he would show him. The older policeman began quietly discussing the situation with the younger, much nicer policeman. After what seemed like an eternity, the the older one said, "Ok, if you are really staying just around the corner, we will follow you so you can go and get your passport." Whew! Somehow, God intervened there and we were saved for the moment - at least from jail!
Once we pulled in at the Gunter's, I told my brother to run inside and get Uncle William, who is a pastor and a very good negotiator. My dad went in to get his passport, and David and I stayed outside to explain to the cops that we had just arrived yesterday and had a lovely two week holiday planned, while the rest of the family come outside. Once the policemen saw Dad's passport and realized that we really were staying with Pastor Gunter, they relaxed considerably. A little smooth talking with Uncle William, and they were all smiling and laughing. Dad didn't get thrown in prison and we didn't even get a ticket for "running" the red light! The older policeman was like a totally different person! He just smiled and said, "Enjoy your holiday, and remember to keep your passport with you."
Wow! What a crazy rush of adrenaline and excitement on the first full day!

Arriving in South Africa

2009-02-28T19:50:00.004-05:00

As promised, here is the 1st post to begin the recount of our recent trip to Southern Africa. Before I forget too much about when and what happened, I will just start at the beginning now and try to get through the entire trip by the end of this upcoming month.

After the little escapade of locking myself in the airplane bathroom on the flight from Greensboro to DC, the next flight was a lot more uneventful. Although it was a very looong flight (16 hours) it was actually rather pleasant. We were not expecting all the technological updates that had been made since the last time we took that trip 7 years ago. The last time I was on that flight was actually on my own after college. I had to bring lots of things to keep myself entertained since they only showed two movies on the whole flight, and if you happened to be sleeping during the time they showed them, then you just missed out. However, this time, the entertainment was on demand on a touch screen in the back of the seat in front of you, and they not only had a large selection of recent movies, but they also had TV shows, and even games that you could play using a hand held controller that pops out of the armrest. So we were definitely entertained on that flight.
Since we knew that when we arrived, we would only have a few days with our family in South Africa before leaving for Swaziland, we had purchased some homeopathic pills called "No Jet Lag" to take during the flight so that we would be able to visit with everybody as soon as we got there without the hindering effects of jet lag. Amazingly on the way there the pills worked great!

We arrived in Johannesburg mid afternoon on January 2nd, and met most of our family there at the airport. We piled oursleves and all of our luggage into their cars and headed to my Uncle Willam and Aunt Susan's place. They live in a little town just outside of Johannesburg, and had just recently built a little cottage in their yard for guests. This was to be our abode for the next few days. It was really cute and had everything we would need - A living room, dining room, kitchen, 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. That first night there we just sat around the cottage and visited with family. It was so great to see everyone again and catch up. We all got a great night's sleep to prepare for the very eventful next day...

We're still here

2009-02-25T09:23:00.002-05:00

I will have to start this post off with a big apology to those who were eagerly awaiting a thorough recount of our recent trip. Over the past month I have had many different post ideas rolling around in my head, and it has just seemed like a daunting task to sort through pictures again to add to the posts. Plus it just seems like ever since we got back, we have just hit the ground running and we have literally had so much going on that when we did have a little down time, I just couldn't justify using it to blog, as there were so many other things that needed my attention too. And since we only have 1 computer (we really need to get a laptop...hint...hint :) that David has been using a lot lately to be very productive (so I'm not at all complaining), I just haven't been able to devote the time I know it will take to get any blog posts together.

Ok, all excuses aside, I just wanted to let you all (however few of you that is now) know that we are still here and doing fine. With that being said, my intention over this next weekend is to spend some time on this blog and at least get 1 post written to kick off the Southern African Stories. David will be out of town on Saturday, so that should give me ample time to work on it. So now you have my word. I can't promise there will be pictures, but I do promise I will write a post this weekend, so stay tuned...

Just a Highlight to Whet Your Appetite : )

2009-01-21T10:48:00.003-05:00

As you've probably figured out by now, we are back from our trip, and we have tons of pictures and stories to tell you all, but since we didn't have the internet access that we had hoped for during the trip, we'll have to post them a little at a time now that we're back home. I had planned to blog a lot during the 1st couple of days we were back, but I didn't anticipate the tremendous jet lag that would hit me those first 2 days. We got back on Saturday around 10am and I went straight to bed, not to get up til 4pm!! But I did still sleep through most of the night as well. Anyway, enough about my sleep habits. I am finally back to normal and getting readjusted to life back here in the cold USA right now.
For some reason, David didn't have as hard a time with jet lag this time, so he has already posted a web album that we put together just to show some highlights of our trip. Since I am not ready yet to begin really posting all the stories and pictures, I'll just leave you with this link for now.

Africa Web Album

Enjoy!

Quick Update - Limited Internet Access

2009-01-05T10:39:00.002-05:00

We made it safely to South Africa. The plane trip wasn't too bad even thought it was really long. My family met us at the airport and we headed back to their house. We are staying in a cute little cottage on my uncle and aunt's property in a suburb of Johannesburg. So far we have been shopping a little at the mall and flea market, to church, to the lion park (where we got to pet baby lion cubs and see HUGE lions up close), to Montecasino (like the Venitian in Las Vegas), and into the heart of downtown Johannesburg (which is pretty run down and scary now) and we also went up the tallest building there to get a panoramic view of the whole city. I did get some great pictures, but I don't have time to post them now. We thought we would have more access to the internet, but unfortunately we don't. We are spending 1 more night here in South Africa, then tomorrow we are leaving for Swaziland (where my grandfather just moved to) from there we will take day trips to see some beautiful scenery and natural wonders and take a couple of real safaris. We are really looking forward to it. We've been having a great time so far visiting with family and seeing the sights of this city.
Sorry I don't have more time to write. I do have some great stories to tell and pictures to show, but they will have to wait until later.

The Near Entrapment

2009-01-01T15:09:00.001-05:00

This morning my parents, brother, David and I boarded a plane from Greensboro, NC to Washington DC, embarking on our long journey to South Africa. That flight was pretty quick, but with the water I drank earlier plus the juice on the flight, I had to go to the bathroom during the flight just before we landed. The plane we were on was pretty small and the bathroom was the size of a tiny broom closet. The flight attendant gave me the ok to go quickly before we landed, so I stepped in and tried to close the door. It was very hard to get closed, and even harder to open as I would soon find out. After pulling and pushing a while I finally got the door closed, only to find there was no light in there. So I forced the door open again and tried to find a light, but to no avail. I grabbed some tissues and decided that I would just go in the dark after closing the door for the 3rd time. So I finished my business and tried to force the door open again, but it wouldn't budge. So I pulled at the slide lock thinking that maybe it was stuck, but as I was trying to force the knob over to the right to be released, the unthinkable happened. I broke the knob right off the lock and now I was really trapped! I had visions of being thrown around in that tiny space as the plane landed and the airplane attendants having to pry me out with a crow bar while the air got hot and stuffy in the little lavatory. There was really nothing to do but laugh at the seemingly impossible situation that only I would have gotten myself into. But I had to try to be practical and find a way out before we landed. So by the dim light of the "No Smoking" sign I noticed that there was a little hole where the knob had come off, and I thought if I could just find the knob maybe I could stick it in the hole and unlock the door. I fumbled around on the floor in the dark and found the knob. When I put it in the hole I realized that it had merely come unscrewed and I hadn't snapped it off with my brute strength. I screwed it back on, forced the lock open, and with the help of the lady in the last row (who by now had realized I was stuck) finally was released from my temporary prison. I made it back to my seat just minutes before the wheels hit the runway. And boy, was I glad to get off that plane for a 6 hour layover here in DC where I am actually writing this post from my iPhone. - Just another quick plug for how awesome they are :)
In 2 hours we'll be leaving for South Africa so I won't have access to the Internet for a while, but I'll be sure to post an update as often as possible.
Happy New Year, everyone!

Two Christmases

2008-12-31T14:27:00.008-05:00

This year we just spent 2 hours on Christmas morning with my family (since we are going to be with them for 2 weeks in South Africa), then we drove down to the beach to spend from Christmas evening til this past Sunday with David's family.

We got some really cool gifts for Christmas. I got a great sweater coat from my mom, David got this cool gift in the picture below, and we both got a new camera to capture all the great memories we will have on our upcoming trip.

On Christmas morning we had a nice big breakfast of omlettes, waffles, bacon and sausage with my family before opening our presents. Then at David's mom's house, we opened our presents there before the annual large Christmas dinner party they had. The food was so good and there was so much of it, I stuffed myself full. I'll really need to work it all off this coming year. After the dinner, we went back to David's dad's house (where we were staying) and openend presents there too. Unfortunately I didnt' take any pictures of either of these events.

The next day, David went to play golf all morning, and I just lazed around the house reading, watching tv, and playing with my iphone. When he and his dad got back, we all went down to a nearby town called Harker's Island. David's dad found this really authentically down-east style restaurant and wanted to take us to experience it. Unfortunately since they had just opened after the Christmas holiday, they had a limited menu, but we were able to go back the next day and get the full experience. The restaurant is called "Fish Hook Grill" and the lady who owns it cooks the food fresh every day. She is also so nice and personable that she'll sit right down with you at your table and chat. The food was delicious - we had fish and shrimp baskets the 1st day, and the next day we had the famous down-east clam chowder with the best hush puppies I've ever tasted. It was a quaint, informal, but wonderful dining experience, and if you ever find yourself down in Harker's Island, NC, be sure to stop in at "Fish Hook Grill" restuarant and ask for Miss Faye.

Moving right along, while we were in Harker's Island the 2nd time, we went to visit the Core Sound Museum. This museum showcased not only the history of the island and surrounding areas, but also many many core sound duck decoys, like the one David won at the Seafood Festival. Here is David and his dad next to a big display of the decoys.

One other thing that I feel is worth mentioning is that the next morning after breakfast with David's mom, we went out for a few minutes to play with the little hunting dog puppies that her husband is training. They were so rambunctious, but very cute too. David was the photographer/videographer for the puppy play session. Here's some of what he took.

We left on Sunday afternoon in time to swing by some other extended family and drop off gifts there on the way home. When we got there, the kids wanted to show me their new present from Grammie (David's mom) - a big new trampoline. Of course they roped me into jumping with them for a while, but no pictures of that either. And I guess that's about it. Once we got home, we had to go into planning/packing mode, and we've been in that ever since.

We are so excited to be leaving in the morning for South Africa. Stay tuned to the blog for the next 2 weeks as I will try to give trip updates as frequently as possible.

The Graduate (Not the movie, but my brother)

2008-12-21T21:58:00.007-05:00

On Tuesday December 16 Michael, my little brother (who's not so little anymore) graduated from NC State University, Summa Cum Laude with a BS in Mechanical Engineering. We are so proud of him. My parents, David and I, and a few of Michael's local friends went to his graduation ceremony, then helped him pack up all his stuff from his condo there in Raleigh and move back home with my parents for a while.

Between my dad and me, we got some great pictures. Here are a few of them.

Then yesterday (Saturday) we had a graduation party for Michael at a friends house. Here are few pictures from that as well.

It makes me feel old to think that my brother, 7 years younger than me, is now a college graduate and going to be starting his career as an engineer in the middle of January when we get back from South Africa. It'll be here before we know it. This year has gone by so quickly, and now it's almost Christmas. I'll try to get those posts up before we head out of the country so that I can start the next year with posts from our trip.

2 Early iChristmas Gifts

2008-12-15T10:00:00.001-05:00

These are what David and I got each other for Christmas! (a little early)

We are having a blast playing with them and learning how to use them. The technology is amazing! They are so much fun and so practical too. What a wonderful early Christmas gift!!

The Thanksgiving Catch up before the next holiday madness ensues

2008-12-14T17:11:00.013-05:00

This Thanksgiving we had dinner with my parents and brother, then my mother-in-law, Jane, came into town to stay with us. Since this was the 1st time she's ever seen our new place, I thought it would be nice if it was already decorated for Christmas, so here are some pictures of how I decorated this year.This little Christmas village was actually given to us this year by David's mom when she came to visit, and I just happened to have this little desk next to the Christmas tree to put it on! Perfect!

It has always been our tradition (for the 4 years we've been married) that David's mom comes up here to visit on Thanksgiving weekend, and that night we go to the movies. This year we saw the new James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace. It was a good constant action movie. Then we came back home and watched one of the Bourne trilogy movies (since we apparently didn't get enough action at the theater) I've seen all those multiple times, so I fell asleep.
The next day we got up, went out to breakfast, shopped all day then drove out to the Tanglewood Festival of Lights. Neither David, nor his mom had ever been before, and it is definitely worth seeing at least once. It wasn't too chilly, so I was able to stick my head out the window and get a few of these good pictures.

And last but not least, the light display of shameless advertising. The sponsor, Chick-Fil-A, had this to leave you with - "We Wish You Would Eat More Chikin"
After that we tried a new restaurant in Winston Salem for dinner, and then came home to watch Ocean's 13 (we have all the Ocean's movies too). The next day we went into Kernersville and toured the oddest little house, called Korner's Folly. I got few pictures in the house, but you may want to click on the above link and check out the site to get a better feel for how odd this house was. Here's David in the kid's playroom. Doesn't he look like a giant? Even I could nearly touch my head to the ceiling! After touring that house, we went to lunch with my parents and brother, then shopped some more, and watched another movie. I was exhausted by this point, so I know I slept through the whole thing. Sunday, we went out for breakfast again for the last time before his mom headed out. It was a nice rainy day, so once we got back home, we just relaxed and stayed in the rest of the day.
Overall, we had a fun, activity packed, busy weekend and we look forward to next year and the new activities we'll do then.

The Sniffly, Sneezy, Coughing, Runny Nose Anniversary

2008-12-08T12:43:00.009-05:00

Well that about sums it up. I guess it was bound to happen sometime as long as we plan to be married, that we would have an anniversary where we both felt less than our best.
I'm not really too excited about this anniversary gift to both of us of these cold-like symptoms, but I am still excited that we have been married for 4 years and can still take the time to celebrate it a little.
We didn't let the unpleasant symptoms hold us back too much from having a great time.
First of all while I was out, my wonderful, creative, and sweet husband had a special anniversary gift for me when I came in. This is what he made for me. It set the perfect tone for a wonderful evening.

After we both got ready, we went out to a local shopping center and each picked out our anniversary gifts to each other. (sometimes it just works better that way :) Then it was on to a decedent dinner at a new restaurant that neither one of us had tried before.
After that we headed to the gym...ok hold on, I know what you're thinking..."that doesn't sound fun or romantic" But just let me finish... Our gym has a pool, hot tub, sauna and steam room, and we planned to take advantage of the steam room and hot tub. However, unfortunately they had already drained the hot tub to service it, so we just sat in the steam room to clear our sinuses and detox our bodies, then instead of going to a spa for a massage, we just gave each other massages at home. After that we snuggled up on the couch with a box of tissues to talk and relax in front of the blazing and crackling fire.So even though I wish we had felt better, we still had a fun, romantic and relaxing anniversary.

Double Weekend Update

2008-11-25T10:22:00.007-05:00

I realized that I have just gotten 2 weekends behind again in my posts, and before I post about the most recent things going on in our world, I feel compelled to share about the past 2 weekends first.

The 1st weekend (2 weeks ago - Nov. 16th) David and I didn't have anything planned. It was nice to just be home and relax together, but after a day of that, we were ready to go and do something. One thing we like to do occasionally is go to open houses in the area. But not just any open houses - the ones that are really big, and uniquely designed. Most of the time the real estate companies will post the open houses available to tour on Sundays on their websites. David found one in a nearby city that sat on 43.5 acres, had a barn, a pond, a greenhouse, an infinity pool with hot tub and fountain, and was overlooking a river. The house was about 5,000 sqf (with only 2 real bedrooms!), and pretty looking from the outside. It was very ornately decorated on the inside, but very odd as well. I think if I had to name this property, I would title it the "Pepto Pink Property". Seriously, the lady that owned the house was OBSESSED with PINK! I could just tell you that and let you picture it in your head, but I don't think your mental image would really do it justice. This place was REALLY PINK!! Not just like a can of pink paint exploded in the whole house, but painstakingly detailed with all different shades of pink and faux finished to look like pink wood grain too. This was intentional!! I think it was the oddest house I have ever seen in my life. Here are some pictures to show you what I mean.

The next weekend involved pink too, but definitely not THAT much pink! This past weekend was just about pink nails :) My good friend, Allanna and I made plans to have lunch together at her new house and then pamper ourselves at the SPA! We both got manicures and pedicures. I got a dark shade of pink on my toes and a lighter shade on my fingers, and she got bright red on both to be festive for the holidays. The spa that we went to is brand new in Greensboro and it is a really nice, simple day spa. It's called Sorella Day Spa, and offers services not just for nails, but facials and full body spa treatments including massages and wraps etc... Allanna and I just experienced the nail services, but both were very luxurious. I was impressed with their excellent customer service. While the actual "spa treatments" of the manicure and pedicure were very pampering and relaxing, the polish job on my fingernails didn't turn out quite as well. First of all, the lady administering my services didn't speak english and I think she used the top coat as the base and the base coat as the top, so the polish bubbled up on all my fingers. That wasn't that big of a deal, but she had also painted a couple of nails thicker than the others, so they took longer to dry and consequently I smudged them badly. So badly, in fact, that I decided to go back the next day and see if they could at least just fix those badly smudged nails. The most impressive part about my return visit is that they not only fixed the smudged nails, but also repainted ALL my fingernails (so that I didn't have the bubbles in the polish any more) AND repainted both my big toe nails that had also gotten smudged some. Plus when I tried to offer an extra tip for a different girl taking the time to practically redo the paint job on all my nails, she refused to accept it. She also encouraged me to let Allanna know that if any of her nails smudged she would redo them for her as well for no charge. I thought the whole experience was very pleasant and professional and I would definitely go back another time.

Still Baking...What has gotten into me?!?

2008-11-21T09:38:00.002-05:00

As I write this I have already baked 2 more loaves of Banana Bread since the 1st one in the post below -1 plain with nuts and 1 with nuts AND chocolate chips...mmmm. Again, they didn't last long, but since they turned out so well, I decided to branch out and try some other different kinds of bread. So while David went out of town for a couple of days, I secretly called his mom and had her give me the recipe for his absolute FAVORITE bread ever, Plum Bread. I know it doesn't sound all that wonderful, but honestly, the plums come from baby food, and you really don't even taste them. To me it was closer to a spice bread or even Amish/friendship bread. Anyway, while he was gone, I bought all the ingredients (although I couldn't find plain baby food plums anywhere, so I had to use a combo of apples and plums - but that's really ok) then I made the bread, and only tasted 1 slice before he had almost all the rest of it. Amazing, the whole loaf didn't even last a full 3 days in our house! I knew I should have made 2 like the recipe called for instead of trying halve the recipe so that we didn't have too much. But oh, well, I guess I'll just have to make it again. Anyway, without further ado, I know you are all sitting on the edge of your seats waiting to see what this AMAZING recipe is, so here it is...

PLUM BREAD

2 SMALL JARS PLUM BABY FOOD (or any other fruity flavor you like)
2 CUPS SUGAR
2 CUPS SELF RISING FLOUR
3 EGGS
1 CUP WESSON OIL
1/2 TSP EACH CLOVES & NUTMEG
1 TSP EACH ALLSPICE & CINNAMON

MIX SUGAR & OIL, ADD EGGS, ADD FLOUR, ADD SPICES ADD PLUMS BAKE 1 HOUR 10 MIN AT 350

(MAKES 2 LOAVES, OR ONE BUNDT PAN)

Now that I have successfully made Banana Bread and Plum Bread, my next bread adventure is going to be Pumpkin Bread (recipe courtesy of my friend, Rachel). I plan to make this one next week and bring it to our Thanksgiving dinner. I'll let you know how it turned out and post the recipe after Thanksgiving.

Me, baking?!? What's the occasion?

2008-11-04T11:53:00.011-05:00

Well, there isn't one. I was just given several bananas today, and I can only eat so many. Usually in the summer I like to peel them, wrap them in tin foil and freeze the over ripe ones to use in smoothies. Mmmm... But it's not great smoothie weather to me now, so I thought I'd try my hand at making banana bread. Now, those of you who know me well, know that I have never baked any type of bread ever in my life, so of course I didn't have a bread loaf pan or half the ingredients, but I did have bananas, so I thought I'd go out on a limb and give it a try.

I found the recipe on myrecipes.com. It looked less complicated than the other ones I'd looked at and it was "lite" so I thought that was a plus. I printed out the recipe, went to the store to get the pan and ingredients I needed, and commenced baking after going to vote (where there was no line at all) and to yoga class. Oh, and 1 more thing, I read the reviews too and added a little more banana and a tsp of vanilla as suggested on one of the comments. I also had mentioned to someone (who's been to cooking school) that I was going to make this banana bread and he gave me a secret little tip. I'll share it with you... He said to add a tiny pinch of pepper to the dry ingredients and mix it up well before adding it to the wet ingredients. The pepper will enhance the good flavors in the bread and make the flavor burst in your mouth - but be careful you don't use a big pinch, just a tiny pinch. He also suggested adding a little apple sauce to the banana mixture (use the 2 bananas and and the apple sauce to make up a whole cup). Also you could substitute Splenda for the sugar if you want to make it even more low-fat. (but I didn't do that this time)

Here's the recipe I used (including my additions) if you want to try it. It was actually pretty easy (time consuming, but not too hard) and good too.

Ingredients
1 cup sugar
1 (8-ounce) package fat-free cream cheese
1 cup mashed ripe banana (about 2 medium bananas plus a little apple sauce)
1 tsp. vanilla
2 large eggs
2 cups reduced-fat baking mix (such as Bisquick - with a tiny pinch of pepper)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Cooking spray

Preparation
Preheat oven to 350°.
Place sugar and cream cheese in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add banana and eggs; beat until well blended. Add the baking mix and walnuts, and stir just until moist.
Pour batter into a 9-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray; bake at 350° for 45 minutes. Tent bread with foil, and bake an additional 15 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.

Nutritional Information
Calories: 161 (24% from fat)
Fat: 4.3g (sat 0.8g,mono 0.6g,poly 1.9g)
Protein: 4.6g
Carbohydrates: 26.7g
Fiber: 0.7g
Cholesterol: 28mg
Iron: 0.8mg
Sodium: 260mg
Calcium: 49mg

Yield
16 servings (serving size: 1 slice)

(Taken from Cooking Light, MAY 2003)

Well, I'm off to enjoy another slice of fresh, homemade (by me!!) banana bread. Happy fall baking, everyone!

Edited on 11/5/08 to add that I gave this recipe to a friend of mine yesterday and she made this last night too. She didn't add the apple sauce like I did, but used a 3rd banana instead, and she made it sugar free with Splenda, as well as cholesterol free with better 'n eggs instead of real eggs. I tasted a little of it this morning, and although it was different tasting than mine, it was really good too!

Last two October weekends catch-up and 50th post!

2008-11-03T10:29:00.004-05:00

Well, it's hard to believe that it's been over a year before I reached my 50th post. My goal this year is definitely to post more. I have had several random blog posts formulated in my head, but I really didn't think they were that "blog-worthy", so I haven't written them. And really the last 2 weekends in October were not all that "blog-worthy" either, but I felt like I had neglected my blog for too long, so it was time for a post, even if it's not all that exciting.

So I'll start with the 2nd to last weekend in October. On Friday October 24th David was invited to play in a charity pro-am golf tournament to raise money for the Triad Youth Golf Foundation (TYGF). He used to be involved in the foundation, teaching classes and giving lessons back when he worked as a Pro Golf Instructor. So it was nice for him to get to see all of the guys he used to work with again. He was paired up with Robert, his old college coach and former employer, and 2 other amateurs. They played pretty well. I'll let you go to his blog to read about all the details. But the end result is they finished fourth and still got a little prize for that. After the tournament, they had an awards dinner and silent auction for the golfers and families. So I joined David for that. The dinner wasn't anything special, but it was nice to meet his old coach and some of the people he used to spend a good bit of time with in the past. The awards were mostly for the kids that are a part of the TYGF, but they also gave out the 1st-4th place prizes before all that started. The prize David got was a $25 gift card to a nice local restaurant, The Village Tavern. Since we didn't have any plans for that Saturday, we decided we would have a "date night" and use the gift card. The dinner was really nice. We skipped the appetizers and just got two entrees and split a dessert. Afterwards we stopped by the video store to rent a movie, then went home to enjoy the rest of our "date night".

Oh this is worth mentioning - sorry I forgot on the day, but in between that weekend and the next, we celebrated my mother's birthday! David, Mom and Dad and I went out to O'Charlie's for dinner and a birthday celebration on Wednesday night (October 29th - her birthday). We had another good dinner and a great time.

Finally on to this past weekend. Again it wasn't all that exciting, but we did have a fun, relaxing weekend. On Friday evening (Halloween) I didn't want to be home in case kids came to the house trick-or-treating. I know, that's mean...but I didn't know how many (if any) would come and I didn't want to buy candy and then have to just eat it ourselves if no one came. So we planned to stay out all night. That evening we went shopping near the mall, then on to dinner at Bonefish Grill. We don't normally spend a lot of time on that side of town, so it had been a LONG while since we had been there for dinner. We left completely full and didn't even "technically" have a meal. We both got a cup of their spicy corn chowder with lump crab meat, and then split the best appetizer on the menu, the coconut fried shrimp with a tangy sweet citrus dipping sauce. And we finished that off with Creme Brulee for dessert. Mmmmm... After that we did a little more shopping, then on to the $2.50 movies for a hilarious comedy. We got in around 11pm...Mission accomplished! We both stayed out of the house the whole evening and had a great time!
Saturday morning I slept in. It was the 1st time in while that I was able to do that and it felt GREAT! Then I got up and went to the gym with David. We stayed around the house some, went shopping in town again, and then out to dinner at our favorite little Mexican restaurant. Like I said, nothing too exciting, but just a fun and relaxing weekend. I need some of those every once in a while. Now on to another busy, productive week...

A Couple of Appends

2008-10-10T14:29:00.005-04:00

Due to a new post by my husband (after I already posted mine) and a suggestion to expound on the last paragraph of my last post, I decided to post some appends. One main reason I wanted to append is so I could add a link to David's blog from his perspective of the Seafood Invitational. Now his blog is very golf oriented, so he is really just giving a review of and recounting the golf tournament from his experience, so if you are interested in reading about that, click here.

The other reason is that since I had felt that the original post was already getting too long, I basically just cut it off and didn't expound on the last few hours that we were in Morehead City.

First of all, I want to thank my WONDERFUL mother-in-law, Jane, and her husband, Everett for allowing us all to stay in their beautiful and picturesque home on the sound. And then thank them once again for taking us out to dinner so that we could get on the road with full bellies and not have to stop and buy gas station junk food.

Now the part that I need to expound on is the actual dinner. They did not take us to just any old pizza joint on the way out of town, but rather took us to a very nice place that is special to us in many ways. It's a little, fancy, authentic Italian restaurant on the main road in Morehead City called Pizzuti's. We both love Italian food, and not only does this place have great food, but a great atmosphere too along with fond memories for us. You see, Pizzuti's, in it's old location on Atlantic Beach, was the site of our wedding reception nearly 4 years ago. The restaurant owner, Gloria, was amazing that day. She not only let us use her entire resturant as the venue for our reception, but she also did all the decorating, catering, and even made the cake!
Last Sunday was the first time we have seen her since our wedding, so that was very special to us. The new restaurant is beautiful, but it's really the old building that will always be nostalgic to us.
Unfortunately I don't have any pictures to add in this appending post becuase I had packed the camera by this time, but you will just have to take my word for it (or go here and check out the site and other reviews), that it's an excellent place for some authentic Italian food down at the coast when you're ready for something other than fresh seafood.

NC Seafood Festival

2008-10-08T21:16:00.012-04:00

This past weekend, David, my mom and dad and I all went down to the beach for the 22nd annual Seafood Festival. David's mom was out of town, so we all stayed at her house. The Seafood Festival is the 2nd largest festival in North Carolina behind the State Fair. This is actually the 1st one I've ever been to and David and I have been together for 6 years now (including dating). But for some reason we just never made it down there on that weekend.

The main reason we went this time was because David had signed up to play in the Seafood Invitational Golf Tournament. This is the 1st time he has ever been able to play in this golf tournament too because until recently he has had professional golfer status, and this tournament was only for amateurs. Since sometime early this summer, when he got his amateur status back, David has been able to play in more tournaments than he ever has since I've known him. I'm glad he gets the opportunity now to do something he loves. So all that was to say that the reason we all went this year to the Seafood Festival was for David to play in this particular tournament.

It was a packed weekend for all of us. David knew that he would be spending most of the days at the golf course, so he suggested we bring along someone else for me to hang out with and go to the festival during the day while he was unavailable. It worked out great that my parents were available and wanted to go. David went down on Thursday evening and was able to play in a skins golf game (where each hole is counted as a "separate game" and prize $ can be won for the person who wins the hole) He played one hole exceptionally well, and won $50.00!

My parents and I came down Friday afternoon, just in time for me to get ready and go to the hors d'oeuvres and seafood social for golfers and their significant others. It was nice and the food was good, but just not quite enough to fill us up. However, we did get to meet a few other people our age and make friends.

After we left the country club, David and I went over to the 1st night of the Seafood Festival to walk around and listen to the bands. The main band that played that night was an 80's music band called The Breakfast Club. They were actually really good and the 80's music was fun.

The next day David had to leave the house early for his tee time, so my parents and I slept in a little and then mom and I spent special girl time together on the beach, sitting in low chairs with the waves washing over our feet and legs. We did try to get in, but it was too cold to go past our thighs. We went back to the house for lunch and that afternoon did some shopping in Beaufort and Atlantic Beach. We had decided to steer clear of the festival on this day as it is the busiest day to go and my dad isn't too fond of very large crowds.

Then that evening David and I had another special event for the golfers and guests at the country club. This time it was an outdoor fish fry. We enjoyed the food and socializing before heading off to the Seafood festival in the evening again. This time they were having beach music and fireworks and we were meeting up with David's dad and brother. We stayed for a couple of hours and then headed home. (There really wasn't as much to see at night as during the day as I would find out the following day)

Sunday morning we all got up early and met David's dad and brother and his girlfriend and her daughter for breakfast before they hit the road. David had a later tee time, so he was able to be with us this time. My parents and I left before he did so we could head over to the festival and catch the 1st tour of the Navy ship docked in the harbor. One of the attractions of the festival this year were a few military ships that you could tour. They had a HUGE Navy ship, and a very tiny (compared to the Navy ship) Coast Guard boat, and belive it or not, an Army boat. I know what you're thinking, the Army doesn't have boats, it's the military on land! Yeah, that's what I thought too. But, I learned something new. The Army does in deed have boats to transport troops, food, supplies, etc... And there are actually military men and women that are stationed on the boats verses on land.

My parents and I toured the Navy ship and the Army boat before catching a tram to the main part of the Seafood Festival. The tour was very interesting. Here are some pictures I took of, on, and from both of the boats. As soon as we got to the main road the festival was on, we stopped at the first tent we saw selling seafood to eat lunch. The 3 of us split a plate of Mahi Mahi and some Aligator nuggets (not really that good, but you have to try something new, right?) After refueling our bodies and rehydrating, we walked along the street dodging people in every direction and poping into every tent that looked interesting. Dad soon tired of looking at all the merchant's wares and went ahead to visit our family friend, Grady, who lives in the nursing home right on the waterfront. Mom and I continued our browsing and shopping and joined him for about 1/2 an hour of visiting. It was actually nice to get into the air conditioning for a while.
This little stand is where David used to work as a kid, so I just had to get a picture of it.
When we left Grady's place, we walked into a tent right outside of his nursing home called the Chef's tent. They were talking all about shellfish and gave out samples of steamed clams and clam chowder...mmmm...oh, and we also got free Pepsi, just when we were starting to get a little parched again - perfect timing. By this time I was ready to find something sweet - I've gotta have something sweet after having salty. It's just a fact of life :) So we came across a booth selling frozen cheesecake on a stick dipped in real milk chocolate, and had to have some. Now that was delicious! It was definitely the culinary highlight of the festival - but the fish was good too. (I have to add that in since it was a festival about seafood)

While we were still savoring the chocolately cheesecake, we happened upon an interesting little hat stand. The title caught my attention - "Crushable Hats" and then also the part about "stays on in up to 40 mph" They were such cute straw hats, and so practical that we just all had to get one for the beach, boats, anywhere we would be outside. Here's me and my dad in our new hats.

We made our way back to the tram stop to take us back to the car, and I snapped this picture while we were walking by this famous restaurant. It was just such a great photo op, I couldn't pass it up.

Once we were back at the house, we rested and cleaned up a little. Then my parents headed home. A few hours later, David returned from the golf course, bearing the evidence of his win - a wooden duck (as well as a $250.00 gift certificate to the CC pro shop) - but this was not just any wooden duck. It was a hand crafted, authentic Core Sound decoy used for hunting that is worth hundreds of dollars as well. Now, if you know us at all, you know we care nothing for hunting, but I guess David is just going to keep it as his trophy.

Anyway, I took these above sunset pictures, and we finished up the evening when David's mom and her husband returned and took us out to dinner on our way out of town. As we were driving back home, I was thinking back on the trip and how we managed to squeeze so many activities into one trip. It was a full but fun weekend.

Happy Anniversary...

2008-09-23T10:09:00.003-04:00

To my BLOG!!! It's hard to believe that it's been a year of blog posting for me now - not an extremely consistent year, I must confess, but a year none the less. I haven't even blogged as many as one post a week, but I definitely have posted more than once a month, so that's good. It averages out to a little more than 3 times a month. But that's not what's important. The important thing is that I have hit a major milestone, and I have stuck with it for a whole year now, and I intend to continue with it for more years to come and hopefully post more than 46 times in 1 year :) However, I have a really good feeling about this upcoming year and I'm sure there will be lots of great events to blog about as I continue my journey...

Happy Birthday Wishes & Opa!!

2008-09-22T18:23:00.009-04:00

On Saturday my friend, Rachel's daugher, Emma, was having a 2yr old birthday celebration at their house and I was invited! She was so cute and just loved all her gifts.

Also Rachel went all out decorating the house for her party. She's so creative. Look at what a beautiful decorating job she did just in this little corner of the house.

We first opened presents, then had dinner and after that we sang happy birthday and she blew out her candles. She loves to blow, and it was so cute watching her. This is the best picture I could get of her blowing out her candles.

Here she is with her 4 yr old brother, Collin, playing with some of her new toys.

What a sweet little 2 yr old birthday girl.

After the party, I met up with David and we went somewhere entirely different. The local Greek Orthodox Church was having it's annual Greek Festival, and we had never been, so we decided we'd go check it out this time. It was actually a lot of fun. We tried all different kinds of Greek food and pastries. Some were really good and others I wouldn't get again. But the best part besides the fun atmosphere were the Greek dancers. They were doing the Opa! dance and were very good. Then this very old man came out with a cane and a foot brace and threw the cane down to pick up a wine goblet filled with wine and balance it on his head while dancing. It was amazing! He actually danced better than he walked. Anyway, we had a fun saturday with both celebrations.

Lazy Lake Dayz

2008-09-19T21:43:00.014-04:00

After all our summer beach trips a few weeks ago we went down to Robert & Kim's lake house for a family reunion with all the family on David's mom's side of the family (Mostly her husband, Everett's family) Robert is his son, and he and his wife, Kim have built a big, beautiful vacation house out on a lake near Southern Pines. You know it's a big house when you have 12 adults, 6 kids and 1 dog all staying together and not even feeling over crowded! The 12 adults consisted of me and David, David's mom, Jane, her husband, Everett, his 2 sons Robert, and Jule and their respective wives, Kim and Tara, Everett's sister-in-law, Kathy, and her husband, Ian, Everett's, sister, Linda, and their mom, Margaret. The 6 kids ranged from age 10 or 11 to 4 months (that's right, 2 of those kids were tiny babies!) That was fun to spend the weekend getting to hold the babies too. We had a wonderful time, just hanging out with family and relaxing with the peaceful lake just out the back door. Here are some of the pictures of us hanging out in the house.

The laughing picture and the picture around the fire were activities that Everett's sister, Linda, came up with. She is a psychiatrist, so she was pretending to hypnotize the 3 people in the chair, but she had really put black stuff on the bottom of the bottles they're holding and they were unknowingly rubbing it on their faces! It was so funny. Then she took the kids outside and we had a little Indian ceremony around the fire.

It was good practice for David to hold the baby since he hasn't spent much time around babies at all. I think he's a natural, don't you? ;)

While the guys played golf on Saturday afternoon, us girls went shopping. In the next picture of me and David together, you'll see the new pants I got.

Most of the following day it rained, so we stayed in and took these pictures.

When it finally did stop raining we were able to go out in the boat for a while before going home. Robert and Kim and Tara and all the kids (including the babies) and Kathy and the dog and David and I all went out on the boat for spin on the lake to see the houses and for some of us to ride on the "Hot Dog". I wasn't going to pass up a turn to be pulled behind the boat on the hot dog float, so the oldest girl, Morgan, and I rode on it after all the other kids had had a turn.

We had so much fun spending the weekend at the lake and very much appreciate Robert and Kim's generous hospitality.

The Beach Pictures Slide Show

2008-09-09T00:53:00.005-04:00

Yay! I did it! My 1st slide show. It wasn't hard at all!

Here are the pictures that go with the post below. They should show up in order of the beach trips I talked about. Some of them have captions so just mouse over the picture if you want to see the caption, or you can click anywhere in the slide show and it will take you to another window where you can see them easier. Enjoy!
P.S. - Helpful Hint - if you are done looking at the slide show and want to stop the music so you can hear any other videos on this blog, you can just click on the little speaker symbol at the top right.

Nearing Summer's End

2008-09-08T22:38:00.005-04:00

Well, my intention was to write this post on Labor day since that really marks the unofficial end of summer - even though as of now I think we have a couple more weeks officially. Anyway, that's not the point of this post. I wanted to use this one post to incorporate all our summer beach trips. David's family lives at Atlantic beach, so whenever we go to the beach, that's where we go.
This year we actually got to go 3 times (the most in the summer we've been since we got married). Usually we are too busy to get down there much when it's so crowded in the summer, but this year, we made the time, and it was great!

The 1st summer beach trip we took was on the 4th of July. We stayed with David's mom this time and went down to the harbor to watch fireworks. Then the day after the fourth, our friends Marty and Amanda came down to stay with us for a couple of days as well. It was so great to have them there, even though that was the weekend they broke the news to us that they were moving to Michigan in 2 weeks! (We have gotten a chance to see them since then - they came down to visit us in August) Anyway we had a wonderful time with them and since they love sailing, we went down to the harbor at Beaufort to walk around and look at all the HUGE boats. It was a very special time spent with them.

Then the next beach trip was actually just me and my family. My parents have a friend who let us stay in his beach condo (which just happens to be right down the road from David's dad at the same beach). Now staying in a condo right on the beach has a much different feel to me than staying at either one of David's parent's places since they both overlook the sound, not the ocean.
It was a really nice change to stay somewhere for a few days where you could just sit on the balcony and hear the waves crashing and watch the seagulls circling above. That was a very enjoyable time too. Kind of like when we were kids and used to take family vacations all together - My brother and I bunking in the same room on twin beds and my parents in the other room, but all sharing 1 shower. We were able to spend some precious family time together that we really haven't had in years. I'm so glad it worked out for both my brother and I to be able to go on this beach trip with my parents. Aside from the time spent on the beach, swimming, sun tanning, throwing frisbee and just walking, we also had the opportunity to do another really cool thing that none of us had ever done before. Dad chartered a boat and we took half the day on Monday to go deep sea fishing! Since we only went for half a day we just went 5 miles out, but that was far enough to catch 45 lbs of spanish and king mackerel! The boat we went on was called the Beagle because the captain breeds beagles and always brings one on board with him. We had an awesome 1st mate, Davis, who helped us catch tons of fish, and we also invited David's dad to come with us. The 5 of us had a blast! The 1st hour and half we were reeling in fish left and right, but then the rest of the time they just stopped biting. I think we only got 3 in the last 3 hours. But it was fun regardless. We brought back a lot of fish and have still been enjoying them even now a month later.

The last summer beach trip we took was a couple of weeks ago - Labor Day weekend. That wasn't as packed a trip as the one I went on with my family, so I got a lot more relaxing in then. That was really nice too. Also David had a great time because he got to get out on the golf course every day we were there. I even went with him and his dad 1 time and rode in the cart for 9 holes at a newish course in Beaufort. It was actually a really pretty course and I saw lots of wildlife while we were out there (well, mostly birds - but they were big birds, cranes and herons, I think) Anyway, I have pictures of the guys, the course and the birds.

We are going to go back in several weeks again (but that will technically not be summer anymore although it will still be warm) David is going to be playing in a golf tournament for the annual Seafood Festival in the beginning of October. It's actually the second largest festival in the state of North Carolina, and I've never been. So I am really looking forward to seeing, smelling and tasting all that this festival has to offer as well as cheering David on in the tournament.
But more on all that after the event. This post was about recapping summer beach trips only, so I guess that about wraps it up.

I really took too many pictures of all these trips to be able to put here in this one post, so I think I'll just put them into a slide show and try to make a new post with the slides soon. I've never done a photo slide show, but people do them all the time so it can't be too hard. I know you want to see the photos, so I'll work on getting it up...wish me luck :)

Hangin' at the Horse Farm

2008-08-10T16:23:00.013-04:00

Toward the end of June, some business associates of ours gave us the opportunity to enjoy their beautiful and serene horse farm for the day. David and I and some of the other leaders got there early to cook breakfast for our friends and associates who were driving in from New York for this play day at the farm and a meeting later that afternoon. We had a beautiful day for playing outside and touring the farm. After breakfast some people played football, some played basketball, some played volley ball, some walked around the farm and petted the horses, and some just hung out on the deck enjoying the peaceful day. Later in the day some of the guys braved the pond water and went swimming as well. But one of the most fun things we did besides just hanging out and building friendships was taking a golf cart tour of the whole farm. Here are some pictures I took around the farm.

Fun in Florida (and South Georgia)

2008-08-08T13:18:00.012-04:00

Some time in June David and I took a business trip down to Orlando, Florida. Now our business trips are never boring, but if you have to go anywhere for business, Florida is great place! We left on Friday afternoon and drove all the way to Jacksonville. We stayed in a practically empty hotel that night and left the next morning to head to Orlando. We met up with some new business associates at the exquisite Gaylord Palms Resort for a lunch and a huge expo. Then from there we drove over to Disney Village and walked around the shops. It was soo hot we had to stop in a giant music store for smoothies in their cafe.

David and I drove back to Jacksonville that night and had a wonderful dinner all by ourselves in the hotel restaurant - we were literally the only people in the entire restaurant. We had planned to leave to head home just after lunch the next day, but since we were so close to a Florida beach (Ponte Vedra Beach) I convinced David that we should just go for an hour or so before we leave. So we did get a chance to swim in the ocean and lay out for a little while before showering and heading home.

Since we weren't on a very tight time schedule coming home, we decided to stop and tour the hotel and grounds of the historic Jekyll Island Club. It was beautiful and very interesting as well. I won't write all about the history of it since it is so well put on the link above. There are also some great pictures in the photo galleries on that site, but here are a few that we took as well.

A Lovely Ladies Weekend

2008-08-07T09:31:00.009-04:00

Around the same time as the Memorial Day activities, we also had a Ladies Leadership Retreat with many different aspects. Aside from the awesome conference part, there were 3 other events that are definitely worth recounting.

It was such a wonderful weekend. The first night there was a special, intimate banquet to recognize a couple of ladies for acheiving a fairly big goal. We all dressed up in our cocktail dresses or evening gowns and had a lovely catered dinner and ceremony.

Then as soon as that was over, we rushed back to change into our pajamas for a girls only PJ party. It was like old school, only better. The food there was amazing too. Even though I had just eaten a nice dinner, I just had to make room for the carnival-themed food - caramel apples (that you dip yourself) theatre style popcorn, big soft pretzels, and cotton candy! No, I didn't have some of everything, but I did have to have one of those caramel apples. They just looked sooo good. We had a blast hanging out in our PJ's and being girls. Some ladies played games, some painted fingernails, and the rest of us just chatted. But when it came time for a group dance lesson, we all joined in. It was so much fun to learn a new dance and look silly trying to do the moves all together. The night ended with a really sweet, old fashioned, bed time story that just melted your heart. What a special time for us ladies to spend together.

Amanda and I roomed together and stayed up talking late into the night. Then we awoke pretty early and drove to a local gym for a volleyball tournament. I was actually one of the women chosen to play. Now I hadn't really played volleyball competitively since I was teenager (and even then I was only average) but we did play well as a team and our team ended up winning!

After the game, we had Back Yard Burger cater a cook out for all of us. Then it was off to the room for naps before the conference session began. It was such a great weekend - One of the best Ladies Leadership Retreats ever. It'll be hard to top next year.

Recapping Memorial Day Weekend

2008-08-06T23:20:00.005-04:00

I know that was about 3 months ago, but I didn't want it to go by without mentioning it. We actually had a really great weekend. On Memorial Day David and I went hiking at Hanging Rock State Park. It was actually the 1st time David had ever been. It is only a mile to the top, but it felt like more becuase some parts were rather strenuous for us novice hikers. But as always the view from the top was all worth it. Here are some pictures of that trip.

Also that weekend we were invited to our friend's dad's house out on Lake Norman. The guys played golf while Allanna and I rollerbladed the neighborhood. When we had all finished our athletic activities, her dad took us out on the boat to see all the gorgeous houses on the lake front. I absolutely love being out on the water, so I had a wonderful time. David and I stayed for barbqued ribs and corn on the cob, then we headed back home before it was too late.

Rockin' Rodger

2008-07-21T23:08:00.009-04:00

Back in the middle of May, David and I went with my brother, Michael, and my mom to my dad's work's Annual City Picnic. This year's picnic not only featured great bar-b-que, but an ametuer, although very talented, live band - led by none other than my father. He used to be quite a heart throb in a band back in Africa in his day. Here's a little snippet of his debut performance with the band they called "CSI" - City Staff Infection! I know, I know...what a name!! Anyway, they were really good and everyone loved the music.

I really wanted to show this video right after we saw them, but this was part of the reason I fell so far behind in my blog posts. I didn't want to go out of order and I didn't want to add this post without the video. But the last time I tried to add a video it was a nightmare, so I just kept putting it off and I ended up nearly 3 months behind. But that is all in the past. I am posting it now and that's all that matters. I hope you enjoy my dad rockin' the oldies. I was so proud of him : )

Here are a couple of pictures of us enjoying the concert and picnic.

Slowly Catching Back Up

2008-07-21T23:03:00.002-04:00

Before I changed this blog direction and template and actaully started adding post without pictures, I had fallen behind in several points of my journey over the past few months that I still do want to post about. But I am not going to feel pressured to having to post them all at once right now, so this is just a quick post to let you know that over this next uneventful week I will be slowly adding posts to catch up on the events I missed recounting.

The Goodbye Game

2008-07-21T22:26:00.007-04:00

This past Friday night was our best friend's, Marty and Amanda's last night in Greensboro. As a last fun thing for several of us to do together with them, we went to the local baseball game. The next day they would be at their new home in the far-away state of Michigan, where Marty is from. Since it was also going to be the last time for a while that Amanda would see her parents (who live in Virginia), they also came in for the game. There they are behind baby, Trey.

It was a beautiful night for a baseball game. I got there about 20 mins after it started and the score was 4 to 0, with our team winning. It wasn't a very exciting game since the score never changed from the time I got there till it was over, but we did have a great time getting to hang out with our friends. Here is the gang sitting on the lawn in the outfield. This is about the best picture I could get of David and Marty, as they refused to "pose" for a picture. Oh well, I'll just have to make sure and get a really good one of them when they come to visit.

Here's all us girls saying bye to Amanda.

WE'LL MISS YOU GUYS SOOO MUCH!!

A Batman Blessing in Disguise

2008-07-20T22:48:00.003-04:00

Yesterday David I were in Charlotte. Part of the reason we went all the way there was to see the new Batman movie on Imax. David had never been to any Imax movie, and when he found out that Batman was playing on the Imax in Charlotte, he bought tickets online and we drove the hour and half to the Discovery Place to experience Batman on Imax.
Some of David's friends had advised him to get there early to make sure we had seats in the back row, as those are actually the best seats in the house for Imax. So we arrived just after 11am for a 12pm movie and got in line at the Will Call window. We noticed all the other people at Will Call had printed confirmations with them, but David said that when he bought the tickets it didn't say to print it, but just to show up at Will Call. Once we got up to the window we were sure that all we would have to do was give them our name and they would give us our tickets. Well, that's the way it should have worked. However, after searching their computer system multiple times, they told us that they could not find our name anywhere on the list. So they got another lady to try looking us up a different way. But again, to no avail.
David was doing a very good job at keeping his cool, but I could tell he was getting rather upset. He proceeded to tell them that he had already been billed for the tickets, so they either needed to give him the tickets or give him a refund. Finally, they got another different guy to look up the credit card number this time to see if it matched any transaction. We thought for sure that this would work. But alas, no matches.
We were both starting to get a little perturbed at this point. We had just driven all the way to Charlotte to come to this movie and they couldn't let us in. We tried a different approach. If they could just let us use the Internet we could print the confirmation email or even a bank statement showing the transaction. They just responded that they did not have email access in the building at all, but if we wanted to go across the street, there is a library where can use the Internet.
By now it was nearly quarter till the time the movie was to start and David was saying that at this point he didn't even want to go. The line to get into the theater was wrapping around the building and there was no way we would get good seats now. But I had bottled up my anger with the situation for so long while we stood at the counter, that I just had to let it out. I burst through the front doors and just started walking off the frustration. While we were at the ticket counter, I had said a quick prayer that God would just let all this work out, but at this point it didn't seem like anything was going to happen.
Well, as I was walking off my frustration, I walked right into the library, so I figured we might as well use the Internet to print off the confirmation or statement or something so we could at least prove the transaction and get a refund. A very sweet and helpful girl working in the library let us use a computer station after hearing our story and even paid 10 cents for the print out of the confirmation since neither of us came prepared with even a penny on us - and they don't take cards at the library, of course.
With the confirmation in hand we practically ran back to the ticket counter and got the man's attention who had tried to find our credit card number earlier. David handed him the confirmation. But when he looked up the number, he said that it came up with different name, Michelle Bryant. What?!? Their system had messed up the confirmation, and it was their fault not ours that we had just gone through this whole fiasco. David explained that we had purposely gotten here early so that we could get a good seat, and by the looks of the line, we are not going to now, so we would just like a refund. The man behind the counter was very nice and assured us that if we still wanted to see the movie today, he would not only give us tickets, but take us up the back way to the top of the theater and make sure we had good seats. We agreed as long as we really could get the seats we had gotten their early to get.
First he tried to take us up the elevator, but every time he pushed the button, it never moved. Now this is just getting funny how many things are going wrong. But at least we weren't stuck. We just had to run the stairs to get up there. We finally made it into the theater, and there on the very back row, two seats from the right side, were two empty seats that just seemed to be waiting for us - the best seats in the house! AMAZING! God really did answer our prayers and not only got us into the movie so we didn't have a wasted trip, but got us the best seats in the theater. It was truly a blessing in disguise and a little test of patience as well :)
By the way, the movie was excellent. It was really cool seeing it in Imax, but some of the action scenes seemed too close and hard to follow sometimes. I do think Imax is best for nature themed movies instead of action movies. However, the coolest part of the Batman movie in Imax was feeling like you were flying with him over Gotham city. Overall it was a good experience in the end and we will definitely go back to see something else in Imax someday - only this time we will carry a printed confirmation with us. :)

Saved by the "Flat Tire" Rule

2008-07-01T11:59:00.004-04:00

I just learned about a new thing today called the "Flat Tire" rule.
David is supposed to go to NY for business today. He is going to stay overnight and come back tomorrow around lunchtime. Well, his flight was out of a city a little over an hour away, and he had to leave by 4am to get to the airport on time. We were both up late. He was out meeting with some of his business partners, and I was at home catching up on Facebook and being a domestic goddess :) doing laundry, dishes etc. - getting ready for us to go to the beach - YAY!
Anyway, he was just going to take a nap for a few hours before he had to leave. I thought for sure I'd wake up when his alarm went off and say bye to him when he left, but I never heard the alarm, and apparently neither did he (or it just didn't go off - not sure what happened). I woke up a little before 7am and rolled over remembering that I would have the whole bed to myself this morning. But when I started to stretch my legs over to his side, I kicked him. What?!? He's not suppsosed to be here now! I said, "David! You never left!!" He got up so quickly and started calling the airline becuase there was no way he could make the flight - it was leaving in 5 minutes in a completely different city. The airline told him he would have to buy a new ticket and pay a change fee plus the difference in the cost of the tickets. I knew that there had to be another way. So I stayed in bed praying that God would make a way, and he came back in to tell me that he was just going to go there and try to fly standby. I told him that was the best idea and that I knew it would all work out.
Anyway, a few hours later I got a text from him saying he was saved by the "flat tire" rule. I misunderstood and thought he had gotten a flat tire too! OH NO! But thank goodness he hadn't. He said he would explain later, but instead I did some research online and found out that the "flat tire" rule is an unofficial rule that has been used by airlines for a long time. Many airlines are trying to get rid of that rule that says they will put you on the next available flight at no extra charge if you miss your flight due to circumstances out of your control, such as a flat tire. However, since the rule is unofficial, it is mostly up to the discretion of the airline ticket person (that's the technical term :)
So because we have God's favor, he received the mercy of the ticket person and was saved by the "flat tire" rule.
Right now he is already in Philly and should be leaving in a couple of hours for NY. So it all worked out very well in the end - I knew it would.

A New Focus

2008-06-30T14:03:00.004-04:00

Ok, so I know it has been a very looong while since I last posted anything. But I have lately been thinking a lot about my blog and the direction I wanted it to go. I really like what I had, but I felt a little too limited in what I posted. Plus I felt very obligated to have pictures with every post.
In many ways, I can be a bit of a perfectionist, so if I couldn't take the time to make a "perfect" post, I just put it off. But now since it's been nearly 2 months since the last post, I decided to change the focus. I will still post about the same type of things, as these are part of my journey, but I will also have a little bit more freedom to write about other things I encounter on this life journey.
The inspiration for the new title, look, and purpose came from a conversation my husband and I recently had. I was becoming a little bit discontent with the same-ness of this season of my life and was expressing to him the frustration that I felt like I was ready for a different season, a new chapter. I was wishing I were closer to the destination I had in mind, when he gently reminded me that our lives are not about reaching a destination, but about enjoying the journey. Of course I had heard that before, as you probably have, but for some reason this time it stuck with me and I have been pondering it for a while. I am making it a daily goal to be content with this part of my journey, however long it will be, while I'm on the way to the next season in my life. I will only live this day once, so today and forever I am just enjoying the journey.

Dancing the Night Away...

2008-05-03T00:32:00.009-04:00

On Friday night David and I got a chance to hang out with our friends, Shawn & Christina at a dance club...now, I know what you're thinking...it's not that kind of club :) It was a Beach Music Shag Dancing Club. Christina and her partner, Ricky, have both been shag dancing since they were in middle school, and they were in a competition at this dance club tonight, so we decided to come out and watch and cheer them on. There were some pretty good dancers in the competition, but none as good as they were. They are actually this year's national champions in their division. I got their whole dance on video, so you can see for yourself - they were by far the best - just look at that fancy footwork! I was very impressed. Check out the video below - They're AWESOME!

April in Review

2008-04-30T01:09:00.004-04:00

I just realized how behind I have gotten again in posting, and how much I had to catch up on, so the following is just going to be a series of posts to catch you up on what we've been doing in the month of April - it's been pretty busy, but a lot of fun too. I tried to write these in the order they happened so you can just scroll down from top to bottom instead of trying to read up this time. Enjoy catching up...

An Impactful Weekend

2008-04-30T00:56:00.007-04:00

On the 1st weekend of April, we went out of town for a huge conference with some amazing guest speakers. We got a ton of information to help us grow our business, and got to hear from and get really close to some of the most sought after speakers in the world right now. Have you ever seen or heard of the movie, "The Pursuit of Happyness"? Well, that movie is about a guy named Chris Gardner (who is portrayed in the movie by Will Smith), and his struggle from being literally homeless to a millionaire or billionaire now. It's a very touching movie, but it makes it even more real when you can actually see and hear him in person. Here's the best picture I could get of him. On top of that amzing speaker, we also had one of the best leadership speakers and writers come and talk to as well - John Maxwell! He started out by saying that, "Yeah, the other day when I was speaking to the president of such and such country, and the top executives of IBM..." and I was thinking, "and now here he is talking to ME!" It was very cool to hear from him. I tried to get a good picture, but this is the best I got. You can google him if you want to find a better one.

Anyway, it was an awesome weekend and very impactful in many ways.

"Take Me Out To The Ball Game..."

2008-04-30T00:46:00.004-04:00

While David's dad was visiting us for the weekend of David's birthday, we decided to spend Saturday evening at baseball field. We ate traditional, bad for you ball park food, and enjoyed the game even though our home team lost. But that was made up for with the fireworks at the end! They really were amazing - even better than the grand finale on the 4th of July. They just had a constant stream with no breaks for about 5 minutes! It was a fun evening.

Surprise!! - David's 30!!

2008-04-30T00:27:00.007-04:00

April 13th, 30 years ago a little baby boy named David was born, and April 13th 2008 we all celebrated that day with a suprise birthday party for him! Now just so you know, David is a very perceptive person, and he was very suspicious of the surprise the closer his birthday came. I will tell you, however, that I did a really great job of not letting the cat out of the bag so to speak. But with the nature of our busy lives and our business, it wasn't too hard to suspect something. I had arranged for his dad to come up and spend the weekend with us, and I had Marty book the clubhouse theater at his place so that he and David could watch the Masters (golf tournament) on the big screen. I was wondering how we were going to pull this off without him knowing, so we came up with an alternate plan. Since he had an idea that when he got to the clubhouse, there would be a bunch of people there to "surprise" him, we all hid outside the clubhouse by the pool instead. So when he walked in, there was no one and no decorations or anything in the theater.

Then we had one of his friends get him outside the front door to give him something for a few minutes while we all came in the back door with balloons and decorations. We brought out all the food and put up all the decorations in 2 minutes, so when he walked back in we all yelled, "SURPRISE!!!" And he was actually surprised! He just kept saying, "I was just in here, and there was no one here, and now all this!?!" It was really a great way to surprise him.

Rockin' out to MAE

2008-04-30T00:07:00.007-04:00

In the middle of the week last week, David and I decided to go see the last show of this tour of one of our favorite bands, MAE. They played at a small club downtown, so we spent the evening rockin' out to some other bands that opened for them. Then when MAE took the stage, they really stole the show - they were awesome! See for yourself...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Int6b00tp5g This opening was filmed at the show we were at, and the camera was literally right behind us, so what you see is exactly what we saw. We got some really cool tee shirts, and had a great time. I actually know the drummer in the band (we went to church together a long time ago and I hadn't seen him since - until I discovered he was the drummer in this band! - he's the one on the right in the picture above) So after the show, we went up to the stage to talk to him and see if he even remembered me. I was very surprised that he did! And he was super nice. Obviously we didn't have much time to catch up right then, but he did give us access to a special after show acoustic concert they were doing up on the roof. So we got to sit a couple of feet from them with only about 20 other people on top of the roof in the middle of the city with them taking requests and playing acoustic versions of their songs for about another hour. It was really cool.

A Golfing Goodbye

2008-04-29T23:28:00.004-04:00

Since our good friend, Bill, is moving far away in 2 weeks so he can be close to his girl, the guys decided they would all get together and bid him farewell with a game of golf. Now, as you know, David is a really good golfer, and a few of the other guys are good (some better than others) but a couple of the guys had never played before and so haven't had a chance to become good yet. So they played 4 on 4, with the 2 really good golfers paired with the 1st time golfers, and the other 4 was a team of average golfers. They played captain's choice (which, if you are like me and had no idea what that means, it is just everyone hits their ball, but then they score from the best ball of each hit) I'm sure when David reads this he is going to think that's a very elementary way to describe it, but I am not the golf pro so that will have to do. Anyway, some of the 1st time golfers shots were actually the best ball on a couple of holes, so that combined with the sheer skill and talent of my amazing golfing husband won them the match...they then went to B-Dub's (Buffalo Wild Wings) to celebrate with the losing team buying the winning team lunch. They all had a great time and David even took some really good pictures. Here are a few of the best ones. It was a good way to say goodbye to Bill. WE WILL MISS YOU, BILL!

Golden Birthday Celebrations

2008-03-30T22:04:00.007-04:00

March 28th was my golden birthday, meaning I turned 28 on the 28th. My birthday celebrations started when we got back from the beach last weekend. David took me out to dinner and gave me my 1st birthday gift early (an iPod Shuffle in red) since he was going to be out of town on my birthday weekend. He left on Thursday afternoon, and didn't get back until 10:30 Saturday night. So at midnight on Thursday, I called him and opened my card with him on the phone. He is so sweet and creative. Becuase inside the card was the 1st clue of 10 that took me on a scavenger hunt around the house to end up at a little gold box tucked away inside a shoe. Inside the box was this little sailboat charm that I had been eyeing since Thanksgiving! It was just what I needed to commemorate our sailing trip to Charleston in October of 2006. I really wasn't expecting anything else from him, since he had gotten me so many of the beautiful decorative accents for the house (that you can see a few posts below) plus the really cool iPod) But he surprised me again and surpassed my expectations. What a wonderful hubby!!

Then on my birthday evening, my best friend since I was 12, Rachel, invited me over to her house to have dinner with her and her family. Here she is with her youngest, Emma...isn't she cute!?! And her son, Collin, was also VERY cute. He was so excited that I was coming over and told me that he had made me a card and they made a cake too! When I arrived, there was a whole corner of the table dedicated to my birthday! I felt so special. Anyway, we had a delicious dinner, and great time visiting...Thanks, Rachel! You really are a great friend! Rachel got me a cookbook for my birthday since I am trying to be more domesticated and cook more meals at home. :)

Then she showed me some really cool stuff on the computer that I can incorporate into my blog posts. So you'll see some of that stuff coming soon. Oh yeah, and also she showed me how to change the template. Like it? David and I really do...this is more us I think. Well after dinner and messing on the computer, we had dessert and watched a movie...I didn't leave til after 12! But I did have a really great time.

The next day I celebrated with my parents at brunch. As I mentioned earlier, they had given me our comforter set as an early birthday present, so this picture is what my brother gave me (even though he couldn't be there either) to go in the bedroom and match the comforter. Also the really cute turquoise bag on the table was part of my birthday gift from David's mom.

That evening, another good friend, Amanda, and I went out to a nice dinner to celebrate some more. She got me a cute little necklace from a boutique called Girl Stuff. We had a great time dining together, and the restaurant even brought out a large piece of chocolate cake since they heard it was my birthday. Then at 10:30 I went to airport to pick my hubby up and we spent the rest of the evening curled up on the couch watching a movie....What a great Golden Birthday!

Tourists for a Day part 2

2008-03-27T09:39:00.024-04:00

The 1st place we went in Beaufort was to the Maritime Museum. Here are the guys engrossed in one of the exhibits. I do have to admit though it is pretty cool that they believe the infamous pirate, Black Beard's ship was recovered in my husband's home town.
The other touristy thing we did in Beaufort besides walk along the harbor waterfront was get old fashioned ice cream at the general store...Mmmm, Mmmm, that was good....

Beaufort is such a pretty, quaint town. Here are a couple of picures at the harbor.

From there we drove back over the bridge to Atlantic Beach again and took a tour of Fort Macon. As with all the other places we went that day, I had been there before as well, but not in a long time because they had added lots more to the fort also. Of course the same structure remained, but they had renovated some more of the old living quarters and added exhibits that showed more of how the soldier's life was in the fort back then. Here are some pictures of us exploring the fort. David said that when he was younger in the winter when there were no tourists, he and some friends would play hide and seek at this fort...Now that's a pretty sweet place to play as a kid.

It was after 5pm when we finished our tourist activities of the day and I convinced David and Bill that since it was probably the only really nice day we would have all weekend that we should go for a walk on the beach as well since we were at the beach and all. Well, it worked out really well that David's brother, Doug, had just arrived with his dog, Jake, and since Jake had been cooped up all day, he needed a walk. I volunteered to take him, and off we all went again - me, Jake, David and Bill. David had the camera this time since I had the dog, and he took some great pictures too.

After our walk, we got cleaned up and went over to David's mom's house for dinner. As I have probably mentioned before, they have an AWESOME view from their back porch of the entire sound - not to mention gorgeous sunsets. Here are some pictures taken on their back porch.

Well, that about wraps up the pictures. On Easter Sunday, it was much cooler and windier, so we stayed inside most of the time and had a very lazy day. Overall, it was one of the most fun trips I have had to the beach for Easter.

Tourists for a Day part 1

2008-03-26T23:58:00.023-04:00

This Easter David and I went down to visit his family in Atlantic Beach, NC. We try to make it down there for at least Easter and Christmas every year (although we didn't get to go last Easter) This time, we brought a friend of ours, Bill, who was going to be all alone for Easter. Since he had never been to the coast of North Carolina before and it was going to be a nice day on Saturday, we decided we would all be tourists for the day. Now since we went to all the touristy places and did all the touristy things, I am warning you - I took TONS of pictures. I have tried to narrow them down to the best ones, but this is a warning, there will still be lots. So many, in fact, that I will have to make this a 2 part post. Here is the first part...

Ok, so the first place we went to is the North Carolina Pine Knoll Shores Aquarium. Now I have been there before, but it was long ago before they totally renovated the place. If you have never been, it is really nice now, and worth a trip if you are out that way sometime. However, this time because it was Easter, there was an Easter egg hunt going on at the aquarium. The staff had hidden little plastic eggs inside the tanks with the aquatic life, and the kids had to go around and find as many as they could to get a prize. I thought it was a very cute idea, but we didn't participate. We did, however each get our picture taken as the face of a giant hermit crab - a very touristy thing to do, but lots of fun too : ) Here are the best pics from the aquarium.

From there we went to a local dive, the Beach Tavern for a lunch of the best pizza around before heading into Beaufort to do the touristy things there.

See part 2 (above) for a recap and pictures of the second half of our day as tourists.

A few 1st's and a Home Tour

2008-03-19T23:17:00.013-04:00

We have recently just had a few 1st's in our new place. Last weekend was the first time we made a fire in our real fireplace. I also lit the hurricane candles to add more to the ambiance. It was so nice and cozy and really pretty. Here's a picture so you can also enjoy it. : )
Also last weekend the ACC Basketball tournament was on with the biggest rivals in NC - UNC (Carolina) and Duke. We have a few friends that really wanted to see the game, but since it was only on ESPN, and we have cable now in this new place, we had a few of our friends over. Then we found out that some of our other friends accross the street were trying to figure out a way to see the game too, so we invited them over. There were more people than I expected, but it's always fun to have a big group over - it was like a little party. I love having company. Anyway, we had 10 adults (including David and me) and 1 kid. It was a full house, but since we have so much more space here, it actually didn't feel too crowded. Here are a couple of pictures of the ACC fans at our place.

Another 1st we had was our very first overnight guests! This is the 1st time we have actually had a guest bedroom, and this past Monday night was the 1st time we had someone to stay in it.

The couple that came is a couple we support in a college athletic ministry. They are being relocated in their ministry postion to NC State, but they were flying out of here very early Tuesday morning, so we invited them to stay with us since we are so close to the airport now.

Unfortunately at this time I do not have any pictures of these 1st time guests, but I did take pictures of the place all cleaned up right before they got here. Here's the guest room where they stayed.

And here's our guest bathroom that I have decorated in a palm tree theme. Also I think this is really cool picture utilizing the mirror to see more angles of the bathroom.

Here is our bedroom. (Nice, new comforter set - courtesy of my Mom and Dad as an early Birthday present). And you can't see it but to the right is a sliding glass door that opens up to our spacious porch.

The rest of the place is rather open, but still visibly divided. Basically if you walk through the front door, there is little hallway with a coat closet on the left and the guest bedroom and bathroom on the right. Then it opens up into the living room on the right (that goes on into our sun-room which we use as our office) and the kitchen (with a laundry room and pantry) and dining room area on the left. And if you go straight back, you walk right into our bedroom. You can tell what I mean by these pictures.

Well that's about it for the 1st's and the virtual tour of our new place. I hope you enjoyed it : ) Coming soon - a post about our upcoming Easter trip and my Birthday celebration. I can't wait!

David's trip

2008-03-08T23:57:00.006-05:00

While David is sitting in the other room watching the Golf channel, I thought it would be a good time to catch you up on his most recent trip and the events from last weekend.

David had a few business appointments set up in his home town at the beach, so he went down to do a little business, spend a little time with his family there, and of course play a little golf. Business went great and he had really good time with his family, but the highlight of the weekend was who he got a chance to play golf with. Now if you are as golf illiterate as I am, I will include a wikipedia link to who this person is so you can see how cool it was that he actually played with one of the best golfers in the world from the 1980's, Curtis Strange.

David has a friend who is the club pro there at the beach, and Curtis now lives there as well. So David's friend called him up and asked if he wanted to play a foursome with him, Curtis, and 1 other guy. Of course he said he would love to play and was very excited to have that rare opportunity. As soon as I found out he would be playing with someone as famous as this guy was, I told him he had to take some pictures, but of course it was just all about golf and no pictures were taken, so you'll just have to settle for this old picture of Curtis Strange I got from the internet.

Dodge...ouch...ball...'08

2008-02-25T23:10:00.010-05:00

We have just had the 1st and probably last Dodge Bowl 2008 Championship with friends on our business team. We rented a gym, split up in 2 rather large teams, and each had jerseys made. We were the red team. Here's a great group shot of our team. I'm on the bottom left and David is right behind me.

After a little "giving of the jerseys" ceremony, the referee's lined the balls up in the middle and when the whistle blew, a few players from each team ran for the ball. I was never one of those people. My strategy was to stay behind someone and avoid all balls. Then only if one came by me, I would throw it or give it to a bigger, stronger guy to throw. That strategy worked well in the beginning, but... Never mind, I'm getting ahead of myself.

So here are the teams getting ready to run for the balls in the middle.

And here are a couple of action shots. (I'm # 2)

Here we are in full force, beating the other team. Notice, they only have 1 guy left.

Well, we were actually pretty evenly matched since we each won 4 games and had to end the match on a tie due to official injury. And guess who sustained that official injury? Yep, you guess it. ME! So my little strategy wasn't so effective when I was the only one left facing several highly competitive, strong guys on the opposing team.

We were all having a good time and I was doing great, dodging the ball like a pro, when it happened. All I remember is seeing this bright yellow ball come rocketing across the gym aiming directly for my face, and I couldn't throw my hands up or duck quick enough before, WHAM!!! It hit me smack in the middle of the face and I just cupped my hands over my face and fell to the ground. I won't go into all the details, but I did have a bloody nose and rather swollen lips. I had to spend the rest of the night icing my face on and off, and even some today as well. But hey, at least I didn't have to pay a fortune to get full, sexy lips for a few days :)

Here I am recovering. I am pleased to tell you that I am doing just fine - no broken nose or busted lips, just nice plump, fuller lips (and it doesn't even hurt anymore!)

Apart from the official injury that ended the game in a tie, we did have fun, and who knows, maybe there will be a tie breaker some other time, but I will be sitting in the stands for that one and cheering the red team on to a sure victory!

Falling Behind and Catching Up...

2008-02-15T12:11:00.010-05:00

Wow! I just noticed that it has been over a month today since my last post. But there is a good reason, I promise.

We have had SOO much going on recently, that I just haven't had the time or felt like I could take the time to sit down and blog. And I still have so much to do now, but I know that if I don't go ahead and catch up, then I'll be too far behind to do it later.

I actually have several things to catch up on here, and the biggest one being....drum roll, please....WE'VE MOVED!!! This is actually the 1st move since we have been married. We spent some of last week packing, and then made the big move (30 mins closer into town)on Saturday. Then we have spent some of this week unpacking. But like I said, there is still more to do...See?

You can't really tell what the place looks like from these pictures. Once it is all set up, I will take some good pictures and you will be able to see how nice it is. Actually we really only have 2 rooms to unpack still. It is very livable in all the other areas. Anyway, the reason we moved is to actually live in the city that we live our life in, instead of driving 30 minutes away just to sleep at our place. So even though we have only been here 1 week. It is sooo nice having everything so close. It is also going to be really nice to have a guest room with a bed for anyone who comes to visit. But just give us another week or so, because the 1st picture is of that room. The second picture is me taking a break in the sunroom/office. So it's a little bigger than where we were before, and it has a very nice, open floor plan. There are also some other great features like walk-in closets in both the rooms (I get the one in the master bedroom and David gets the one in the guest room), a separate laundry room instead of a laundry closet, a coat closet, a pantry, a linen closet, a wood burning fireplace, and a roomy balcony with a sliding glass door off the master bedroom. And that's just inside the place. We are also in a complex that has great amenities - lighted tennis and basketball courts (which the guys will take full advantage of when it's a little warmer) a fitness center with a raquetball court (which I'm excited about brushing up my skills on and getting exercise) a beach volleyball court, and a nice sized pool off the clubhouse (those are going to be great in the summer!) We also have a little pond with a fountain and picnic tables around it, and just across the street is a great walking trail. I have a feeling that I am going to LOVE living here for a while.

Ok, enough about that big news. Also on Saturday another milestone was celebrated. My little brother's 21st Birthday Party!!! Can you believe it?!? Michael turned 21 on Sunday!!! That sure makes me feel old. Anyway, my parents threw him a little party on Saturday night, so we moved all day then went to the party that night. We were exhausted after that, but we had a good time.

Here are some pictures taken at his party. The venue was the youth center at my parent's church, and most of the guests were Michael's friends from working with the youth. We all had pizza and wings and then this cake with ice cream. Most of the time we just stood around chatting, but we also watched a really funny comedian (actually David's favorite), Brian Regan, on the big screen. It was a fun birthday celebration.

And speaking of celebrations, this last section catches me up to the present. We are not typically very much into making a really big deal about Valentine's Day, but we do take advantage of the time to spend some good quality time together and remind each other how much we love each other. So we had a really nice time last night. We went out shopping 1st to get a few things we still needed for our place, then David cooked a gourmet dinner for me and wrote me a nice poem in my card (He's so sweet!) We had almond crusted salmon and sweet potatoes with steamed vegetables. And he didn't know it at the time, but I was providing the dessert. I surprised him with an enormous heart shaped chocolate chip cookie that I decorated like a valentine. I wanted to do something to surprise him, and since we had just moved, there wasn't much I could do. But I had a big tub of cookie dough in the fridge and I just bought a few little icing tubes on a whim the other day, so that was perfect. I smushed the dough down onto a large cookie sheet, then shaped it into a heart by hand and baked it for about 20 mins. Once it was completely cool, I decorated it. It turned out really well and David really liked it.

Then we spent the rest of the night putting some things together in the house, and just hanging out in our new place.

So that pretty much catches me up to the present. Coming soon (after we get completely situated) pictures of the new place!

YAY!! Better Sleeping!!

2008-01-14T22:12:00.000-05:00

Not that we weren't sleeping well before, but there were times when we would both wake up very stiff and could only attribute it to a very old mattress. The full size mattress we have been sleeping on for 3 years was my old mattress that I got before I went to college even, and who knows how old it was before I got it. It served me well in my single years and it has been good during my married years too, but we are both excited to be getting a brand new, bigger and better one!
I have to appologize that I didn't even think to take pictures this weekend, but David's dad suprised us and decided to come up for the weekend. It was very nice having him here and we all went mattress shopping on Saturday. Part of our Christmas present from him was 1/2 the cost of a new mattress, so his excuse for coming to visit out of the blue was to find us a good mattress and get us a good deal. And he did. We went to a few mattress places and he talked to the sales guy and asked all kinds of questions. Then he haggled a little and got us $100 off the price with a frame and free delivery of a brand new pillow-top queen size mattress that you don't even have to flip becuase of the new technology. It also has a 10 year warantee, although we don't plan on using it that long before we upgrade again. Anyway, I'm so excited to try it out. It looks like it will sleep great!

Check out the new additions to my blog

2008-01-02T15:13:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to make you all aware that I have added a few links to some of my favorite sites. Definitely something to check out when you have some free time. And also check out David's and my family life verses that I added under the new link section.
More posts to come soon...much sooner than the last ones :)
Have a Happy New Year, Everyone!! It's gonna be a Great 2008!!

Happy New Year 2008!!!

2008-01-01T15:59:00.000-05:00

We just had an incredibly fun New Year's Eve party last night. It started at 8pm and then David and I didn't get in bed till 3am. So I slept until 1pm today, and that's why I am just now getting to my blog. But anyway, back to the party...It was so much fun. We had gobs of food, a strobe light and disco ball with jammin' music playing all night. We did dance some, but not the whole time becuase there was so much other stuff to do.

One side of the room was set up with casino tables - a Black Jack table and a Texas Hold'em Poker table. When we arrived we all got $100 in play money that we could cash in for chips to play cards if we wanted to. I played for a little while but not too long because I squandered all my money away. But it was fun. The dealers had white collared shirts with bowties that lit up.

But then Martha took over being the dealer for the Texas Hold'em table. Isn't she cute in the hat and bowtie?

There was also a ping pong tournament going on the whole time, and whoever wanted to could play the Nintendo Wii in the corner of the room on a big screen. David entered the ping pong tournament and did pretty good. We also had some breaks in the action for fun XS drinking games. (Just to clarify, for those of you who don't know, XS is a healthy energy drink - one of the products we have in our business) By the way, the girls ruled in flip cup!!

Here we all are playing it.

At the end of the night we turned on the TV to the ball dropping in NYC on the big screen and we all toasted XS in fluted cups. Then 2 guys got up on the stage and played auld lang syne on their trumpets. We kissed and then slow danced to a couple of songs, and posed for pictures. What a fun way to ring in the new year.

Christmas with our Families

2008-01-01T14:28:00.001-05:00

The 1st family Christmas celebration was down at the beach, where David's family lives. We stayed with his dad, who lives about 2 blocks from the ocean, but most of the pictures are from the Christmas party at his mom's house who lives right on the sound. We got down to the beach on Friday, just in time for the tail end of one of David's good friend's 30th birthday party. So we hung out with those people for the rest of that night, then the next morning David and his dad went to the country club to play golf. I joined them a little later so I could be the photographer. Here are a coulple of my shots. David and his dad like to walk instead of ride in a cart for more exercise. After they played a while he had me get some pictures of him at the practice tee so he could see how is swing looked. Here's one of my action shots.

After golf, the 3 of us had lunch there at the country club, then just relaxed at his dad's house until dinner at his mom's.His mom's house was really decked out for Christmas. She had several Christmas trees around the house and this one HUGE one right as you came up the stairs into the living room.

Jane and Everett cooked a wonderful beach Christmas dinner with shrimp and scallops and seafood chowder. The kids sat at a separate table and ate first while the adults sat around and chatted.

I was also able to get some really good updated pictures of David, his brother and his dad together.

And David and I got a great picture together along with Ian and Kathy's little dog, Fairway. He was so sweet. He just loved me. When I first got there, he jumped across 2 other people to land in my lap. And of course I loved him too. I can't wait to have pets...maybe after we move I'll get one. Anyway, isn't he cute?!?

After we all enjoyed the delicious meal, we went downstairs to open presents and for an extra surprise!

Once we were all downstairs there was a knock at the front door, and one of the kids went to open it. Then they all went wild becuase it was SANTA!!! Jane had arranged for the parks and recrecation guy, who dresses up like Santa every year, to come and visit us that evening.

He took each kid on his lap and asked them what they wanted for Christmas, then gave them a candy cane. Here's a picture of all the kids with him together. Then some of us adults got to sit on his lap for a picture too, becuase let's face it, at our age, we're not getting a lot of pictures with Santa. Anyway, it was fun, and the kids had a blast!

Everyone enjoyed opening presents, and we all got some really nice things. We stayed a visited a little while longer, then we went back to his dad's and the next morning did our presents there.

We had to leave to come back home that afternoon, so it was a very short trip, but it was nice to see everyone for the holidays.

On our way back home we stopped in Goldsboro to have dinner with one of David's good friends that he hasn't seen in a while. We didn't leave there til nearly 9pm, so we didn't get home til midnight, and we both went to work the next day for half a day.

So on Christmas eve we met up with my parents and brother and went to movie matinee. We saw National Treasure 2 and all really enjoyed it. Then David and I went back to my parent's house and, even though they only live 15 minutes from us, we spent the night there. It was sooo nice. We had dinner that night, then stayed up playing Balderdash and watching Shrek the 3rd.

On Christmas morning we got up and had a nice big cooked breakfast before opening presents.

Then we all took our time opening presents and sipping egg nog. Here are several pictures of us enjoying ourselves on Christmas morning.

And since this may be the last time we have Christmas with Trixie, I will add a picture of her. She is 14 now and still doing well, but we are not sure how much longer she will be with us.We spent most of the time just relaxing and enjoying the day. We ate snacks and watched another movie. Then we didn't even eat our lunch until nearly 4 o'clock! But when we did eat it, it was definitely delicious. We visited for a little while longer and played another game, then we finally left at 8:30.

We had a wonderful time celebrating Christmas will all our family and friends.

Finally Christmas Celebration Pictures with Friends

2008-01-01T13:39:00.000-05:00

I really wanted to get these up here sooner, but this holiday season has been a really busy one for us and this is really the 1st time I have had the time to sit down and do it.

So we actually had 6 different Christmas celebrations this year. (What can I say, we are popular people :) just kidding) Some of them were just a short visit at friends houses to exchange gifts, others were a little party with several of us getting together, and of course we had both family celebrations as well, so I am just going to briefly recount our many little Christmas celebrations.

The weekend before Christmas was the 1st one. Our good friends Marty and Amanda had several of us over to their place for a delicious dinner and Christmas party. Here are a few pictures from that. This is the guys congregating in the kitchen - always near the food. Then the after picture of David and Marty relaxing after a big meal (the classic guy pose).

One of the couples brought their little boy. He's only 3 but he was so good and just loved his monster trucks. Here we are playing with them on the floor.

After all the food and fellowship at their place, we went to the theater in their clubhouse and all watched a movie - one of David's new favorites - The Bourne Ultimatum.

The next night our friends Dave and Julina had us over to their house late in the evening for snacks and dessert and to exchange gifts. Their house had a great Christmas-y feel with the fire going and a couple of trees. Here's Julina sitting by the fire, and here is a not-so-great picture of me and David by their big Christmas tree.

Then I think we had 1 night off, and the following night we drove to Charlotte (about an hour and a half away) to hang out with our friends Stephen and Eleanor. Here's a couple of pictures from that visit. (notice the classic guy pose again in the first picture :)

And here is Eleanor with their adorable wild dog, Max.

Then the last celebration before all of our family celebrations was another little party at West and Martha's house. The guys all sat around looking at something electronic and this time us girls huddled around the food and talked before playing games later. The guys went into the dining room to play Texas Hold'em Poker, and us girls played Outburst in the kitchen.

It was also a big night for Trey, Kit and Eileen's little baby boy. He had his first taste ever of red velvet cake and he loved it!

He is so adorable...just look at those big eyes!

Well, since this post ended up being so long, I will go ahead and make a separate one for Christmas with our Families.

The 12 pictures of rememiscence

2007-12-09T22:49:00.000-05:00

This post is dedicated to the memories David and I have made in our journey together so far. All these pictures are from before I started this blog, so I thought that our anniversary was a good time to highlight some of the memories and the cool things we've done.

So I'll start at the beginning. In the fall of 2004, David asked me to marry him. I of course accepted and we were so excited to get married in just 2 short months.
Here we are at our little engagement celebration.

The wedding was beautiful. We got married on December 5th 2004 at Emerald Isle Baptist Church, and then because it was such beautiful weather, we took some great pictures out on the beach.

Then after the wedding, we drove to Kure beach for the 1st day of our Honeymoon, but I don't have pictures from that. We spend the rest of our honeymmon week in Savannah Georgia. It was very relaxing and romantic. We had a great time touring the city by foot and horse-drawn carriage.

The 1st trip we went on as husband and wife besides our honeymoon was to Orlando Florida. We went to Sea World and some parts of Disney. But the coolest thing we went to there was a Cirque du Soliel production called, La Nouba. Unfortunately I don't have pictures of that because we didn't have our digital camera yet.

Then the next big trip we went on was all the way to Grand Rapids Michigan to stay in a 5 star hotel all expenses paid by our business. Here we are outside the Grand Plaza Hotel.

We also went to a few weddings of friends and families. Here we are dressed up for one last year.

Definitley one of the coolest trips we took was with our business team to Charleston South Carolina where we went sailing in the harbor. Here are a couple of pictures - one of the racing sail boats and the other of us catching a moment alone :)

We have had had many fun times with our friends in business. Here we are at last year's Christmas party with an 80's theme. I was one of the girls in the Bangles band and David was one of the New Kids On The Block.

Here we are ringing in this year at our 2007 New Year's Eve Party.

And here we are ringing in the Fiscal New Year (that starts in September) at our Hawaiian Luau New Year's Eve Party.

This picture is the last highlight of our lives together before I started this blog. So if you want to continue with the events after this, go to the 1st blog post and read up.

I hope you've enjoyed these memories and catching up to the present. I know I've enjoyed remeninscing but I also look forward to all the new memories we will make together.

Our 3rd Anniversary - December 5th

2007-12-09T22:21:00.000-05:00

Since we were both going to be busy on the actual day of our anniversary, we just decided to celebrate around it. We went out to a nice dinner the night before, and then this weekend we had the real celebration. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures because I didnt' know I should bring my camera. But I did find a picture on the website of where we stayed so you can see how nice it was.

First of all we decided we would like to have a little "get-away" for our anniversary this year. But there was so much going on in our lives that we needed to be here for that we just couldn't get very far away, so we decided we would just "get-away" in our own town. David was going to try to get a really good deal on a hotel through pricline.com, but it didn't quite work out the way he had hoped.

What happened is he put his bid in and a really ghetto hotel accepted it, but with the nature of the website and service, you are automatically booked there and you can't cancel it. So here I was thinking we are getting away to this not so nice hotel and I wasn't that excited about it. I knew that we would still have a good time, but I was a little disappointed that it wasn't a nicer hotel.

So this whole time I had in my mind that we were going to "that" hotel and I wasn't in a big hurry to get there. David, on the other hand, knew what the real plan was. My sweet, wonderful, amazing husband had surprised me and kept it a secret that he had booked a different hotel and we weren't staying at the ghetto one!

So we arrived at the Ashford Suites instead, and when I got into the room, I nearly jumped up and down with excitement. He had booked a room with a HUGE jacuzzi tub AND a fire-place. I was very surprised!

I thought that was all, but he even went 1 step further, he had a friend of ours sneak into the room while we were at dinner and set it up with the fire going, candles, soft music and a hot bubble bath. He had also brought little chocolates and bottles of water. I was even more surprised! But it was soo nice. We used the bath last night and this morning after a big cooked buffet breakfast at the hotel. Then we went to my parents house and took Dad out for his birthday (which just happens to fall near our anniversary).

It was a wonderful weekend! Thank you so much, David! I love you! It was a very Happy Anniversary!

Here's a picture of the room we stayed in. This looks from the tub through to the bed, and on the other side of the room is the fireplace. We will definitely have to go back there.

A Night at the Theatre

2007-12-01T22:21:00.000-05:00

A good friend of mine so graciously gave me 4 free tickets to A Christmas Carol at the High Point Theatre since she would be out of town and unable to use them. Here's me outside the theatre before going in. I met Mom and Dad at their house so we could ride together and meet another friend of mine, Amanda there. Her husband was out of town, so it was perfect for her to spend the evening with us at the theatre.

We got there in perfect timing. Just as we had given them our tickets and walked over to the door, they opened the doors, and we were the very 1st ones in the theatre! So we got to pick whichever seats we wanted. We got the prime seats of the house - about 5 rows from the front in the very center. Before I heard that you weren't supposed to take pictures in the theatre, I snapped this one of the stage before it started. But I didn't try to get anymore during the performance even though I seriously thought about it a few times.

The play turned out to be a delightful musical. All the actors gave an incredible performance. Scrooge was excellent and completely stole the show. There were a couple of really cute kids in the production as well. Tiny Tim was so sweet looking, and then there was this little girl of about 4 who sang all the songs and knew all the words. She was so adorable. I think down the road when I have kids, maybe I'll get them involved in theatre and I will get back into it too. We all thouroughly enjoyed ourselves and had a wonderful evening.

Thanksgiving Weekend

2007-11-26T23:21:00.003-05:00

We spent Thanksgiving day with David's mom's side of the family in Knightdale, NC (just outside Raleigh) We of course stuffed ourselves with a delicious dinner and then drove back to our house with David's mom, Jane. It has now become a Thanksgiving tradition that she comes back with us after dinner to spend the weekend in Greensboro. And what has also become a Thanksgiving tradition for us is to go to the movies Thanksgiving night. This time we saw such a cute movie. It's call August Rush and it's all about how this little boy in an orphanage becomes a child music prodigy and "follows the music" to find his family. It has a great score and was a really "feel good" movie. I would definitley recommend it.

The following day, known as Black Friday, also the biggest shopping day of the year, most people I know elect to stay out of the crowds and don't go into town that day. But not us! We braved the mobs in all the stores and shopped for 9 hours! Yes, I was getting very weary halfway through the day, but Jane just seemed to get more energized with each store we went in. Although we did have fun and got some really great deals too. She bought both me and David all our Christmas gifts in that one day! But one other thing she bought for us that I am excited about is a cute little pre-lit Christmas tree and decorations to go on it! To understand why that would be exciting for me, let me give you some perspective. When David and I got married 3 Decembers ago, I bought us a tiny little tree just to have something for our first Christmas since we were moving and things were so unsettled for a while. Here's that tree that we have made do with for 2 years. Now that's all that I was going to have for the 3rd year until Jane so generously got us the perfect sized tree for our condo. We set it up in the window, so from the street below it actually looks like a really big tree, but even inside it is very pretty. Here it is in all it's glory!So we stayed up and put up the tree and decorated it after shopping all day. But as you can see, it was definitely worth it.

On Saturday, in the past we have done some sort of tour, exhibition, museum etc. This year we decided we would try out the Reynolda House in Winston Salem. Honestly it was ok, but I wasn't very impressed. The house I didn't think was very pretty and wasn't really preserved as a lived in house all over on the inside. The living room was preserved, and the basement with game rooms and bar, but the bedrooms were just turned into art museum rooms. Here are a couple of pictures from it. The prettiest part was the greenhouse.

So since this excursion didn't make the top of the list, I will post a few pictures of where we went last year. We had a blast on our tour of the Chinqua-Penn Plantation last year. The house was very pretty and it was decorated nicely for Christmas (which the Reynolda house was not) Also the grounds were much prettier and there seemed to be much more to see. We had a guided tour around the house and all the rooms were preserved just the way that it had been long ago. Hopefully next year we will find somewhere as nice as this to go for our annual excursion.

But besides the Reynolda house not meeting our expectations, we had a great time anyway. After we left Winston Salem, we went out for a nice dinner followed by tea and dessert at my parents house.

The 3 of us went out for a big breakfast on Sunday morning just before Jane left to head back to the beach. The weekend seemed to fly by, but we definitley had a great time with her. Thanks, Jane! You're the best mother-in-law a girl could ask for! We love you!

Fall Leadership Retreat

2007-11-13T21:50:00.000-05:00

David and I just got back from a phenomenal weekend. Our business team pulled a large group of us together for a leadership where not only did we hear from some of the people moving on in business, but we also heard from a hilarious, entertaining, yet very effective marriage and family minister, Joe McGee. We got to do a couple of other really cool things this past weekend too, so I'll just start from the top. First of all, as you probably know by now, I love to "get away", whatever it is we are doing. So it was just nice to have a couple of nights in a nice hotel room away from home and spend time together, but it was also nice to be there with our friends and business partners and spend time with them. The first night before everything got kicked off, we went to a dessert reception just for the leaders. There's me and Kelly catching up. (Notice my new hair cut and color - my fall look for this year :) Then we had some awesome teaching that night and even got to bed relatively early. The next day was jam packed. We had a morning session, then a bunch of us went to the mall for lunch and to stretch our legs. Then it was back to the room for a quick nap before the evening session. However, I also took advantage of the time to visit the room of one of my friends, Karen, who just had her 1st baby 2 weeks ago. Here's me with little Faith Victoria (doesn't she just look like she could be mine :) She was soo cute and very expressive for only 2 weeks old. By expressive I don't mean crying or fussing - she didn't do that at all - but she smiled and squirmed a lot. That was very cool to get to see her - an added bonus.

The evening session was incredible. The marriage/family minister spoke and had us all in stitches while trying to write notes fast enough to keep up with his "speed-talking". If you have never heard Joe McGee speak, you should definitely check him out. He is excellent. You can click here to see his site - http://www.joemcgeeministries.com/. And here he is talking to us.

Once the evening session was over a group of us went out to a local restaurant for some late night pizza and discussion of the weekend so far. We did get a late night that night, but it was defintely worth it. Plus we got to sleep in a little and got up for a big buffet breakfast before the church service.

< - Random side note - Tonia and I definitely have good taste in jewelry and color schemes - here we are as almost twins : ) - >

The service was awesome. It started out with praise and worship playing over the sound system, but accompanied by a rather famous violinist. (unfortunately I didn't get any pictures because of the lighting) She was absolutely amazing!!! Her music was so moving that at times I could hardly sing. It just made me cry. If you are into violin music, or even if you aren't, you should check out her site. http://www.lorijeansmith.com/. I had to get one of her cd's before we left. Wow! It's good.

Anyway, Joe McGee spoke again Sunday morning and was excellent again. But one of the coolest parts is that we got to have a special luncheon again with just the leaders and Joe McGee and his wife. After we had all eaten our fill of the delicious food, we had an extra hour with him that the rest of the people in the conference room didn't get. That was a another added blessing.

Here are some of us having fun at the luncheon and Joe McGee talking to us there.

We finished up the weekend at about 3 o'clock, and then came home for another nap. Then that evening, we had a couple of guys over and talked and watched the movie, The Ultimate Gift. Now, if you haven't seen that, it is defintely a "must see" (after you read the book, of course).

All in all, we had an awesome weekend.

A Freedom Celebration

2007-10-22T23:29:00.000-04:00

We just got back from an awesome weekend, the annual Business Conference and Freedom Celebration. We spent 3 days in this packed coliseum in Greensboro, NC learning from great business owners and celebrating with the ones who have achieved a milestone of sucess in their business. As you can see in this picture, there was an 8' red carpet roped off on either side that the business owners being recognized for their accomplishments walked down with nearly 12,000 people cheering for them. It was a ceremony similar to the Grammy or Emmy Awards. We all dressed up for the occasion in suits and dresses and shared in the joy of the couples accomplishments. We learned a lot and had an awesome time. Here are a couple of pictures of some of us ladies on that special Saturday night.

Maize Adventure

2007-10-07T22:28:00.000-04:00

Tonight we decided we would try something new and different. We took 2 friends with us and went down the road to a cornfield that they had made a maze out of. Now I have actually been to a maize maze 1 time before, but it was somewhere else several years ago. I remember it being really cool though. We had gotten so lost in the corn and couldn't see anything but the path we were on and corn all around us. So I anticipated that this maize adventure would be very similar. Unfortunately it was not because we have had a terrible drought here this year and most of the corn died while the rest of it didn't grow very tall. So what they did instead is made it a scavenger hunt for the pirate's treasure. I'm sure this would have been a blast for a little kid, but we made it fun for us too. We all got litte punch cards, and we had to go all around the corn maze to find these little boxes in the ground with X's marked on them. Once we got all 6 we had to find our way back out and then we got a prize! We finished the hunt in record time (less than 1/2 an hour) and did have a good time.

Here are the guys having fun in the maize maze. We will have to try it again next year and hope for a better corn crop so that it will be a real maze next time.

Me and my brother at Daniel Gomez's Wedding

2007-10-02T00:05:00.000-04:00

Here's an old friend of the family's, Daniel Gomez, and his new bride, Tia. It was a beautiful wedding. My whole family was invited, but just my brother, Michael, and I were able to attend.

Daniel and Tia met taking dance lessons, so they had their instructor do the reception and give dance lessons before the bridal party arrived.

Michael has spent a little bit of time around Daniel and Tia while in college at NC State, since they both live in Raleigh, and he has actually taken some dance lessons too. He and his friends like to go out dancing on the weekends. I actaully had a chance to visit him and go with them once. It was so much fun.

Here is Michael dancing with his good friend, Julia. I also got to dance with him a little. He is a pretty good dancer. I, on the other hand, am not so good. I love to dance, and I have a great time dancing, but I think I need more lessons. : )

Anyway, I was just excited that I was able to get some nice, up to date, photos of Michael and me together. We had a really good time hanging out at the wedding and I look forward to more fun times we can spend together. I love you, bro!

Bald Head Island Adventure

2007-09-28T14:21:00.001-04:00

The coolest part of our trip by far was getting a chance to visit old friends of David’s family at one of their vacation homes in Bald Head Island. We left Kingston Plantation at noon, and headed down to the port at South Hill to meet up with Barbara and Buck. We parked our car in a lot there and went down to the marina with them. Now most people would have to carry their luggage and stand in line to board the ferry for a ½ hour ride across to the island, but we were able to go 1st class on Buck’s boat. We loaded our luggage in the compartment and took off ahead of the ferry, speeding over the choppy water. It was very windy, and we got sprayed a little from the sea, but it was WONDERFUL! I love boats, and I love adventures, and we were about to start another one. We pulled into the harbor and right into the boat slip directly in front of their house. The whole area had a quaint, Cape Cod feel and was very charming. We unloaded our things and all got on the little golf cart headed to the other side of the harbor for a late lunch. It’s so cool that no one has cars on the island, but there are roads. They are just narrower because you go everywhere in either a golf cart or on a bicycle. After lunch, David went off with Buck to play golf, and I took a quick nap before heading out in the other golf cart with Barbara for a quick tour of the island.
That evening we went back to the little restaurant on the harbor and since it was rather cool out, we all had a big bowl of delicious seafood chowder and calamari. When we got back to their house, we talked a little while, then headed off to bed for an early night.

We were awoken bright and early with the sun streaming into our room. It was still windy and a little cool, but a very beautiful day. Buck cooked us French toast for breakfast, then we got ready to head out on our own adventure. This was our room and the view from our porch.

They were so nice to let us go out on our own with their golf cart to explore the island for 3 hours. We had gotten a map so we could figure out where we wanted to go, but decided not to use it to start out with. It’s way more fun to explore and when we come to an intersection just say, “Let’s go see where this road takes us!” So we went all over the island together, feeling like little kids on a treasure hunt. We drove by gorgeous, enormous homes right on the vast expanse of beach, and whenever we wanted we parked the cart and got out to explore and take pictures. It was SOOO much fun! Here are some of the places on the beach side we went to.

I was amazed at how much different terrain there was on the island. I thought maybe a harbor and beach, that’s it, but no, there was so much more. We saw the tropical looking areas, the wooded areas, little lakes and the part they call the creek – which is really like a lagoon. One of the places this island has is a conservancy. (I got a cute hat that says Bald Head Island Conservancy) They protect all the sea turtles on the island and make sure that when the babies hatch, they go towards the ocean and not the land so they have a better chance of survival. Another part of the conservancy were lookout areas where they had signs posted to see if you can spot such and such animal. The coolest animal we spotted was this one! He was just sunbathing on the bank of the lagoon, when I snapped that picture. Then he saw us and turned around to come right over and even turned his head for a better photo. I also found it interesting that the alligators don’t harm the turtles, and let them just swim all around them without even paying any attention to them.

After our little jaunt around the island, we ate lunch and rested a while before packing up and heading out. Once we got back to our car, we had to come right by Wilmington to get home, so we stopped there as well to have dinner with Doug, David’s brother. All in all it was a wonderful trip. We certainly had a blast on our island adventure and we now have a new dream to have our second home on BHI some day.

Kingston Plantation

2007-09-28T14:18:00.000-04:00

After leaving Holden Beach, we headed down to Chestnut Hill (the area between North Myrtle Beach and Myrtle Beach) to stay for 2 nights in a 3-bedroom condo on the 27th floor at Kingston Plantation. This was our view from the balcony.
What a laid back and relaxing time we had there. We got to spend time sunbathing on the beach, swimming in the ocean, playing beach volleyball, cooling off in the pool, and soaking in the hot tub.

We slept in as late as we wanted and took naps in the afternoon before some of the most delicious dinners ever. David, having grown up at the beach loves fresh seafood, and so do I, so we both really enjoyed our gourmet meals of parmesan-crusted snapper the 1st night, and crab-stuffed mahi the 2nd night.
Most people left to go back home after that, but David and I had more adventures to embark on…

Beautiful Beach House on Holden Beach

2007-09-28T14:07:00.000-04:00

The next weekend was an even more awesome trip – or trips, I should say.
We started out the weekend by leaving bright and early on Friday morning and heading over to Holden Beach. One of the couples from Raleigh we are in business with has a 9750 sqf beach house in a private community down there. They invited several of us down to spend the afternoon there with their family. They have such a beautiful house – so peaceful and serene. We really enjoyed touring their place and getting to know them better as well. Here are a few pictures of their beach property.

They actually built this long dock
so they could take their golf carts

and bikes right down to the

Inter-coastal waterway where

they have their boat docked and

a couple of jet skis.
I loved the view from the widow’s watch and pretty much from every other room in the house too. David and I both love the beach and look forward to having a place at the at the coast too.