Golden Birthday Celebrations

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

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

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

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!