Friends Post: Kerri & Nick

Summer time is filled with friends and family coming to visit us. We live at the beach so it is a hot spot for our friends and family. Of course they come to see us too! It's unfortunate that I haven't taken pictures from all of the visits, but thankfully I have a few to share from Kerri & Nick's visit (mainly thanks to Kerri!).

(Botanical Gardens, Denver, CO--2007?)

Kerri & I met when we both attended Randolph Community College in Asheboro, NC from 2004-2006. We bonded through trips to the zoo, working on class projects together, and watching Laguna Beach. I say that last part with some shame, but it was a lot of fun at the time! We also just had similar personalities so we clicked pretty quickly once we got to know each other. We both went to different states for our Photography internships (I went to Colorado and she went to California). After we graduated I went back to Colorado and Kerri eventually came out there with me. We lived together for about a year and a half in Denver, Colorado. We both moved back to North Carolina at the end of 2007.

We have to really try a lot harder to plan time for visits, because we live a few hours apart now. Kerri & Nick stayed for about a week this last visit. I'd say the most memorable parts of that visit were our beach camping adventure and the "bad" movies that we watched!

I would assume camping on the beach would have been a pleasant experience. This was our first time trying it out. Well, it turns out that at Carolina Beach it's okay to get drunk and play really loud music almost all night long (just imagine what your favorite mexican restaurant sounds like). We did survive the night though! We woke up really early that next morning. Two of the best parts of camping was watching the stars before bedtime and waking up to dolphins swimming in the morning time.

We also spent some time in downtown Wilmington, which is one of my favorite places in town. We grabbed some lunch at the Trolly Stop and did a little shopping. It's nice to find places in town that have vegetarian options, even if it is just a veggie hot dog!

 (By Kerri...or at least by her camera: serious mirror shot)

  (Photo by Kerri: happy mirror shot)

(couple mirror shot!)

Chris & I really enjoyed our time with Kerri & Nick. We're hoping that the next time we see them we'll be in their part of town!

(Photo by Kerri)

Summer: Bloom!

We just returned from our Arkansas mission trip yesterday evening. When we got home I was stoked to find out that my flower that I bought last year from our local farmers market finally BLOOMED again! It is the only plant that I have had over the past year to survive, so this was a very exciting sight for me. I honestly thought the plant was slowly dying.

My friends plant-sat for us while we were gone. There was a bad storm that came through that actually knocked the plant onto our cement patio shattering the plant holder. Our friends were nice enough to go buy a new one and replant it for us. I am just so happy to actually see flowers blooming. Here's to another year of surviving! Maybe I'll test my green thumb out some more in the near future!

Family: Birthday Wishes

We head out for our next big trip tomorrow. We're taking the youth to Arkansas for a mission trip. They went here last year, so they'll get to fellowship and work with some of the same people. I think that will be very cool for them. I am excited because this is actually my first trip out there, because I was in Colorado last year around this time. Wow, time flies!

My mom and Chris will celebrate their Birthday's while we are gone. My moms Birthday is actually tomorrow ( Happy Birthday mom!) and Chris' Birthday is next Saturday. It's hard to celebrate Chris' Birthday while driving on a Church bus, so I attempted to make him a surprise Birthday dessert tonight. That failed, so I took him to Krispy Kreme (yes, they were hot!). I haven't been in the mood to take a whole lot of pictures lately, so I thought I would document our little adventure to Krispy Kreme! The small moments in life are just as important as the big ones some days :)

New Change: A New Start

Life is always filled with many changes. In the last few years my life has changed in so many ways. Some have been the worst times in my life and some have been the best times in my life. No matter how hard I try I will never figure life out, but it is nice when you have moments where one of those life changing questions get worked out (or at least the process begins for it getting worked out).

Originally, I had planned on my first blog post to be about our (Chris & me) new apartment. That entry will have to wait, because  between then and now Bimini happened. I went on a trip to Bimini  (in the Bahamas, if you're wondering) about two weeks ago. Every year our youth group takes the graduating Seniors to Bimini. This was our (Chris & me) first trip with the Church, because Chris has only been the youth minister for a little over a year now.

We packed everything up and drove down to Fort Lauderdale, FL from Wilmington, NC. Once we arrived there we took a catamaran from Fort Lauderdale to Bimini. From there we spent a week on a boat in the Bahamas. With all of the driving and time on the boat we were gone for 10 days. Almost 10 whole days without cell phones and computers!!! Now days this is a hard task for people to do, especially high school kids. For me, it was something I needed.

Every year I go on a camping trip to Kerr Lake in Henderson, NC.  What I felt in Bimini is what I feel when I'm at the lake. I would say I felt this way even more so in Bimini, because we could not use our cell phones and there was no Walmart type stores nearby. I was able to talk to real people, be active, enjoy a new place, relax, read, and think.

I finished reading a book called "Follow Me to Freedom." This book has two authors, John Perkins and Shane Claiborne. I have not read any other John Perkins books, but like most Shane Claiborne books I feel myself wanting to change and grow. It changes me to the point where I don't feel like I can just go back to normal. 

The biggest change in my life, as of last week, is that I decided on a career change. I will save some of that for a later post, because I feel like this one may get too long if I include all of those details. Plus, I still have friends and family that I want to share this with. The timing wasn't quite when I expected it to happen, but maybe that was a good thing. I find myself still trying to figure out what's next, but at least I'm taking steps to that. It's funny what can happen in life without technology. I am ready for my new start.