Catching Up: June/July 2013

June 2013

Mark usually gets out of school around the middle of June and that is the official start of our summer.   This year we got to spend a few weeks around home at the beginning of June, but ended June with two awesome trips. 

We started out June by celebrating our friend Jen and her soon-to-arrive baby girl Carley!  Her shower was amazing and she got so many awesome gifts...more clothes than I could even keep up with.  That baby is sure to be the best dressed baby girl around!  Although Carley wasn't born till the end of July I've added her picture in here anyway, just because she is too cute not to show off :) 

 Doesn't Jen look beautiful?  Pregnancy looks good on her :)

Hi Carley, welcome to the world!  7/25/2013 

 The first trip we took was a camping/tubing trip with friends in the mountains.  I'm not really one for camping (anyone who knows me probably already knew that), but since everyone else was doing it, I agreed that I could do anything for two nights.  We had bought a "Living Social" deal for the tubing and it was awesome.  We spent all day floating down a river in tubes all linked together.  We couldn't have asked for a better day, it was beautiful and hot and outside!  After the day on the river we headed back to our campsite, cooked hot dogs over the fire, and roasted marshmallows.  Aside from having to sleep outside in the wilderness I actually kinda enjoyed it :) 

 Our tent 

 "Roughing it" 

The crew at breakfast 

The last weekend in June / First week in July we headed to Hilton Head for an annual beach trip with Nick and Nicole.  This is the first year we have been able to go for the whole week; usually we only go for about three or four nights.  We stayed at the same resort as we did last year, only a different condo about 100 yards from the beach.  The weather for the week looked like it was going to be pretty terrible, calling for rain each day.  But we totally lucked out.  Although it did rain each day it only lasted about 20-30 minutes and then the rest of the day was beautiful.  Sometimes it rained before we dragged all of the stuff down to the beach (that was always ideal), other times it rained while we were on the beach (which was sort of a disaster).  Our first day on the beach a huge rain storm moved in shortly after we got there.  We laughed at the people next to us holding down their tent, but it didn't take long for us to realize why...our tent was lifted by the wind, flew about 100 yards away, and got destroyed.  Luckily it did not hit anyone in the process, but it was hilarious to watch all of us run after it completely clueless of what to do.  We were able to salvage the tent and make it work for the rest of the week, but putting it up each day was quite a process (one that we perfected by the end of the week).  When it wasn't storming, it was absolutely beautiful and we had such an enjoyable time hanging out on the beach and spending time with friends! 

 Storm rolling in 

 Everyone huddled under their tents/umbrellas waiting out the storm 

 Ahhh...sitting by the water, enjoying the sunshine, and good company

 Me and Nicole taking a break from the sun 

Nicole and the guys playing tennis after a long day on the beach 

Since we had the whole week and Hilton Head is so close to Savannah we took a day trip. Nick and Nicole had never been to Savannah before, so we took a trolley tour, a ghost tour, and tried out several local restaurants!  Stay tuned for pictures of our Savannah trip!

Finally Catching Up: April/May 2013

In an effort to keep up with the months (and months and months...) of waiting, I want to continue doing a monthly recap.  Not even so much for my readers, but mostly for me so I don't forget :)

April: 
I spent the whole first week/weekend in Disney World having a blast, and Mark spent his Spring Break in Charlotte taking care of his mom.  I know he had  a great time just being with her and being able to help out with her recovery, but he definitely missed being able to get away to a warmer/sunny place during Spring Break.  (Don't worry we made up for it in May with a surprise weekend getaway)

The end of April I took the dogs with me to Hickory to visit my dad and Karin, while Mark went off to a bachelor party for his friend Brian.  The guys had a blast (maybe even too much fun), while I had a nice relaxing weekend with all four dogs

May: 
We knew that May would be a busy month, so the first weekend we stayed around home and spent time with friends.  Our very talented friend Mariela had her artwork at a community festival so we got up bright up and early and helped her set up then hung out for most of the morning.  She sold lots of awesome pieces and we came home with the turtle and whale art below, for the nursery.   That afternoon we headed over to a local park/lake to celebrate a friend's birthday and spend time just catching up with friends.  It was nice to see everyone running around with their kids.

The second weekend in May Mark planned a surprise get-away to Wilmington NC.  It was awesome.  I work in Wilmington once every other month for a day, but I've never actually had time to explore the city of Wilmington.  We stayed at an awesome hotel right on the river and spent all day Saturday wandering up and down the river front and some cute shops not far from the river.  We tried out some awesome restaurants, spent some time just stopping in bars and grabbing a drink, and just some time sitting on the river front eating ice cream.

Third weekend:
Every year our adoption agency hosts a spring picnic at an area park.  The picnic is a really great opportunity for the families who have already adopted to get together and catch up, but its also a good opportunity for waiting families to get some encouragement from those who have been through the process.   This was our second  year going so it was nice to see families who last year were "waiting" and this year had babies.  Although we are excited for everyone who has received a placement, it also makes us a little sad that we are still waiting.  We know that God has an awesome plan for us though and so we have to continue to place our hope and faith in Him.

To end this weekend we celebrated Nicole's 30th birthday early by going to see Sister Act at the DPAC.

The last weekend in May Mark was in his best friend Brian's wedding.  Brian is one of the last guys from Mark's group of high school friends to get married and Mark was honored and excited to be a part of it.   The wedding was a beautiful outside wedding and the reception was a great big party.  Everyone had a great time and we had the opportunity to hang out with friends that we don't get to see very often.  After the wedding we all ventured out on the town to a few more bars before calling our personal taxi (Mark's mom) and heading home.

Look at this goof - ball...he continued to tell us he was "business on the top and party on the bottom"