Let's Catch Up

Blogging has fallen so far on the back burner that it would take me forever to do individual posts on everything.  Hopefully I can stay caught up after this and make it a point to blog a few times a week.

First, Drew lost his job.  His company closed their doors and everyone but a few keys employees was terminated.  It came as quite the surprise to everyone.  Apparently, the company has been bought now.  Drew is waiting to see if they are going to ask him to come back.  He's been applying for other positions, both here and in other states.  I'm torn about whether I want to move or not.  On one hand, it would be a great opportunity and a chance to try out a new place.  I've only lived here in Illinois.  And we've got to face it, this isn't exactly a great area for aviation.  On the other hand, it will be hard to leave our families.  We've both got extended family in other parts of the country, but it will still be hard to leave our "home".  We're both just saying lots of prayers that Drew gets a job quickly and that he is able to grow and expand his skills in it.

We recently took a week long, extremely spur of the moment trip to North Carolina.  Drew's BFF, Drew, was talking to his dad one day when we arrived at his parent's house.  He was talking about how he was going to start laying some laminate hardwoods that weekend.  Drew decided that we should go out there and help him.  So, we left the next evening.  Annelise did such a great job traveling and while we were there!!  For some reason, her bedtime was extremely late every night.  Not quite sure what that was about.

Drew spent the whole time laying the floors and didn't really do anything fun.  Poor him.  Annelise and I were busy little bees.  Jen and Emma took us to a place called Discovery Zone Kids.  It was a blast.  There was a huge place for Annelise to play.  When we first got there, she spent about 10 minutes just looking around at everything.

But, once she warmed up and had a chance to take everything in, she had a great time.

She especially liked playing in the water table.

I had the awesome opportunity to meet a lady that I've been friends with for quite a few years.  We met while we were both planning our weddings on an online chat forum.  Lindsay only lives about a half hour from where I was at.

She also has an adorable daughter named Lila.

There are a lot of blue eyes in that picture!!

Drew decided that he wanted to travel back home during the day, so that we could see the mountains as we drove through them.  That idea was all fine and dandy, until night fell and we ran into a snow storm in Indiana.  And then, we got stuck on a closed highway that got shut down because of an accident.  So basically, a 12-13 hour roadtrip turned into 18 hours, and we didn't get home until about 4 AM.  Not so much fun!  It was definitely the second worst road trip ever.

Now that we've been home, we just been focusing on getting stuff done around the house.  Hopefully we can knock out a bunch of little projects that have been on the back burner while Drew is off of work.

Tour of Charlotte

Today, we went for a tour of Charlotte. One of our first stops was Davidson College. Davidson has had an impressive basketball team for a couple years with help from a young man by the name of Stefan Curry. Ring a bell to anyone?
Then, we went to lunch at Sonic. Now, I know what you must be thinking. Sonic? Of all the places for you to go on vacation. Sonic? You see, Sonic commercials get shown here a ridiculous amount of times. And the closest Sonic is over an hour away. Kinda cruel, if you ask me. So when I found out that they had Sonic close by, I was all over that.


After lunch, Drew took us by the Lowe's Motor Speedway.

My one and only picture with Emma. You would think that with the number of times I fed and changed her, I would have at least 2 pictures or something. Nope, just this one. But I'm not bitter or anything.

Now, we're home. I already miss our friends and family. But home is still a great place to be. And I can't wait to see them again at Christmas. Emma will be 6 months old by then and I can only imagine how big she'll be.

Quality Time with Friends and Family

Eric and Jess came back to Drew and Jen's house this morning before they headed back home to Georgia. There are always jokes going around about who has to have a baby first. Drew's parents are extremely anxious for grandbabies. Too bad they'll be waiting for one from Drew and I for a few more years.

After Eric and Jess left to go back home, the rest of us pretty much lounged around until Drew's baseball game. Yes, baseball! And my Drew sure did get razzed by me for him just playing softball and the other Drew playing baseball.

After the game, we all went back to the house and fired up the grill to make some ribs! We ate some dinner then played "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader" on the Wii. Tomorrow is our last day in North Carolina.

North Carolina Cook-Out

Today, we traveled back to North Carolina. Once we got back to Drew and Jen's house, Drew and I immediately went to the guest room and took a nap. We slept until Eric and Jess showed up. We hung out with them and worked on getting things ready for the BBQ that Drew and Jen were having.

Guests were scheduled to arrive at 6 PM and let me tell you, people in the South know that 6 PM means 6 PM. We cooked out and enjoyed everybody's company.

Someone brought a Bags set, also known as Corn Hole, and Drew is an avid Bags player. Some of the boys started playing Bags and Jess and I watched with amusement. Soon, a neighbor kid and his friend, who were both about 10 or 11, decided that they wanted to play too. They thought that they were THE coolest things ever because they were getting to play with the "adults". Jess and I were rolling in laughter over some of the things they were saying.

Poor Jen wasn't able to have a very good time at her party because Emma had some trapped gas that was causing her a lot of discomfort. She spent a good portion of the night trying to soothe her. I felt horrible, and thought about trying to help, but some of Jen's friends were already with her so I figured it would be best if I just stayed back.

We don't really have any plans for tomorrow, so we'll see what comes up.

I've Touched the Atlantic Ocean

Today, we woke up bright and early so that the boys could go on a deep sea fishing trip. I watched little Emma while Jen ran the boys to the dock. When she got back, we grabbed some breakfast from the lobby and then got ready for our day. Us girls went to the Tangier Outlets and did a little shopping before Jen picked the boys up. Here's some pictures from their trip.

The guide told Drew that it's not too safe to be swimming right now because there is a shark for every 3 cubic feet of water! Count me out of that!!

Drew refused to changed diapers... but he would feed little Emma. I can't wait until he's a dad.

After the boys got back, we all laid around and did a little napping. Hello... early morning 2 days in a row! After some naps, we headed to the beach. I. was. stoked!!!

Look!!! I'm in the ocean!!!

Um, hello, gorgeous!!!

There was a storm blowing through, so it was incredibly windy. That's the sand moving from the wind.

After the beach, we came back to the hotel and cooked dinner. Tomorrow is another travel day as we head back to North Carolina. That means we have to be up early again. What kind of vacation is this??

Long Travel Day

We woke up this morning at 3:00 AM!!! Our flight was at 7:00 AM, and we were flying out of the Milwaukee airport, so we needed to leave our house by about 4:00 AM. Yes, I am a morning person, but I still don't like being up that early. But hey, I got to watch the sunrise. And this picture, this is the reason why I love flying.
You can't tell me that that's not gorgeous. That's Lake Michigan in case anyone is wondering.

And since we've always taken a picture on the plane, we needed to keep the tradition alive.

And, I honestly think that I've worn that sweatshirt every time we've traveled. It's my baby blue NIU hoodie and I love it, even though Drew hates it. I know that I wore it on the cruise, but not quite sure about the honeymoon. I'll have to try to dig that up.

Then, I had to take a picture of the rinky dink plane that we flew in. We were all waiting for a gate to park at. One never opened up, so we actually had to disembark the plane by using the stairs. Definitely a first for me.

Charlotte is home to the Lowe's Motor Speedway, so this guy was in the airport.

Jen and Emma picked us up at the airport. I guess that Drew had some problems at the rental car place, so they were running a little behind schedule. We were originally supposed to leave straight from the airport to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Instead, Jen brought us back to their house.

Drew and Jen live outside of Charlotte, so it was a quick little jog back to their place. Their house is so cute. They live in a beautiful neighborhood of new construction homes. Once we arrived at their house, we got a quick little tour and then packed up the rental car to head to SC, which was about 4 hours away.

Little Emma did well on the car trip. She slept most of the way. This picture is of the Sound as we went over the bridge to HHI.

We arrived in Hilton Head mid-afternoon and immediately went to check into our hotel room. We booked a suite with a kitchen so that we could eat dinner in there on night to limit our dining out expenses. It was a loft style room, so there was a bed with a bathroom upstairs.

We got everything inside and settled, changed our clothes (well actually, I think that was just me) and then went to go find dinner. We knew that we wanted to go out for seafood since we were on the ocean. We drove around for quite awhile, and eventually ended up in the Sea Pines area of HHI. Let me tell you about the homes in this part of the island. Goodness gracious, they were huge!!! And they were all surrounded by lush landscaping. Oh, what I wouldn't give to have a home there. In case you were wondering about prices... anywhere from $500,000 to well over $1.5 million.

We were going to eat at Salty Dog, but the wait was over 2 hours and we were pretty famished, so we decided to eat at Land's End Tavern, where the wait was only about half an hour. While we were waiting, we snapped some pictures.

Dinner was tasty, and I even tried alligator nuggets. For the record, it tastes just like chicken. After dinner, we drove around a little bit more, then headed back to the hotel. Drew and I are exhausted after traveling all day, plus the boys are going out on a deep sea fishing excursion tomorrow. Us girls? We're going to do what we do best. Shop!

Countdown to Vacation

There hasn't been too much going on, hence the lack of blogging. Mike, our tenant, left for training yesterday. Becca seems to be taking it fairly well. I don't think it's really sunk in yet. I can't imagine having to go through what she's going through. I am fully appreciative of all those men and women that serve our country. But, I am so grateful that Drew stays home with me.

We're gearing up for vacation, which we leave for on Thursday. We're visiting the Daughtry's in North Carolina. We leave bright and early Thursday morning. My wonderful husband scheduled our flights for 7 AM!!! I'm not so stoked about that. But, we do arrive in Charlotte at about 10 AM, where we will leave directly for Hilton Head Island. I've never seen the ocean, so I'm super excited to be able to see the Atlantic and stick my feet in there. Hopefully, the weather will be nice. When I checked the weather at the end of last week, they were calling for scattered thunderstorms. So, the next couple of days will be a flurry of cleaning, laundry, and packing. The fun parts of going on vacation!

I'm going to try to blog through vacation, like I did on our honeymoon. I can't make too many promises, because I'm sure to be kept pretty busy. Plus, there's little Emma that I am totally excited to snuggle with. I'm sure that she's not going to help the baby fever one little bit.