Mid-week Weekend!

The nice thing about doing nothing right now (well there's lots of nice things) is that we can get away for a few days during the week when places are less busy and less expensive. On Tuesday morning we packed the car with our Huskers cooler, camping chairs, picnic blanket, our new beach umbrella, two overnight bags, gummy bears (thanks Bri and Andy) and headed South! There are so many good beaches around here but we decided to try Topsail (pronounced tops'l) first. Ryan played in the water with our new body board while I ended up falling asleep on the beach. While walking we found two jellyfish on the shore. We were surprised to find how solid their bodies were! We were also surprised to find out that Ryan got absolutely fried... oops!





On our way into town we got stopped in a line of traffic for a few minutes but with no sign of what was causing the delay. We passed over a bridge soon after and figured it must have been raised for boats to pass by. However, the bridge was concrete and we could not figure out how they would have raised it. We were lucky enough (if you want to call it that) to get stopped again on our way out of town, but this time at the front of the line. We were both amazed to see that they did not lift the bridge but ROTATE it! I'd never seen anything like it!







It was raining as we left Topsail but luckily by the time we showered it cleared up and we were able to explore Wilmington, where we stayed the night. Wilmington is BEAUTIFUL. It has a one-mile river walk and is home to WWII's USS North Carolina battleship. The artwork in the top right is of a venus fly trap which apparently are fairly prevalent here, though I'm yet to see one. Wilmington was a huge Confederate city during the Civil War and Ryan read it was even the confederacy's last stand - Welcome to the South. :) But it also has one of the nations largest and best restored downtown areas. Instead of having just one strip of historic buildings, it was a few blocks in each direction.









These pictures of the houses do not do it justice. Again, it wasn't just a street or two of pretty houses like in most cities I've been in, it was blocks and blocks and blocks of the most gorgeous homes with painted trim, shutters, and wrap-around front porches. I was in absolute heaven. And they're HUGE!! Gosh, I want one so badly. The bottom pictures are of the Cotton Exchange which is of another preserved building that now homes a lot of cute little shops. I'm sure most of you know, but if you click on the pictures, you can see them larger. :)

This glass was handmade in Wilmington and it just blew me away.

Once we finished exploring Wilmington we drove to more beaches in the area to see which one we would like best. After eliminating Wrightsville and Carolina Beach we fell in love with Kure beach. The sun was shining, the water was warm and colorful, the sand was smooth and we had plenty of shade from our umbrella. We loved it! And the best part? It only took 2 hours and 55 minutes to get from the beach to our front door!

New Aventures in NC

1. Cooking


Neither Ryan nor I have really had to cook much for ourselves so we're slowly trying to learn basic skills. Our first attempt - omelets! I wouldn't say they were a total success, but not a failure either! They may not have been the prettiest things ever, but they sure were tasty!

2. Rain

Growing up in NE, thunderstorms aren't really new to us, but they seem even crazier here! The same day we made omelets was the first day we were actually going to get out and explore the city. However, it DUMPED on us. Then blue skies came out, then it dumped again canceling our originally scheduled BBQ. On Sunday we decided to give the BBQ another shot and after one storm it seemed to be the end so with swimsuits on, we braved it and headed to the grills. FAIL. Luckily Barrett came prepared with an umbrella to shield us girls, but more importantly - his chicken!





3. Ninth Street

Ninth street is a popular lunch-time destination for Duke Students. It has all sorts of local and somewhat eclectic restaurants and shops and looks like it popped straight outta the history books (like much of Durham!)










4. Spiders

Again, now new but disgusting. Ryan couldn't stand to be out on our patio knowing this thing was alive so he did his manly duties and destroyed it! Barrett kindly informed us last night that it is probably a female that mated, killed the male (see left side of bottom picture), and laid eggs. Ick, it gives me the heeby-jeebies just thinking about baby spiders that will grow up to be just like that thing!!

5. Brightleaf Square
These former tobacco warehouses belonging to members of the Duke family (yep, the famous university was named after a bunch of tobacconists) were built between 1900 and 1904 and then after many transitions was converted into Brightleaf Square in 2004. It's an adorable part of downtown Durham full of more restaurants and shops (this time more upscale). We went to a Brazilian Steakhouse where gouchos (cowboys) wander around with all sorts of meats and you can eat as much as you want! They have free summer concerts and we had the pleasure of hearing traditional Irish and Appalachian music... interesting to say the least.

The sidewalk was paved with these bricks. I just thought they were so unique and pretty!

6. American Tobacco District

If you couldn't tell, Durham is a tobacco town! The American Tobacco Company was formed by the Duke family to compete with "Bull Durham Tobacco Factory" (hence the Durham Bulls baseball team). Eventually American because the biggest in the world! The area is now home to the Durham Bulls baseball stadium, the Durham Performing Arts Center, a residential area and many businesses. They had this neat stream/waterfall flowing down the entire walkway that I'm sure is home to many wedding pictures! :)











7. Sunsets!

On probably our first day of arriving I immediately noticed that we will rarely get to see sunsets here due to the forests EVERYWHERE. Coming from the midwest where you can see for miles and from an apartment with a west facing window, I was disappointed to say the least. So imagine my excitement when we returned home from our Friday night date to see this.

8. Friends

While I don't have pictures to prove it, we have friends now! I've mentioned Barrett and Ali from school, but we've met people from church as well. I was pretty down after our first Sunday after seeing that every couple but two has 2-7 children but things are looking up. We went to the Pioneer Day pancake feed at the Institute and met two couples from Chapel Hill who invited us over for ice cream and games on Saturday night. Then on Sunday we had two couples from our ward over as well as Barrett (he's a Sunday night tradition now... games+Barrett+Top Shot=Sunday evenings). One of the couples even lives just two apartments above us!

9. The Temple
Again, no pictures but Ryan and I were able to go to the Temple on Wednesday morning and I went again with the Relief Society on Thursday night where I got to meet even more women. The Temple is the standard small temple and it makes me miss the beautiful gold doors and stained glass of Winter Quarters. BUT, it is still a house of the Lord and beautiful nonetheless!

10. The Beach
We're off to the beach tomorrow and praying the weather holds out!!

Basically, LIFE IS GOOD.
(Make sure you read the post from earlier today with apartment pictures!)

Feels like Home

Ladies and Gentlemen (though I think only ladies read this...):

The apartment is finished and WE LOVE IT! We have everything we need and everything has a place. I must say, it is such an amazing feeling. Especially after I've lived in a dorm for the past 5 years and Ryan has been a gypsy since returning from his mission 5 years ago. We have a HOME. And we are so thankful for it every time we walk in the door. After visiting other friends' (yes we have friends!) apartments, ours is the best - it just has so much s p a c e!! And speaking of space... that couch pulls out into a bed AND we have a blow up mattress so there's plenty of space for friends to visit. :)

Did you notice our plant? No kids or pets for us - just a love fern...or love yucca. Luckily it comes with a one year guarantee! After that, nothing is for sure! :) Also, we originally had a night stand consisting of a lovely white towel covered box and the other day we stumbled across the gem in the picture at Goodwill. It's beautiful and exactly what we wanted and CHEAP!

As part of Ryan's birthday present I let him decorate the second (his) bathroom anyway he wanted. This was actually a big deal because I'm anti beach themes, and he loves them. The result...

I really don't mind it because it's not TOO overdone and cheesy. And half of it is authentic from Brazil, so at least it's legit! Our bathroom is nothing special except for my latest project:

I've been struggling to find a good way to store earrings (and all jewelry for that matter) and voila! I just need to make a small bag for my earrings that don't have the loops to hang and then I'll hang that from it as well. So easy and so convenient! Too bad I don't live near any of you anymore because I have a lot of extra chicken wire and no ideas of how else to use it.

That's about it for the apartment so far! I guessed it was a little white lie when I said we're completely done. We still have to:

1. Paint over the wallpaper in the kitchen. It's not horrible, but we can't look at it for a year or more.
2. Hang Ryan's Brazilian hammock on the patio (not the Brazilian bathroom).
3. Finish organizing my half of the second bedroom. The room is split down the middle between us. Half is Ryan's pretty glass desk for his studies and the walls are all baseball posters. My half will be my craft space. Can't wait!

Lastly, this is the view from our bedroom window. We go to sleep to the sounds of locusts and frogs/toads. I know it's not for everyone, but we couldn't ask for anything better!

334

What does 334 mean, you say? That's the number of facebook friends I've deleted in the past few days! I went from 681 to 347. Pretty darn impressive, hey? Maybe I got a little carried away, but I just didn't see the point in having "friends" that I haven't talked to in years and probably won't ever again! I'm still not as strict as Ryan with his only 61 total friends - I'll never get down to that few.

But, it's refreshing, maybe you should give it a try!
(And thanks to Bri for finding me the easy way to remove friends in mass numbers!)
Oh yeah, and we've been married 34 days (and only been apart for about 5 hours of that!) How lucky are we?

Quick Update

Hello everyone! We've almost been here for a week now, and I don't know where the time goes! I talked to my friend Schuster (Megan) yesterday and she asked me if I think I will have time to explore the area like I want before school and work start. It was a very good question and gosh, I sure hope so. But, so far, we don't have much to show for our week here. We spent one day unpacking, then rested on Sunday, ran errands on Monday and Tuesday (we finally have food!!!), and helped a friend move yesterday.

I know I said that I don't want to move anymore, but I definitely don't mind serving others! This was probably one of the worst moves anyone could ever have. Her fiance just drove here from Texas with a 24' truck filled about like ours - 2/3 full and then a motorcycle. So we helped him unpack, then we drove to Ali's apartment and loaded her stuff into the truck which was then driven to the new apartment and unloaded again. LONG DAY. I'm excited to get to know Ali better. She is the president of the PT class ahead of Ryan and he met her when he came out to interview. She was so excited for us to move out here and we clicked the instant we met. Then, as we moved her stuff I saw just how well we'd get along. I found Glee Season 1, the entire Harry Potter series, the High School Musical Soundtrack, and a lot of cute clothes! We're definitely going to be friends. :)

Today we're finally trying to finish organizing the apartment as much as possible and even hang stuff on the wall which feels like the final touch for me. It definitely feels like home having all of our stuff in it!

I'm not budging!!

After moving 15 times in 5 years and one heck of a trek to get out here, I'm staying put!! I told Ryan that if I like the apartment, there is no way I'm packing up and moving to another one (even if it is "better"). Welp, looks like we're staying put!!

But let's start at the beginning...
Monday: Moved all of my stuff from all around the Luke house to the garage.

Tuesday: Picked up our giant 24' truck, car trailer and started packing.
Left Lincoln around 1:30 p.m.

Arrived in Omaha, wrapped and moved our beast of a couch, picked up our new chaise lounge, rearranged my stuff in the truck and added Ryan's (including the motorcycle).

Went to B-dubs for goodbye wings and boy, what a crowd showed up! I thought maybe 10 or so people would stay awhile with others dropping by, but no - 30+ people all night!! I LOVE OUR FRIENDS!!!

Wednesday: Finished packing and finally left town at 1:30 p.m.

Drove, in separate cars, for 9ish miserable hours through rain and construction at night to Savoy, IL.

Thursday: Decided not to drive the remaining 12 hours, but stop in Charleston, WV.
After the worst 10 hour drive of my life through more disgusting rain and construction and traffic we arrived at 11:00 p.m.

Friday: We enjoyed one of the best breakfasts of my life and explored Charleston (where there was a Pontiac car show and I got to see a homeless woman at 9:00 a.m. with her cigarette and bottle of booze and her male friend peeing in the river) and after 6 more hours of driving finally made it "home" at 4:00 p.m!!!
This is our street!!
Not our exact building, but the complex.We were so lucky to have the help of some of the Physical Therapy Students in the class ahead of Ryan help us unpack. We had everything out of the truck and into the apartment in 2.5 hours, it was beautiful! Then we looked around, grabbed the keys, and went out to dinner. :)

Living Room
Living Room/Dining Room/KitchenOur Bedroom
Office
Screened in Patio
And then.... after 24 hours... VOILA!!!

A REAL living room/dining room/kitchen!

And yes, I alphebetized the spice rack.
And note our pretty Fiestaware dishes - LOVE THEM!
I can't wait to finish unpacking and put up finished pictures of our pretty new home!!!!

We're Wedded!!

I don't have much time, but wanted to post a few pictures that my photographer shared from the wedding day. We had a luncheon at Rosenblatt Stadium which is special because it is where Ryan and I had our first date, where he proposed, and where we've spent the past week (College World Series and Independence Day fireworks). Last night was our last night there - EVER - seeing as how they're tearing it down! :( But we had the most spectacular wedding day, we couldn't have asked for anything better!

This last picture was taken in a phone booth in the Old Market, Omaha. I got to put my dress back on Friday and take more pictures in Downtown Omaha. I cannot wait to see the pictures!!

In other news, we move to North Carolina on Wednesday - EEK!!!