"Tour of the Carolinas" Part 2

~Wild Dunes 2010~

Part 2 of our Tour brought us to Wild Dunes on the Isle of Palms just outside of Charleston. Thanks to The Dean and Momma Kathy for letting us stay at the house while they were hard at work back in TN. I had a wonderful time...great friends, good food, LOTS of relaxing and sunshine! Late August is a great time to visit Isle of Palms because most of the families are back in school. The beach and pools were almost empty and there wasn't a wait at any of the restaurants. We had a great time and are already planning our next trip!

The High Point of the vacation for John was the Shrimp Boil

We found some new restaurants like Poe's Tavern on Sullivan's Island. They had wonderful fish tacos.

Lemy came from TN to join us!

Vacation 2010 "Tour of the Carolinas" Part 1

What a wonderful week!  We started our Tour in Cashiers, NC at the High Hampton Inn and Country Club for the wedding of Krista DeWitt and Jordan Wood.  It was a Chattanooga reunion with lots of John's former classmates and their families, girlfriends, wives etc. spending the weekend in the Highlands for the celebration.  We had a blast! 

John and some of the other groomsmen

The Lynskey Girls--so much fun!

My handsome date ;)

Saturday it rained ALL DAY.  We were concerned about the ceremony since it was scheduled to be outside by the lake. Little did we know that sunshine was on its way!  Thirty minutes before walking down the aisle, the rain stopped and the sun peeped out from around the clouds. It couldn't have been more perfect...what a wonderful day!  Congrats to Jordan and Krista!

Countdown 'til Vacation

"In my mind, I'm going to Carolina..."

  While waist deep in snow during "Snow-magedeon" 1...2...or 3 this winter, I didn't think August would ever get here!  Well, it's here and it's beach time!!!  Since I like to count down events by how many times I have to wake up, we are only one wake up away from VACATION!  May 2009 was the last time I was at the beach, by far the longest It's been the longest I've ever gone without a vacation.  I've titled this vacation "Tour of the Carolinas" because of our stops in North and South Carolina.  One of John's lifelong friends Jordan is getting married in the Highlands of North Carolina on Saturday, so Cashiers, NC is our first stop.  I'm looking forward to meeting the rest of John's friends (who from stories I've heard are some of the most fun people around).  Sunday morning we leave NC and head to the South Carolina lowcountry to my favorite spot...Wild Dunes. 

The Perfect Day.

Friday afternoon I got a great idea "let's go to the beach tomorrow".  So in the attitude of spontaneity I talked a few good folks into going with me.  We headed out to Sandy Point State Park in Maryland which has a wonderful beach by the bay bridge. 

We all enjoyed snowcones on the beach.

After laying out for a little while, we tried to cool off in the water only to find a large population of Jelly Fish.  Thankfully, only one of us got stung. Robby, Tom, Anna Catherine and Hallie all went to check out the boat rentals while John and I kept the towels and our books company.  Eventually the heat got to us and we went to look for the boaters.  They got distracted (shocking) and happened upon a pier where folks were crabbing. It was the find of the day!  Other than John, we were all crabbing novices so we tried our luck at it.  The big winner of the day was....ME!

Meet my new friend, Big Blue.

After hours of crabbing we decided to leave the cooking of the crabs to the experts and we headed to Cantlers for a wonderful dinner.

We ended the day very tired, a little sunburned and full of yummy seafood.

Almost a YEAR later, I finally made the blog.

It's so hard to believe that it's been almost a year since I moved to DC!  This time last year I was packing up all my belongings, trying to find a place to live, eating my weight in food (thanks to the wonderful going away parties) and having my daily freak out of "can I really do this"?  Well a year later (and pounds lighter) I can answer that question...yes, I did it! 

Before I moved so many of my family and friends asked me to start a blog to document my big move. Well almost a year later, I'm just now getting to make the blog.  So much has happened, but I'm confident that it's only the beginning!  So, I'll do my best to document year #2 in DC. 

Here are a couple pics of the past year. More to come for sure!

I joined the Marines...for the day.

We had ALOT of snow!

I went to the White House a couple of times.