Honeymoon: Home, We Think.

The day had finally arrived.  It was time to head home from paradise.  To say we weren't ready is an understatement!  It was so nice to live life day by day instead of on a timeline.  It was also nice to spend time with just each other.  Our flight didn't leave until about 4:30 pm so we got up that morning, grabbed some coffee, and headed to the beach for one last walk.  It seems like wherever you go in Hawaii the nature is beautiful!  David spotted this flower and took a picture.

I spotted this camel and wanted a picture.  I have quite an eye for art. ;)  Haha!

It was a little overcast and I'm pretty sure it's because the Hawaiian gods didn't want us to leave Hawaii!  I told David this but he didn't believe me!  It was still pretty early, but there were already surfers out there!  This picture doesn't do justice to how big these waves were.  They weren't nearly as big as waves on the North Shore of Oahu are, but they were still knocking people over!  I equated it to the waves on Myrtle Beach when a hurricane is coming.

I really could see myself living in Hawaii.  It was just so beautiful and peaceful.  How could you not be happy living in Hawaii?

I decided on one last walk in the water and turned around for a picture opportunity.  And boy did David get the shot of the century!  He snapped right as a huge wave hit me from the back!  It was perfect, haha!

And of course I was still putting flowers behind my left ear since we learned its meaning at our luau the night before!

We headed back to our hotel to finish packing and head out.  We stopped to get a quick bite to eat at a little restaurant but neither David nor I could eat much.

Aloha, Hawaii!  We were sad to leave your little slice of paradise.

We boarded our plane and headed for home.  Or so we thought!  About 30 minutes into our flight we started smelling something burning.  Umm, not normal.  The flight attendants were in constant contact with the cockpit and kept asking us, "is it any better?  Can you still smell it?"  And everyone kept saying, "it's actually getting worse."  It was not fun!  I leaned over to David and said, "we're going back."  "What?" he replied.  "We're turning around..."  And sure enough, about the time I said that, the flight attendants came over the loud speaker and said we were turning around to land at the Honolulu airport.

Okay, turning around I can handle.  

But then the pilot got on the loud speaker and said, "Obviously something isn't right and we feel safer turning around to get everything checked out.  Just letting you know, though, that we will be having an emergency landing."  Emergency landing...not so sure I can handle that!

Now I was positive Hawaii didn't want us to leave! :)

It was still light enough when we flew over Honolulu that we could see Pearl Harbor!  That was so cool!  

We reached the airport, started descending and could see the flashing lights waiting for us.  Y'all, that was a scary moment!  We hit the runway and literally flew out of our seats.  The plane was so stinkin' heavy.  We were flanked immediately by the fire engines, but luckily nothing happened.  The firemen were decked out in some funky fire repellent gear.  They looked like astronauts.  When we came to a stop the entire plane erupted in in applause and the pilot came on and said, "And the Tigers have beat the Yankees!" which resulted in another round of applause!  We were so thankful for such seasoned pilots who remained calm and collected during this flight.  I've been on a lot of flights and gone through a lot of things on planes but this was my first emergency landing and I'll be fine if it's my last! :)

We had to have an emergency landing because we had so much fuel on board.  It was too much to dump and because we had so much, it made the plane heavy- which is why we bounced so much when we landed.  If we had landed just a tad off, anything could have happened and with a plane full of fuel- well, you know why the fire department was there.

It turns out that the A/C unit on the plane had overheated, so it's a good thing we turned around.  They fixed it and we were taking off about an hour later.  We missed our connecting flight in Dallas but managed to catch another flight about an hour later.  We were exhausted by the time we actually arrived home!

When we got around to giving out gifts, everyone loved what we got them!  Everyone that is, except Marley.  He was less than thrilled about his Hawaiian shirt and lei. ;)

Hawaii, mahalo for showing us a wonderful time.  We can't wait to visit again and see what other wonderful experiences you have in store for us! Aloha!

Weekend in Raleigh

This past weekend, David and I took a short trip to Raleigh to visit my cousin Scott!  He has a new apartment and we hadn't seen it yet, plus we wanted to see Raleigh!  We left Friday morning and a certain little boy was invited to come, too:

He did so good in the car.  He normally whines the entire time, but he finally settled down in his favorite spot- Daddy's shoulders!

He got in to Raleigh around 3:30pm and it was a gorgeous day.  There is a wonderful nature park 10 minutes from Scott's apartment so we took Marley on a little walk.

I, of course, brought my camera to take pictures, but you know boys!  This was the best I could get:

Even Marley wouldn't cooperate!

After our walk, we got ready to head to downtown Durham to grab a bite to eat and go to the Durham Bulls baseball game.  This is the only picture of me from this weekend.  Just to prove I was there!  And to show off my cute outfit.  This was my birthday gift from my Aunt Diane!



We went to dinner at a place called Tyler's.  We ate outside, the weather was so nice!  There were so many people out.  They had a band playing, lots of people were sitting in chairs watching and talking, and kids were running around everywhere.

We headed to the game and got there in the 3rd inning.  The bulls were already losing 8-1 and by the 5th inning they were losing 12-1, so we decided to head on home.  We had a busy day planned the next day!

On Saturday, we got up early to go run in the park.  Scott is up to 6 miles on his training and I was set back a little when I got sick in March.  David and Scott ran together and I was on my own.  Well, actually I had Marley.  I ended up running about 4 miles and Marley made it most of the way!  He loves to walk and run.  I was impressed with his little self. :)  He pooped out close to the end so I carried him the last 10 minutes.  We got showered and headed to lunch at Jason's Deli.  I had never been there before and I got the chicken salad sandwich with pineapple in it and a side of fruit and it was so delicious!  Scott's apartment complex is right in the middle of pure awesome-ness.  There are 3 pods of shopping areas right next to each other and there are so many stores: Barnes and Noble, Target, Petsmart, Staples, Starbucks, Lowes food, Michaels, Caribou Coffee...etc.  Basically anything you could have wanted!

I'm a Starbucks girl, but Scott has really gotten into Caribou Coffee so after lunch we stopped by so I could see what all the fuss was about.  I ended up getting a turtle white mocha and it was delicous!  It was made with real white chocolate chips so that was neat.

We grabbed our coffee and headed to downtown Raleigh to the new Museum of Natural Science that just recently opened up.

  It was so cool!  There were 3 levels and so many interesting things relating to humans, oceanography, technology, animals, and space.  I learned some pretty interesting things.  For example:

Last summer when I wad salmonella poisoning, this is what had invaded my body:

It just looks like an evil bacteria!

The huge Right Whale they had hanging from the ceiling was named "Stumpy" and was found dead a couple years ago in the ocean.  They did an autopsy and discovered she died from being hit by a boat.  The research they did from her death (including how fast a boat can be going before it breaks bones) helped lead to new boat speed regulations.  Unfortunately Stumpy's death was a double-blow because she was actually pregnant.  The skeleton of Stumpy hanging on the ceiling also had her skeleton baby as well.

And probably the grossest thing we learned was about the extinct gastric brooding frog which laid eggs, then swallowed them, shut off its gastric juices so as not to kill the babies, and then when they were ready to be born (fully formed froglets...) they would be "birthed"....from her mouth.

Yep, I gagged a little when I read that.  I'm not sure I would appreciate birthing a baby out my mouth. Ha!

We also spent about an hour in the Museum of History before it closed, but I didn't get any pictures there.  It was a quick tour anyway.  When we left, we freshened up a bit before our dinner at Mez!  If you ever go to Raleigh, you have to go to Mez!  It is one of the best mexican restaurants I have ever been to.  We went last year when Scott graduated from Duke, so I couldn't wait to go back again this time around!

Here is a picture of 2 of my favorite guys on the way back from dinner :)

We ended our evening at home with some drinks and movies.  We watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall (always a favorite go-to!) and Step Brothers.  We got almost all the way through Step Brothers before we were ready for bed!  

We slept in this morning and then grabbed lunch at Jimmy John's before we headed back to Greenville.   We were sad to go, we had so much fun!  Scott is one of Marley's favorite people and as such, he left Scott one of his bones from the weekend:

Scott, we had so much fun and we can't wait to come back!  Thanks for being such a great host and planning some awesome activities for us! :)

Baby Shower #2

On Saturday, David and I hosted another baby shower for some friends.  But this time we had the help of more friends- Phil and Emily!  

I worked the night before (why do I keep doing that to myself?!) so I was glad to have the extra help this time around!  We hosted the shower at Brian and Marybeth's house (the soon-to-be mommy and daddy!) so we got there about 12:45pm to set everything up!  When we got there, this pretty thing was already on the table!  Brian's mom made this diaper cake.  Isn't is so cute?!

Their house is already so pretty, we didn't have to do too much to decorate!  Brian and Marybeth are having a little girl and her room is orange and pink, so we stuck with that for our color theme!  We added streamers, a banner, and had pretty pink and orange plates and flowers, thanks to Emily!

David and I got the cake made at Couture Cakes of Greenville and we got it to match the invitations that David made.  They did a wonderful job!  Brian and Marybeth decided on the name Evelyn Felicity, so we thought it was fitting to add her initials to the cake. :)

The soon-to-be parents, Brian and Marybeth.  They are so happy and we are so thrilled for them!

We had a very special little guest.  Remember the baby shower we gave Casey and Jayma?  They brought sweet Nolynn to the party!  Isn't she so big--and absolutely beautiful?!

Aunt Erin had to get some lovin' in on the sweet girl!  Doesn't it look like I need a baby?!  Haha!
I just love this girl so much!

Emily had some great games set up!  For the first game, she printed out some pictures of babies making funny faces and everyone had to come up with a caption.  The guys really got into this game!  They all went to separate corners so no one could cheat off of them.  It was too funny!

They came up with some pretty funny captions!  We also played a game where you had to fill in the blanks on baby rhymes.  Some of them were pretty old and hard to remember!  I think Brian's mom won that game, haha!

Brian was excited to open gifts ;)    They racked up on a bunch of great stuff!

Both Brian and Marybeth went to Auburn so little miss got a onesie for football season! (It's okay, our friendship has survived despite the fact that they are Auburn fans ;) Just kidding!!....)

Brian's mom makes baby bibs, so they got a slew of those in a bunch of different, cute, girly patterns!  I'm thinking I'm going to need to get some of those when it's time for us to have a little one!

I hope Brian knows what he's getting himself into with a little girl!  That girl is already so spoiled!  She got so many wonderful things at her shower, including adorable clothes!

Beautiful Jayma and baby Nolynn!

We can't wait to meet you, Evie!