Katfish and Billfish Came to St. Kitts

Well Katfish and Billfish made it to St. Kitts! They came to visit and we had such a wonderful time! Mom and Dad were here for about 10 days and we kept them busy every day! Between zip-lining, snorkeling, tanning, eating, fishing, island touring, and exploring. We took them to our favorite places! And our not so favorite places. It was imperative that they visited our not so favorite places….They were even able to experience "Only in St. Kitts" moments too! 

Oh and I almost forgot! Duke was in HEAVEN all week with Billfish. I don’t think Duke left his side. We actually surprised Duke by letting him outside to go “potty” but really it was to surprise him with Billfish! And boy was he surprised to see his best friend. By the way it was my idea to surprise Duke! Mom was really cute before we surprised Duke though the exchange went something like this:

Katfish: Do you think Duke will remember me? I’m worried he won’t.

Me: Well I can’t promise he will remember you but he will remember Dad!

Love you Katfish!

I won’t bore you with the details of their visit. Just know that Katfish loves zip-lining and Billfish loves snorkeling! He was snorkeling machine! Oh and Dad has done a lot of out the country fishing and he has always been successful. So might be angry for me to tell you that he was skunked here in St. Kitts. Not one people! The man caught nothing! So I guess that means he will just have to come back and try again!
We enjoyed them so much and hated to see them leave. We had home cooked meals and a few surprises from home! Most importantly we had our family here with us. And we exposed them to every good, bad, and Jumanji like quality of St. Kitts.

So instead of details enjoy our pictures.....

Old Sugar Mill

Katfish

Katfish 

The helmets are awful....

Hey! 

Katfish and Billfish

Racing to the finish 

Brimstone Steps

Still going...

Finally at the top! 

Heading down

Family picture  - notice how Duke gets all of the love

Posing for a cooking picture...

Duke is a wolfpack fan! 

"Box" Turtles (hahah....)

Getting a lesson on turtles 

Billfish Limin'

Me and Katfish 

This might be first time Dad sees this picture..but we caught you in the act! We know who you love the most! 

We had such an amazing week. 

Fall on the Rock

As summer comes to an end and we head into Fall there are some things that I would like to address. There are several things that I believe I will love about Fall down in the Caribbean and other things that I will desperately miss about Fall back home.

Let’s start with what things I will like about Fall on the Rock.

• Firstly, I will be able to wear white after Labor Day! Hooray! White pants, white jeans, white skirts, white shorts, white dresses, white shoes! If it’s white and I own it, you can count on me wearing until I fly home for Christmas! I might even wear all white just to express my sheer pleasure in being able to wear white after Labor Day!
• I will be able to tan in November, outside! I have grown pretty accustom to tanning now and enjoy it on a regular basis. Having the opportunity to lay out, oh say maybe on Thanksgiving will brings me lots of joy. You can’t particular do this in North Carolina without catching a chill….Oh and I can do this from a float in my pool. Yay!  
• My toes have also enjoyed wearing flip flops and Jack Rogers and I would hate to deprive them of that come late November. By being on the Island my little does will stay nicely polished for all to see in their flip flops.
• Hurricane season will end around November 3^rd. Oh speaking of November 3^rd…that’s my birthday! And I for one have never celebrated a birthday on a Caribbean Island. And I’m even luckier because I get to celebrate Andrew’s birthday in September. That will be 2 birthdays on a Caribbean Island!
• I will actually be able to take Duke out and not complain about being cold. Andrew will hopefully appreciate this is. But then again he will tell you that I am the only person who is currently cold in the Caribbean, so I might still complain about being cold just not when I take Duke out.
• My whale watching might peak towards the end of Fall (fingers crossed) The research I have done says that whales winter down in warmer waters to breed and calve. Bingo! I might get to see a whale this Fall, because we all know the only one I have seen has been the pool float!

Now for things I will miss about Fall back home.

• Food. Shocking! I know you can’t believe that the first thing I would say would be food. Crazy, huh? Yes y’all I will miss good ole’ Fall foods. Sweet Potato Pie! My oh My! I love Sweet Potato Pie! Oh and Thanksgiving food! You are probably thinking how does a vegetarian love Thanksgiving food? Simple, I don’t eat the turkey, just everything else people!
• Fall shopping and clothing. I know I said I love flip flops, but I do love a good boot-cut jean and a clog with a sweater! Or a pair of skinny jeans and some tall boots! LOVE! Like my Mom said the stores will wait with open doors for when I return.
• The changing of the leaves. When I think of Fall in North Carolina I think about how the leaves change color! Vibrant hues of orange, red, and yellow! Perhaps a weekend drive up the Blue Ridge Parkway or even heading west to a little town called Lexington…
• Football. There I said it y’all! I will miss football…well kinda. I will miss tailgating with friends and purchasing more than enough potato salad for our tailgate. Football I could take or leave but tailgating with friends I will without a doubt miss. Oh yes and I will miss wearing Red and White to the games. Go Pack!
• Horseback riding in the fall. This one will be tough too. There is nothing like a good ride on a cool crisp Fall morning. Sigh. I love nuzzling the horses when they start to get their winter coat too! Breaches and a light sweater! Another sigh…
• Pumpkin Picking and Carving. The NC Farmers Market will just have to save a few pumpkins for me. I love picking out pumpkins and deciding whether or not they will make for a good carving. Boo! Oh and I love picking a few special little ones for the inside of our house. Oh and you must not forget some must go by the front door too! Ohhhh and the Mums! I love Mums. Yellow Mums look really nice with a few pumpkins next to them!
• Fall decorations. Autumn leaves, pumpkins, wreaths, turkeys! I truly love an Autumn Fall wreath hanging on a front door; it’s so warm and inviting! All of my wreaths are in storage and will one day hang on our front door again! 

No matter where I am in the world I welcome Fall with open arms. There are many many things that I will miss about Fall at home in North Carolina, but the Caribbean has some nice things to look forward to as well. So for now I look forward to Fall on the Rock I currently call home. 

note: this is not St. Kitts 

News and Such

So a lot has actually happened in the last few weeks, but it would literally take weeks to tell you all about it. So I'll keep it short because clearly, who has weeks to read one blog post....

Yay! America! I got to go home to good ole North Carolina! It was pretty amazing. I drank a copious amount of sweet tea, enjoyed time with parents and brother, brushed and fed carrots to my horse and donkey, ate wonderful food, and spent time with good friends. OH and I literally went to Target 4 times in 4 day period. One day I went twice...Don't judge, I like things, especially things I can't find in St. Kitts. 

Aside from doing all things I love at home; I got to go shopping with my best friend, Justine, for bridesmaid dresses for her wedding next June.  The day was wonderful and I love, love, love my dress for the wedding.  Thank you so much to the Kinney's for such a fabulous day; it was so special.

Being home was so nice.  It’s always good and, at times, very necessary to just go home. I had such an incredible few days at home with family and friends and got to do many things I love.  Shopping and food, the way to my heart.  Thank you also to my in-laws and sibling-in-laws (is that the correct way to phrase it?) for coming to visit me! I felt so loved! Oh and yumm the macaroni salad helped too!

It was hard to leave Andrew and Duke, but of course they fared just fine without me.  Andrew took great care of Duke.  Duke even got my side of the bed the whole time! 

Duke got his stitches out.  He is one AMAZING dog! He swims like a normal 4 legged dog, jumps in and out of bed and the car, and still runs as fast as lightning strikes!  It warms my heart that he is doing soo well.  I mean in the water when he swims you can’t even tell he has 3 legs.  I mean obviously when he gets out you can…Mom even got him a pirate bandana to wear and around town!

Justine! She is awesome! She came to visit us last weekend and we had a fabulous time! Though the weather was kinda hurricane like for about a day, we still managed to have a good time!  We didn’t have enough time! I would have loved to show her more.  We did layout and work on our tans.  Boy, tanning is tough work, but don’t worry I’m really getting good at it. We took her around the island, took her out to eat at some local places, and even showed her the grocery stores.  Our visit together was really nice and I can’t wait until it happens again!

Andrew is heading into finals in a few weeks.  Study, Study, Study!  I take my final next week. Study, Study, Study!

I brought lots of food and many other things (clothing, cough cough) back to our little tiny rock to enjoy. I even managed to bring back salsa from Andrew’s favorite restaurant, Centro. He loved me for that!

I got my haircut here and it was uneven! GASP!  But I went back the next day and they fixed it! Thank goodness!

Oh yeah and they raised Andrew's tuition..big bummer! 

I still have yet to see a whale….

Me and Sealy 

Sissy girl 

Daddy and Will 

Justine! 

Photo Shoot

Limin' 

Bridesmaids Weekend 

Justine!

Happy Boy! 

Pirate Dog 

Duke clearly thinks he is too good for the rest of us...

Duke

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to y’all that our Duke is the best dog we could have asked for.  We love him dearly so the past few weeks have trying to say the least….

Andrew and I can home from school/work one day to find Duke’s right hock (rear leg) was extremely swollen.  He was fine though.  Happy as a clam and excited to see us.  Of course I was freaking out though.  Which again shouldn’t come as a surprise.  And I get that my husband is only a vet student and not a veterinary yet but I still expect him to answer all of my questions about Duke, unfair? Maybe…Anyway the joint was hot and swollen but other than that Duke was normal. Duke was fine.  We took him in to the clinic the next day just to see what was going on.  Our first thought was that he just injured it while chasing a mongoose or something.  So we took him and the doctor wanted to keep him for some x-rays and to collect some fluid from around the joint.  Duke went home with us that afternoon and we patiently waited to hear back from pathology the following week to see if there were any abnormal looking cells in his joint fluid.

The next week came and all we knew from pathology was that the test was there were some “suspicious-looking cells” and they needed to take a biopsy from the joint area.  They did tell us though that there was a possibility of a synovial cell sarcoma, aka cancer of the joint fluid.  But my thoughts were no, that wasn’t it; it couldn’t be, no way.  

So Duke went back a few days later for a biopsy.  The biopsy procedure was normal and routine.  Duke was able to come home that evening and he again like always was happy as a clam. 

Bad dog! Duke pulled out a few of his stitches the next day so we had to take him back to get a few staples put in. And because he was a bad dog he had to wear a cone around his head to prevent him from reaching his stitches for several days.  I kept calling him my flower.  He looked like a giant flower.  Duke didn’t know what do with the cone.  I felt bad for laughing, but it was funny.  He would just walk into furniture or run into us and then not know what to do! Bless his heart!

The results….cancer.  Duke has cancer. The doctor called and told us the news.  Duke has cancer.  I was heartbroken and it took my breath away.  They confirmed that the swelling around Duke’s joint was in fact a synovial cell sarcoma.  My heart sank.  I kept biting my lip until I was off the phone with the doctor and then the tears came.  I couldn’t control them and all I wanted was to be with Duke and Andrew. I couldn’t wait to get home just to squeeze him and hold him. I just love him so much and he is the greatest dog.  He is perfect for us.  I honestly never thought it would be cancer.  I mean I know it was a possibility but I never truly thought that would be the result.  I was so angry and didn’t find this situation fair.  Why my dog? Why cancer? Why now? What’s next? Has is spread? The biggest question and most important question. Has the cancer spread?

All Andrew and I did when we got home was hold Duke and love on him.  Andrew might not admit so I will just go ahead and tell you; he cried too, it’s true.   But as far as Duke goes…he just wanted to know why I was squeezing him so hard.  He was fine.  Duke was running, playing and chasing mongeese.  For Duke, today was just a normal typical day in the life of Duke.  Outwardly nothing was wrong.  He was in no pain and all was completely and utterly the same Duke he has always been.  He was fine.  Duke was still just the happiest dog I knew.

Has it spread? The question was still hanging.  We had to find out right away if the cancer had spread.  The first places that we had to check were his lungs and liver.  That would be where the cancer metastasized (fancy doctor term for spreading to the rest of the body) first.  So we did.  Back to clinic Duke went for the like the 5^th time in a few week period.  They needed to do a chest x-ray and ultrasound his abdomen.  Again Duke is still fine.  He is still happy and normal.  There doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with him.  So we kept praying and hoping that the cancer had not spread.  Please don’t let it spread.

It hasn’t spread!  Thank God the cancer has not spread! Duke doesn’t have cancer anyway else in his body.  Oh happy happy day.  But what’s next? He still has cancer though.  We still have to get rid of the cancer. We have been talking to Andrew’s Dad this whole time about Duke and he has been an incredible help.  We found so much comfort in talking to his Dad and getting guidance from him (Thank you!)  We now needed to know our options.  Was chemotherapy an option? Amputation? What?

Amputation is our only option.  Well that’s not entirely true.  If we decide to do nothing, wait until eventually the cancer spreads and he becomes sick with no other options but to put him down (i.e. 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, maybe even 2 years down the road), he would have all 4 legs and be “normal” for the rest of his happy life. Or we could remove his affected leg and cure him of cancer.  We picked the second one.  It is 100 % curable if we amputate his leg.  Don’t get me wrong we are beyond excited and grateful that the cancer did not spread but we still have had a hard time with the decision.

So that’s that.  Duke has cancer, he is fine and we are amputating his leg.  We are so very blessed and happy to know the cancer is only in his leg and that we get to keep duke for the rest of his nice long life. Our sweet sweet Duke will have 3 legs “My little tripod.”  We just pray that Duke continues to be the same dog that he is today.  We want to still see him swim, run on the beach, go for boat rides, jump into bed, chase mongeese and still be the happiest dog I’ve ever known.  We just want his leg to go and not his spirit and tenacity for living the great doggie life that he does.   Our hearts are heavy but we know we are making the best decision for our Duke.

Andrew keeps asking if we will get 25% OFF discounts on baths now since he will only have 3 legs? I yell at him when he makes jokes like that! Oh and y’all can look forward to Duke being a pirate with a peg leg for Halloween. 

Cone Head!

Handsome Boy!

Happy Dog!

Resting with Nevi

"He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion."

- Unknown

Jumanji or St. Kitts, however you like to look at it

Jumanji...
Today one of my friends referred to St. Kitts as Jumanji and that tickled me so much I was in stitches.  I laughed so hard because yes St. Kitts often does feel like Jumanji.

For those of you who do not remember or know the movie it is one with Robin Williams. It all starts when two kids up to no good decide to play an old board game (Wrong move kids).  Well as they start to play the game different things start to happen like bats fly out of the chimney and oh yeah Robin Williams gets pulled into the game.  The long short of it is Robin is in the ‘game’ for years until two other (stupid) kids find the game and start to play too.  Mosquitos, monkeys, lions, the whole works start to come out of the game.  Soon enough the city is upside down:  Monkeys driving police cars, rhino’s in the street, a crazy safari man with a dart gun, quick sand…and so on and so forth.  None of this nonsense and madness can end until the game is finished.  Despite the water and crocodiles and one of the kids becoming a monkey they are still able to finish the game!  Jumanji! Just like that the game ends and all returns to normal.

So my point is Jumanji was not real life just like St. Kitts often, at times does not feel like real life. Not so much that dangerous or disastrous events continue to occur, but strange series of events or occurrences happen from time to time.  

Like big black cows just stand in the road with no purpose other than to frustrate me to no end.  Monkeys will steal your beverage from you; well they at least wait until you aren’t looking. Mosquitos are still the size of pterodactyls. Frigate birds actually look like pterodactyls. Centipedes are carnivorous and can cause anaphylactic shock.  The Marriott feels like a Little America, at least for like an hour.  Rice and pastas often come with extra protein at no extra cost (bugs people, bugs).  To get groceries it takes going to 3 different stores and you still don’t get all that you need.  Your husband buys 37 Mt Dews at once because he doesn’t know the next time a shipment will come.  Some people don’t know what canned biscuits are so they point you to the canned food section, dumb.  Mongoose come into your house like they own the place.   Also remember the stampedes in Jumanji?  Goats do that all of time.  Monkeys ride donkeys.  Oh yeah and killer whales hang out in swimming pools….

I am happy to report that our house has not filled with water or crocodiles and to my knowledge there isn’t any quick sand on the island, however there is a dormant volcano – Jimmy Buffett anyone?

JUMANJI!  

New Semester, Duke, and oh yeah...Centipedes

Well if you haven't heard by now you are about to!


On to the next semester! Andrew did great last semester and has had a great start into this next one! He already has a few exams under his belt. He is really enjoying his classes, good! Oh and Andrew also received his white coat! So proud of him!!

Great big news is that Daniel brought Duke down to us! It was so nice to have Daniel here for a few days, though it wasn’t long enough, we all really enjoyed it. I think Daniel had a really nice time too though he didn’t get to experience anything really ridiculous…just wait Daniel, that is for you next visit! Thank you again so much Daniel for bringing our boy to us! Duke has settled in nicely and even has seen a few monkeys! He went nuts! Oh it was so much fun to watch his reaction to the monkeys.  He is still on quarantine, but will be released next week.  The quarantine is an at home quarantine, which is nice because he gets to be with us.

We also moved into this awesome house….our house was big, spacious, fenced in back yard, pool, great rooms, you know the works! It was awesome and we really loved it.  Loved, being the key point.  We really truly loved our house but our great big awesome house had one big awful problem….Centipedes.  Big, giant, carnivorous, creepy, crawly centipedes!  In the month that we lived in the home we successfully managed to kill 70 of this horrendous creatures. Many were in our house in places like our bed, our bathroom and living room.  The two worst were 1) while I was taking a shower there was one dangling above me! I screamed and screamed and screamed so move and no one came to my rescue…well finally someone did (thanks Leann). Oh and 2) was when we witnessed a ~10 incher crawl is nasty little body into our bedroom! Half of it was inside while the rest of it hung outside trying to get the rest of it in!

The centipedes varied in size and ranged from about 3 inches to 10 inches.  As if it wasn’t bad enough that the centipedes were just utterly gross they are also poisonous.  They can cause allergic reactions which could possible cause anaphylactic shock if the bite wasnt bad enough!

No centipede was safe! We had started out by killing them we a machete but then finally discovered that drowning them in water was more effective and a lot faster! Oh and when we tried to kill them they attacked! Like they had a vendetta against us or something…funny, because the feeling was mutual.  And after 1 month of endless centipedes we had finally had enough.  The centipedes just became too disruptive to our lives.  They were effective our sleep and the boys studying.  We couldn’t go to bed each night without going hunting or scanning the ceiling or removing all of our sheets to look for centipedes! So we said goodbye to our awesome house and good reddens to the centipedes.

Several big blessings came out of our move and attack centipedes.  Firstly, our roommates Leann and Brayton Hill are simply amazing! Secondly, we found an even more amazing home that suits our needs much better! The obvious being no centipedes! And the second is that our new home has an office! The boys are able to be very studious and retreat to their bat cave! Our new home is perfect! I can’t wait to show all of y’all pictures! You’ll simply love it! What’s great is our friends bring their friends over for tours! Yes tours! Haha.


What else, what else..umm. oh yes! Andrew and I celebrated out 2 year anniversary. It was wonderful! He had a nice romantic evening at little America..the Marriott. Couldn't be happier!

Caution: The pictures below are terrifying! Proceed with caution!

Offical!

Leann on a nightly hunt

Kitchen Tongs

Above our bed

Daniel!

Cute!

What a great place to celebrate our 2nd year of marriage

One hansome boy!

Duke!

So happy!

There's no place like HOME

Homeward bound! We headed to Raleigh, North Carolina on Wednesday afternoon and couldn’t be more excited about it.  We took home a total of 4 suitcases but out smarted American Airlines by packing 2 suitcases in one suitcase! Smart thinking on our part? I’d say so! We first had to fly through Miami.  Which, by the way was awful!  If I had known that we would have to walk 13 miles to get to a first custom check point. Oh and it didn’t end there! We had 2 more custom check points as if the 1^st and 2^nd weren’t enough! We walked 10 miles after that until we found a Chili’s.  Had I known we were about to walk a marathon I would have worn sneakers instead! Having not had fine American cuisine for 4 months the Chili’s was in fact mouthwatering.  I guess it goes without saying that we cleared our plates that night.

                Raleigh bound we were and couldn’t be happier about it.  Our flight went as most flights do, uneventful (I’m not complaining!).  Side note: My mom always says she would like to sit next to the little box on all her flights because if the plane was to crash, they always find the little black box, thus they will find her! Oh Katfish! Anyway finally home.  We landed in good ole Carolina! My parents had planned to pick us up so I knew to be on the lookout for them once through terminal but our sweet surprise both our families were there! Complete with siblings! It was so touching to have everyone be there to greet us and welcome us HOME! We are so blessed to have the families that we do.  Thank you all for being there, it meant so much to us.  As if our families being there wasn’t enough! Duke was waiting patiently in the car for us as well! Duke Duke was tired and didn’t give us the grand welcome we had expected but was still excited nonetheless.  Oh and for the icing on the cake! Two sweet teas ready to be sipped were given to us by Daniel and Michael (Andrew’s brothers).  Sweet tea never tasted so sweet!

                We must waste no time! Thursday morning came and was filled with a few dentist and doctor appointments and eating of course! Also I was able to go out and see my sweet Sissy and Will.  No I did not get the grand stampede that I had envisioned but more of a “oh it’s you…” instead! But that was fine because I didn’t care all I wanted to do was love on them and they let me as long as the carrots and peppermints were plentiful! Sissy looked great, so I thought; Daniel on the other hand didn’t seem to agree! I said something like “Sissy looks soo good! Doesn’t she? Especially since she just turned 32!” Daniel then said something like...”32? Looks more like 100!” Oh Daniel! So she was little dirty…but we took care of that.  Being back at the barn with the horses was so nice; it’s good for the soul I think. 

Wasting no time we had made plans to have dinner with our friends and family Thursday night at one of most favorite restaurants in Raleigh, Centro( Dos Taquitos Centro).  It was such a delightful evening! It was a night full of good food, wonderful margaritas, and incredible fellowship.  Thank you to Centro for letting us share such a wonderful night with you, it was so special.  And thank you to all of our friends and family for being there with us, you mean so much to us.  We are blessed beyond words.  We ate, drank a little or a lot! And enjoyed each other’s company most importantly. What an amazing night! Oh and secret! I stopped at KrispyKreme on the way home and got a cream filled doughnut! Shhhh! It was soo delicious!

Friday came quickly! Mom and I started our Friday with a quick stop at Chick-Fila for some buttered biscuits, hash browns and sweet tea before heading to the spa! Dad, Andrew, Michael and Daniel headed on down to the coast to ready the boat for the weekend.  Mom and I took our time at the spa and had facials and pedicures! Which were both extremely necessary!  After that we too headed to the beach to join the boys.  But we took the liberty of doing a little shopping first! We clearly were in no hurry to arrive! Andrews’s parents and sister joined us later Friday evening as well!  What a treat! So we geared up for a fun weekend.  We spent the whole day out on the salty sea Saturday.  Though we didn’t hook up with any big fish we all still had a great time! I even drove the boat a little! I have a picture as poof! My sweet dear friend, Justine and her amazing fiancé Eric even joined us for the rest of weekend too! We had such a great long weekend down at the coast and cherished our time with family and friends so much! We boated (or yachting as Katfish says), fished and enjoyed good company the whole weekend!

Back to Raleigh we headed after a nice long weekend at the coast to spend a few more days there before heading down to Lexington.  I spent the next few days in Raleigh soaking up my time with Sissy and Will.  It is amazing how good a horse can look when you brush them 5 days in a row!

We continued our food crawl through Raleigh while we were still there.  If it wasn’t nailed down we were eating it! Oh and errand galore! We ran to Target about 300 times.  Just so you know, St. Kitts doesn’t have a Target and I adore everything from Target, so it was absolutely necessary that I spend hours in Target looking at things! I love things!

We wrapped up our time in Raleigh by spending time with my parents, brother, friends, and of course Sissy and Will.  I loved on Sissy until she wouldn’t let me love on her anymore, which was really long time! As our time in Raleigh came to an end…it was time to leave the BIG city and head to the country! We headed down the road, excited about what Lexington had in store for us! Oh something great! We shopped along the way! Who loves outlet shopping? I do! Only a few stores though….

Once in Lexington we knew we could rather relax! Raleigh was so busy! Between all of our Target runs and all…Andrew’s parents were having a Ranch Horse Show with Ricky and Nancy Johnson down at the Johnson Ranch on Saturday, so naturally were we excited.  My butt didn’t leave a saddle that day if it didn’t have to! Also my toes had missed my boots something awful!  The show had an incredible turn out and was a lot of fun! Our friends Justin and Kara even came up for the day to hang out and ride with us! What a treat it was! We were able to share Justin’s birthday with them! We all had a blast!  Oh and this team sorting thing I could get into.  So the ranch horse shows are pretty awesome and are full of lots of calf cutting, no not really cutting cows, youtube it you’ll see. Hey Cow! Hey Cow! Andrew and Justin even took home money and won their team sorting class.  What an awesome day. 

Sunday came and we had a nice church service and then had family over to visit afterwards.  Nothing like good ole front porch sittin’ on a North Carolina farm!  Back to the Johnson Ranch we went for some more riding Sunday evening.  Thank you again Ricky and Nancy! We had a blast!

Well our days went too quickly in Lexington even though we were supposed to be relaxing we still managed to fill our days. Mostly we were just horsin’ around! We spent time with family and ate…a lot…Oh and Andrew even got to help his Dad castrate a few of their yearlings! What a privilege!

My Dad and brother, Matt, even came up mid-week for visit.  It was so nice having them.  We had these grand plans of shooting skeet but instead we all just sat on the porch and chitchatted.  Which I would not have traded for the world! Needless to say we had sweet teas in hand!

Friday night came too quickly, our last night in North Carolina.  But we were able to have our families there with us.  It was so nice to have everyone together before we headed back to the rock that we call home now. The evening was bittersweet.  Bitter because we knew we were leaving tomorrow and sweet because we had what was most important to us with us.  Saturday came and we said good bye…Everyone was there to wave us off and wave us off they did! Like 500 times! Tears flowed, hugs were given, and prayers were said.  Gosh I can’t get over what an incredible time we had at home.  It was good for our souls to get back to our roots.  Though our rock is home for the next few years we know where our hearts belong.

For those of you who want to know about our food list.  Here is what all we were able to conquer. Don’t judge…

Raleigh List:
Dos Taquitos Centro
Bojangles (For Andrew)
Chik-fil-a
Carrabba's
Tuscan Blue
PF Changs
The Draft House
Mellow Mushroom
Cooney Island
Schlotzsky's
Moe's
Mom D's Apple Pie (please!)
MT. DEW
SWEET TEA

Morehead City list:
Beach Bums
Smithfields - Sweet Tea
Circa 81
Poppa Duke's cooking
El's Drive In
Fish Tales
Jersey Mikes
Coldstone
MT. DEW

Lexington List:
Mom C's Home Cooking
Ricks
Biscuit King
Mr. Gatti's
Hunan
Macaroni Salad (fingers crossed)
Zaxbys
The Village
MT. DEW
SWEET TEA