July...How I Spent my Summer Vacation Part 3

When I think of July, I of course think of awesome vacations and relaxing and sun, but this July the SUN has been in the forethought of most of my mind. JEEZ, it has been a scorcher! I don't remember it being THIS hot! Maybe it has been and I'm just noticing the burning blaze more this summer...but I digress, onto the last (and only) full month of my summer.

I think a lot of people give teachers grief for complaining about teaching. It always, always comes back to someone in the audience saying, "BUT, youuu have your SUMMER off!!" Oh, I guarantee this person is NOT a teacher because then they would be saying, "Shew, you should get some more days thrown into that vacation!" I'll never forget being at an end of the year meeting and someone saying how teachers need the break because if they didn't, someone (teacher or student) might end up in jail. I say all of this to tell you, dear reader, for you to understand that I fully love, appreciate, and try to not take my precious summer vacay for granted.

July started with me getting back from California. I spent a week back in Greensboro taking care of some appointments and what not. The highlight of that week was finally getting to meet the precious Avery Grace Gladd. My dear friend from work, Heather, had Avery on June 28th while I was in Cali, which is funny because CA is her home state. Needless to say I was very anxious to meet the new precious one. You can see here how absolutely adorable she is :)

Carolyn holding and meeting Avery for the first time :)

Next up in the July chain of events was 4th of July. I've never been a huge LET'S CELEBRATE the FOURTH kind of person, I'm not sure why. I totally love America and am so appreciative to live in such a wonderful country, but I've never had consistent big plans for the fourth. This year I was invited to a cookout at one of my best friend's sister's house. Megan is my friend to, but just for connection sake...there you go. We had a great time! Very 4th. Hot dogs, oreo dessert, Catchphrase, and FIREWORKS! It was a lot of fun!!

Linds celebrating with sparklers

Linds and Megan celebrating and getting

ready for fireworks!

Errands accomplished in Greensboro, it was finally time to head to the mountains! I was able to spend a few days in Morganton, made a visit for some fun wedding stuff in G'ville with Case and enjoyed some time with family and friends.

AND THEN, the highlight of July was the annual beach trip with my sweet best friends. We all traveled down from 4 different directions and met up in the sand! We were fortunate enough to find 5 solid days to spend together, this is a major accomplishment because between the 7 of us it has been a hectic and busy summer! We were all glad to be able to relax and enjoy each other's company. We laid in the sun, cooked, ate a lot, and laughed even more. We were even able to squeeze in a puzzle. We stayed in and cooked mostly, but made it out for our annual dinner to Bonefish. I had the best time, it flew by WAY too quickly. I am already looking forward to it next year :)

Carrie, Case, and Em - the only pic I have from the actual

beach! It was sooo humid my lens fogged up every time
I tried to take a pic!! I like their matching bathing suits!

30943 hours later...the girls accomplished and completed

the annual puzzle. Good job ladies!

Bonefish! Awesome friends, food, drinks, and we

had an amazing waitress to boot!

My sweet girls :)

I absolutely love this pic. Talk about capturing

a moment :D

The rest of July has been a mixture of spending time with family in Morganton, visits to Greenville sprinkled in, and a visit back to Greensboro. I love being able to spend so much time with my friends and family. I love being able to drive to best friend's houses and watching movies and eating dinner. I love being 5 minutes from my Granny's. I'm going to miss these sweet summer days!

California...

Since I couldn't post all the pics I wanted to on the last entry, I decided to put up another entry with some more pics! I hope that everyone has the opportunity to travel and visit California, it is definitely a place worth visiting. I love that everything is chill and relaxed and beautiful.

Above is The Golden Gate Bridge. Majestic

and mighty. It took my breathe away.

This is at the bottom of the "Crooked Street" on

Lombard Street. EVERYWHERE you turn in San Francisco

there is an intense hill. Lombard was no exception! It was

beautiful and quite crooked! There are beautiful houses

and flowers that are gorgeous!

This was the entrance of China Town in San Francisco.

We ate at Kathy's House and had some authentic Chinese food.

It was a really interesting area.

Finally, here are "The Painted Ladies". You might

recognize these from "Full House", they're on the

opening credits. All over San Francisco you will find houses

that look like this. Really unique and interesting houses.

I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them. I can't wait to see what else Cali has to offer :)

California or How I Spent my Summer Part 2

Ah, California. It really deserves its own post because it was that amazing. One of my best friends, Casey, has a fabulous sister that lives in Santa Monica. Donna, Casey's sis, just had a beautiful baby girl! Zoey is one of the sweetest, most precious babies I have ever met. Much of the time spent there was just hanging out, going around Santa Monica, and spending time with Donna and Zoey.

We went to Ikea (and I fell in love), the Santa Monica Fresh Market, which was outside on the Promenade, walked on the Pier, and took lots of pictures. The weekend I was there we all traveled up to San Francisco. Such an awesome, cool, eclectic, interesting city. We took in a lot of the sites. We went to Fisherman's Wharf, Chinatown, the Painted Ladies, Alamo Square, and walked up and down Lombard's "Crooked Street". We saw so much, but the my favorite thing was the Golden Gate Bridge. I've been fortunate enough to see and visit lots of things in my life, but this was one of the 'take your breath away' moments. It is absolutely spectacular. The height, length, color, view, everything left me in a state of awe. It for sure goes on my 'most amazing things I've ever seen'!! I am so grateful to Matt, Donna, and Zoey for letting me visit. I am also thankful for my travel buddy Case, we've been a little bit of everywhere and I can't wait to see where else the years takes us on the map!

Better than try to explain all its awesomeness, I will instead post some pics...

Casey and me at Fisherman's Wharf

PS - June in San Fran = COLD!

The famous pier in Santa Monica

Ferris Wheels, Dippin' Dots, and LOTS of interesting people!

Sweet sisters...Donna and Case hanging out with Zoey

Sweet, sweet Zoey

Case lovesss Zoey and I think the

feeling is mutual :)

June ended with me flying back into North Carolina and staying in Raleigh before making my way back to Greensboro. It was nice to be in the Tarheel state, but I am so glad I was able to visit California again. I hope to visit again soon!

I will follow up this blog with a few more pics!!

How I Spend My Summer Vacation Part 1

As this summer winds down to a sad, but sure end, I thought that I would give an attempt at recapping all of my nomadic journeys and put them into a couple posts. As I have taken quite a few pictures and been quite a few places, I thought the easiest way to do this would be to break it up into months. So...we begin with June. Ahh, June. Such a sweet month. A month where the whole summer is before you, there is no end in sight. Jeez...such naive awesomeness... Let us begin.

June begins with an end...the end of school! I posted towards the end of May, maybe it was beginning of June...not sure, about how bittersweet it was to let go of my seniors graduating. I was also able to go to Northwest Guilford's graduation. These were my FIRST kids! They were the ones that welcomed me into my classroom and truly initiated me as a teacher. So the last picture you will see is of my fabulous OSTE (on-site teacher educator) and one of my favorite students, Allie. I was lucky enough to stay in touch with several of my awesome students and it was a wonderful feeling to see them moving on to the next step in their life. What a bittersweet feeling! The next week my kids at Rockingham County graduated. Here are a few pics of my kiddies!

Sweet Girls above...Bridgett, Amanda, me, and Brooke

These girls were in my 2nd and 4th period senior classes

These are my 'first period' boys

They were in the first class I ever taught at RCHS

Me, Mrs. Julian, and Allie

Mrs. Julian was my rock during student teaching and Allie

is one of my sweet students I've been fortunate enough

to stay in touch with

It really is crazy to think about how attached you get to things with your job. I get attached to students, my classroom, my colleagues, and in a way...the school itself. Even though I needed a break, trusttt me, I also was kind of, just a weeeeee bit sad to leave...this feeling was quickly diminished as soon as I took a left out of the school parking lot. Haha, jk...kind of :)

Right after I finished up with graduation, making and grading exams, finalizing all my students semester grades, getting my classroom clean and hopefully organized for the start of this year, I headed over to Raleigh to visit my dear friend Kelly and her husband (also my dear friend) Matt. They were kind enough to let me visit and then drive me to the airport because I was heading to Cali baby!!

This is where I'll stop with part 1. California deserves its own post and that it will get!! Needless to say, the beginning of June was great and it ended even better :)

Beach Daze

One week from today I will be at my second home...the beach. I know that it isn't that big of a deal to love the beach, I'm one of 30943 people that enjoy their summer vaca's on the sandy coast. However, since the wee age of 3, I have made my annual summer trek to the sandy coast of the Carolina's and have found peace there more than once. There is something about the intoxicating smell of salt mixed with sunscreen that puts my spirit at ease. As soon as my toes hit the sand and the cool waves take me under...I am home.

For more summers than I can count, my family went to the Outer Banks and vacationed. Due to schedules and life and whatnot, we have not been able to go in a few years. I miss it. The EIGHT hour ride in one car was rough...especially when we decided that no Barrier vacation was complete without the furriest Barrier member...Muffy. However, I cherish the memories made from those weeks. My sister and I laying in the sand. My mom cooking for us at night. I miss the Outer Banks. It is my "happy place" when I am sad. It is where my mind always travels when I am having a frustrating day. However, the summers have changed and I have been fortunate enough to trade the Outer Banks for a sweet condo off of Main St. in N. Myrtle Beach with my best friends. The scenery has changed, but the happiness remains...I love spending a week with my closest friends and spending time together.!

The above pic is from last year...my sweet friends ocean side and soaking up the sun :)

So the added bonus is that I get my beach AND my friends. It's like heaven! We have been e-mailing all week and talking about our excitement. We are aware of how rare it is to have such a special group of friends. Our nights don't consist of partying and going crazy at bars/clubs, but rather hanging out, getting to discuss our life problems/joys, wedding chat, putting together puzzles, cooking, snacking, dancing, and more than anything laughing. It does the soul good.

Can't wait to pull up, get the chairs/towel/snacks/sunscreen/music out and head to the sand. I think I hear the water calling my name...

Magic

I have a confession. I am a blog stalker. I admit it. I sit in my living room, computer securely placed on lap, and read, read, read. Clearly my late teens and early twenties have been defined by the new social media networks such as facebook, myspace, and twitter. Blogs have made their way into my life as of this past year. Several people I know started to write in them and I’ve found other people’s to read as well. It is so amazing that people are able to share their lives and stories through statuses, new posts, pictures, and stories. It is fascinating to me that we are so...connected.

I’ve had this blog for almost 2 years. I started it to chronicle my experiences with teaching and really the first year of living on my own. In the beginning I would write every couple weeks or so, but I just kind of…stopped. I would write when the mood would strike me. However, as I’ve been reading all these blogs, I’ve been inspired to try to start writing more. Even if it is a picture and a small paragraph about how I don’t understand why everyone in my family can cook and sometimes boiling water poses a problem in my kitchen.

One of my dear friends is an amazing writer. I’ve told her several times that she should write a blog just to get her words out there. I find it so amazing how words can connect us. All the books I’ve read in my life, they stick with me because of the words that transpired through the pages. Words have healing power. Words have therapeutic power. Words have magic.

As I am a bit of a nomad this summer, I can’t promise to keep up with this, but here is to hoping. Also, here is a small thank you to all the bloggers/writers/authors/magic writers who keep me inspired. Thanks.