On Memorial Day we woke up with the grand idea of traveling back home with the boys to NC with my parents for the week. John encouraged me to go through with the quick plans because otherwise my OCD, planning nature would have changed my mind for me. We spent the morning packing instead of enjoying the beaches like most of the Memorial Day crowds, but it was well worth it. We headed up 95 and spent a fun week in my hometown.
Here's the photo slideshow. I'm sorry if they zoom through too quickly to read the captions. I tried.
I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked, but the days were busy with loading and unloading the kids from relative to relative's houses. We saw so many people in such a short time. It was great. As always, we would have liked to have fit another visit or two in. Jack enjoyed his cousins so much. He keeps asking if Adam is coming over or if we're going to Anna and Owen's house. We spent some time with Uncle Matthew, Aunt Melissa and "Cousin" Fergie, which was great. Jack will not call him Matt anymore, but Matthew, and he'll correct you when you say otherwise. It's fun to see his little quirks developing.
Whenever we leave Bluffton to go to a larger city (which is basically whenever we leave Bluffton), it seems to spur on a nice game of "We Wish Bluffton Had _______". The list usually involves kid-friendly places and good food. In no particular order, here's a sampling of what we have come up with:
1. Bojangles: Even though we didn't visit the beloved Bojangles on this trip, we drove by several of the beautiful red, orange and yellow establishments along the way. We love their tea, biscuits, dirty rice and the orange stuff that's on their fries, and of course the chicken. We also like saying it like Bo-HAN-gu-lez as if it's in Spanish.
2. Krispy Kreme: Duh. I should have taken it as a sign that I shouldn't go through the drive thru when the "Hot" sign was turned off. I ignored that, threw caution to the wind, and there we sat staring at the menu board like it had fallen from heaven. In my last attempt to score some hot donuts, I begged through the fuzzy drive thru microphone for them to please tell me that they had some left. Like they keep them in a special vault for nutsos like me. No vault, no hot donuts, but that didn't stop us from pounding them. Yes, Jack had his fair share over the week. He calls them yummy cakes. And with good reason.
3. The smell of Spring/Summer: Bluffton doesn't really have a smell. Occasionally I'll walk outside to a faint hint of marsh grass...just enough to remind me that yes, we do live at the coast! But North Carolina just smelled like summer. It's the smell of soccer grass (whatever the grass is that they put on soccer fields), trees, sweat, popcicles...all things summer! I love it!
4. A Minor League Baseball Team: The Greensboro Grasshoppers' games are so fun to go to. We didn't make it to one this go around, but my parents were going the night we had to leave, and I was jealous. Jack would have loved it!
5. Garden Ridge: It's a cheap home store that has a lot of cool stuff. Finn especially loved looking at all of the bright lights and colored items along the aisles.
6. Southern Accents: Bluffton has accents, all right. They're just not from the south.
The list could go on, but it gets a little whiney and unappreciative sounding of Blufftonia. And that's not the point at all. We love Bluffton. Where other places may have Bojangles, we have Cahill's Market. They have the smell of Summer, and we have the ocean! I'll trade a Krispy Kreme for a Truffle's Blondie, sure. It's just a fun game to play. Both places are amazing, especially when you factor in friends and family. We're blessed to live and have lived in really cool places with really cool people.
Oh...one thing I now LOVE LOVE LOVE about Bluffton is that it's in the lowcountry. Never gave this land title much thought until I attempted to push 52 pounds worth of children up and down hills in the jogging stroller. Holy cow, it was TERRIBLE!!!! Here I started thinking that I was turning into quite the avid jogger. Getting as confident even as trying to talk on my cell phone while taking a short jaunt. Who did I think I was?!?! As I ran around one hilly North Carolina loop after another, my pride was all that kept me going. All the physically fit passerby looked at me with shame, horror, concern and amusement on their faces. So you can see why I was excited to jog once I got home....only we returned to 96 degree weather! I have a feeling my jogging days are numbered.
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