Wedding Recap: Part 1

So as some of you might know, my brother got married this past weekend in Charleston, SC. And what a weekend it was! Because Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were so jam packed, I'm going to break this up into a couple different posts.

So here we go!

Thursday was arrival day. Almost everyone came in sometime Thursday afternoon or night. I had a biostat test Thursday morning, so I wasn't able to take off from Columbia until about 1pm.

Luckily, I live closer than anyone else who was traveling to the wedding so I made it to Folly Beach in about 2 hours.

My parents and brother had made it in a little earlier and were waiting for me at the house. My parents thought since so many people in our family were traveling in from so pretty far distances, it would be a lot of fun to rent a beach house that everyone could stay at and the wedding could be more like a vacation at the same time.

(photos credit)

The house was such a cute thing and worked perfectly for the number of people staying there (about 20 people). Once folks began to arrive (people were driving and/or flying in from Florida, North Carolina, Illinois, and Kansas) we decided to walk down the street to a local restaurant right off the beach for some dinner.

With the groom!

Dinner was great and it was so nice to see everyone and catch up. One of the best things about our house was its location and how close it was to everything. You could walk to the beach or just a block away was the downtown area with shops and restaurants.

After dinner we walked back to the house and hung out on the porch and in the living room just catching up and visiting. We waited as a few more stragglers made it down to the house (uhm, Aaron) and eventually made it to bed when everyone was all talked out.

More to come soon on:

Friday - Rehearsal dinner

Saturday - Wedding!

A Weekend in Raleigh

Blah, blah, blah its Monday...I hate coming back to reality.

But I am coming back from a wonderful weekend. Because I only have classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I was able to head home for an extended weekend in Raleigh on Thursday afternoon. Matthew works every other weekend so when we get the chance we try to take advantage of our time together.

I headed home on Thursday and we ate dinner at a chinese restaurant in nearby Brier Creek.

Friday morning we were out bright and early running a few errands and then headed over to Lake Johnson for a 4.5 mile hike with the Colbs.

Errands included getting my first Pumpkin Spice Latte of the fall season!

After coming in and getting cleaned up, Matthew had planned a date night for the two of us that included dinner over looking the Raleigh skyline at Boylan Brew Pub and drinks and live music after at Tir Na Nog.

Saturday morning we headed to Greensboro to spend time with my family - this included a walk with all three dogs in my family (Peety-Aaron's dog, Avery-Rachael and Jared's dog, and Colby) to Yum Yum's for lunch and ice cream. After our circus of a walk, Matthew and I headed to see his family in Liberty to spend some quality time with his mom and dad and enjoy an amazing home cooked meal.

Sunday was an amazing lazy Sunday. We got an early lunch in Chapel Hill with some friends from high school, made a stop at Southpoint to pick up a few last minute things before my brother's wedding this weekend, and spent the rest of the afternoon on the couch watching football. For dinner, we cooked Mahi Mahi (that his dad had caught on a fishing trip), roasted red potatoes, and steamed asparagus. YUM.

It was so hard to leave Monday morning and head back down to Columbia, but I made it back down here and have been working on catching up and preparing for the week ahead.

This weekend was so relaxing and enjoyable and next weekend will be an exciting time because my brother and Rachael are getting married! So much fun coming up!!

Gamecock Football!

On Saturday I had my first experience with Gamecock Football! The first home game was this weekend and I was really excited to go to my first SEC game. At UNC we had some great basketball but football was pretty sub-par, so it was kind of a big deal to go to a game where the team is nationally ranked (currently 9th!)

My roommate Jess and me pre-tailgating.

The game was at noon so we had to get up pretty early. Jess's boyfriend Tyler has some friends that have tailgating spots so we headed out bright and early at 8:45 am to head over to the field.

We spent about 3 hours eating lots of yummy food, playing cornhole, and just hanging out in sunshine before heading over to Williams-Brice Stadium to watch the Gamecocks take on the ECU Pirates.

The stadium was huge and it was such a beautiful day. But I have to admit, it was so strange seeing so much red (or garnet as they call it around here). I sure did miss my carolina blue.

The game was a lot of fun but it was really freakin hot. So we made it to about half time and then headed out...we were also kicking some pirate booty and it wasn't much of a game :).

Final score: 48-10, Gamecocks!

Catch Up

Well this has been one heck of a week of catch up!

Last weekend, being Labor Day weekend, meant it was a weekend of celebration. A group of girls and I headed east to the beach to celebrate the beautiful bachelorette, Kathryn. After that weekend, it was so hard to get up and go to class Tuesday and Thursday and get back in the gym. It doesn't help that I am still trying to get into a groove here in Columbia, but its starting to get better.

Bachelorette Weekend at Caswell Beach, NC

There's not a better way to describe this past weekend than to say it was one heck of a vacation [ I definitely felt like I was in college again.] I really didn't take many pictures, just trying to soak up the great company and relaxing atmosphere. (Hopefully Kathryn will put up a recap soon ; )

We did enjoy long beautiful days on the beach...

There may or may not have been some tumbling, stunting, and aerobics going on 

and some great nights enjoying the sunset on the roof.

There may have been a little of this as well...

Such a wonderful time :). I am so so so excited about the wedding in December - I love you so much girl!

Back to Columbia

As I said earlier, it was pretty hard to get back into the routine and return to life in Columbia. It has been so strange to move straight from Nebraska to South Carolina, I still don't feel like I have a home, that my life is in transition again and will be for the next two years. But, I am trying to make the best of it and enjoy my time here as much as I enjoyed Omaha.

So Colby and I have been trying to venture out more and explore not only the university area but also downtown. I was told by a local about a really great place to get the best ice coffee in town and it turned out to be a little under a mile away from my apartment so Colby and I harnessed up and walked over there the other day.

It was the cutest little place called Paradise Ice and the ice coffee was To.Die.For.

I really do love the location of my apartment, I can literally walk any where. Our little afternoon walk was such a delight and I am now in love with this ice coffee. I can guarantee that Colby and I will be making a trip back.

Were getting settled into the new city and will hopefully have many more adventures to come.

Now that I am all caught up - hopefully my updates will come with a little more regularity. Until next time!

A Tour of my New Apartment

Sheesh...is it already Wednesday?!?! Time is flying by with classes in full swing. I will come back soon with update on what I'm learning and all that good stuff, but for now, I promised an update on what my new apartment looks like!

Here is the closest thing to a tour that I can provide in picture:

When you walk in the front door, you come right into our living room.

Then if walk through the hall and to the right, you come into our kitchen.

From the kitchen you can walk across through our little kitchen nook and into my bathroom.

From the bathroom, a quick right will put you right into my bedroom!

(Sorry its a little messy)

Off of my room is a special treat...the balcony!

And there it is! My new apartment! I live less than a block away from campus so its a pretty nice set up. That's all for now - Hope you enjoyed the tour!

I'm off tomorrow to head back to NC for an amazing weekend with some amazing friends to celebrate Kathryn's bachelorette party!! I am so excited for the weekend to come!

First Full Day!

Yay today was my first day as a graduate student!!!


Classes officially started today (Thursday, Aug 23) and I made it through my first full day!

Dorky mirror picture.

Walking into the building of my first class at USC.

I have to admit, being a grad student does have some perks...I had three classes today but I only have classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I am not complaining.

It is pretty crazy that following class today I have a four day weekend and right now I don't have much to do in the order of homework (although I am sure that will change when things get moving).

The classes I had today were pretty small and laid back and its nice that I feel like the professors treat us more like colleagues than students. The other students in the class seem to take it all pretty seriously, but other than that it doesn't feel much different than undergrad.

I did really feel like a big girl today, which was a lot of fun so hopefully that's what having my masters will be like (feeling like a big girl more often?) Who knows...it was just so nice to be a student again and be in a classroom learning about topics that really really interest me - like how to work on changing the behavior of a community to implement healthy living programs to improve quality of life - I just eat that kind of stuff up!

So I guess I can say that so far I am one happy camper, hopefully I will feel the same way after class day #2.

One Big Craft Project

Happy Wednesday everyone!

Today is my last official day of summer as tomorrow is my first day of school as a graduate student!

I am so excited and a little nervous, but I definitely feel like its time to be back in a classroom. After undergrad I was just so tired and burnt out of school that I really needed a break. Americorps and Omaha was a great break and definitely reminded me how much I love being a student and I missed it so much....and now I'm back!

The first two days this week I sat through a lot of orientations. Orientation to my department, to USC, to the Arnold School of Public Health...etc. It was a little mind numbing but I have already had the chance to meet many of the faculty and other masters and doctorate students and I really think this is going to be a great two years.

Besides sitting through meetings all day, I have been working on setting up my new room. I had everything pretty close to where I wanted it and then decided to paint my dresser, so my room has been one big craft project the last couple of days.

I have this great balcony off of my room so I have to take everything out one at a time and paint it, let it sit for a day, paint another coat, and let it sit again. It has been so humid here too its hard to get the paint to completely dry.

Its definitely a work in progress but I really hope to have it all finished by tomorrow before classes start. I promise to feature a tour of my room and apartment as soon as everything is in its right place!

Other than all of that, it has just been a lot of hanging out for me and Colby. I have her right now which is nice because she is one heck of a guard dog in new places.

Hopefully you all have a wonderful Wednesday...my next post will probably be about my first day of classes!!