Carolina On My Mind

This past weekend, David and I packed up the dogs and rolled off to Southern Pines en route to Winston Salem.  An old college buddy and very good friend, Jeff Beaudin was getting married and we wouldn't have missed it for the world.  It was such a fun reunion of sorts and in talking to some of the guys, we realized that although our day to day lives have changed quite a bit since college (jobs, families, etc), when we get together, it feels eerily similar to those days at ATO, SigEp, He's Not Here, Shelton Street, Macauley Street or Dixie Lane.

The wedding itself was at Old Salem in a meadow near the Tavern.  It was perfect weather and everyone looked great.  The reception was held at the Millenium Center in downtown W-S, which used to be an old post office.  They have done a great job refurbishing the building while keeping the old/vintage feel.  It was decorated beautifully with fall decor and the party inside went on for hours.  Truly, at midnight, they were kicking us out to the front steps.  Of course, given our crowd, we all sat around the front steps deciding on the next move of the night.  For this old pregnany lady, it was back to the hotel room....my feet were about to fall off from all the dancing I'd already done and well, "going to get ONE MORE beer" just wasn't in my vocabulary this weekend.  Needless to say, I woke up feeling quite chipper while most of my friends thought they'd been attacked by a hammer to the head.

Anyone that knows this crowd knows that it's almost impossible to NOT have a good time so that was a given.  But here are some highlights of the weekend:

* Clef Hangers singing at the cocktail hour and during dinner....those boys look 12 but were amazing!

* The entire bridal party getting "iced" and taking a knee in a shame to drink their smirnoff

* The bandanas that the Hickory crowd busted out...most of the room ended up with them on....some people are probably not very happy with EVERY picture that the professional photog took of them in their not-always-cute bandana.

*Mindy trying to teach David how to dance and "pop" his hips (I think that was the word)

*Spinning the gourd in the middle of the dance floor to pick the next person in the middle of the circle.  I conveniently went and grabbed my camera during this game.

*The insane amounts of dancing that I'm sure made people sore the next day

*The worm at the end of the night.....again, I'm sure there was unexplained bruising the next morning from this.

*The old school music videos playing on the big screen....Em especially loved Usher and I especially loved watching everyone trying to "shuffle" with LMFAO.

Em was trying to get a picture with Usher on the screen and Jake did something stupid. 

*The "morning after" conversations with those that partied a little more than they'd planned on....

*"Mom's Gone Wild"


I hope that we can always find a reason to get together with this crowd.  It is a type of fun that is hard to recreate after you get out of college.  However, EVERY TIME we get together, it goes down in the record books.  Love them all.

On Sunday, David and I went to Emily's parents house in Clemmons to see the kiddos.  Considering our early bedtime of 1am and the Given's much later bed time, we spent most of our time at the parents house WITHOUT Greg and Em.  They came dragging in, sans Emily's phone, around 11am.  Their kids are growing up SO fast and are SO cute and fun.  Nate is as sweet and smart as can be and Abby sure is a pistol.  Sweet and sassy rolled into one cute little girl.  I hope they have the best time living in Tuscaloosa and I'm staking claim on a road trip next year for a football game.

When we got back to Southern Pines, we walked to the Ice Cream Parlor with mom for lunch and to wait on dad to get out of a church meeting.  Andrea Grieve and Lily happened to be in town so they came to the house and met us after lunch.  Matt, Carly, Grey and Cam also came down for the afternoon and we had the best time.  We all walked down to the park and let the kids play until there was sand in places that sand shouldn't be.  Lily is a mover and a shaker and although she doesn't like sand, she is afraid of NOTHING.  She was climbing, swinging and sliding all over everything.  Grey and Cam LOVE slides and found a super fast one that shot them out of the bottom straight into someone's arms.  So cute.  Matt treated us to dinner that night at Mellow Mushroom and we got back on the road to head home.  We left a car in Whiteville so we decided to park there for the night since David was working there the next morning.  The dogs LOVE Soo Soo's house, mainly because there is no fence containing them and deer are EVERYWHERE.  Needless to say, at 3am, the dogs just had to go outside (we don't cave on them normally but Maddie's stomach was making some seriously weird noises).  David took them out and seemed like they were gone for a while.....So I got up to check.....dear Jackson and his bad hip had run off.....thankfully he wasn't trailing anything but just exploring at 3am.  Dork.  

Other than a little stomach bug/eating something bad this week, things are going well.  Tuesday was really rough for me, but I'm much better now.  At 5.5 months pregnant, I am beginning to really feel pregnant and starting to look it.  I have a little bump that I've noticed for weeks but is starting to show to others now.  Joy.