Brayden is 25!

First of all, I love birthdays. Especially Brayden's birthday! I love presents, parties, having the day be all about Brayden, I love it all.

Since Brayden had school all day and I had to work on friday, we made plans to go out to dinner that night. Luckily, my boss let me leave work a little early so that we could beat the traffic to Sullivan's Island. Everyone has told us that Poe's Tavern is so good, so we decided to try it out for his birthday dinner. Let me tell you, it did not disappoint! The food was sooo delicious. We will definitely go back there sometime soon. After dinner we went home, opened his presents and ate some yummy treats! It was a pretty chill night since he had a lot of test that week, but that is what he wanted so I was not going to argue with the birthday boy!

Brayden and Jake's (a friend from school) birthdays are just a day apart! So Jake's wife, Madison, and I planned a little party for the two of them. We went to Swig and Swine, a BBQ place for dinner with about 15 of their friends from school and their wives! Then after dinner we all went back to our apartment for desserts, watch a little football, and play some games! It was such a blast. I loved being able to talk and get to know everyone a little bit better. The night was perfect and I am so glad Madison and I planned this get together with some of our friends!

Happiest Birthday to my best friend. I am so thankful for all your hard work and for your amazing example you set for me. My life is so much better with you! I love you!

 

Hurricane Matthew

A couple of weeks ago, Hurricane Matthew was planned to come up the east coast and hit Charleston pretty hard. Since Brayden and I are from the west coast, we didn't really know what to expect. On Tuesday, the governor of South Carolina declared an evacuation for Charleston on Wednesday afternoon. As soon as that happened on Tuesday, a lot of people left right away because the schools, work, and everything was cancelled! I went to work on Wednesday because Brayden and I still weren't sure if we would evacuate. All day Wednesday at work was spent "hurricane proofing" the office. Which basically meant bagging up all of the computers, client work papers, etc. After I got home from work, we were still on the fence about leaving, but we figured we had plenty of time to make the decision because it wasn't supposed to hit until Friday afternoon.

Thursday rolled around, Brayden got up early to study, I of course slept ha. Later that day, my parents told us that one of our friends from La Verne, the Fertig had a sister in North Carolina that said we could stay with them. So we thought about it and realized that if we have a place to stay we should probably just go so that we were safe. So we packed up, moved a few things that were near our windows into a safer place and were off to North Carolina!

On Friday I was able to live out my teenage dream! We went to Wilmington, NC to look at some of the locations that One Tree Hill was filmed. I was absolutely obsessed with OTH when I was younger, I watched it with my sister, and occasionally my dad and brother Tanner would sit with us and watch it. My dad is secretly a sucker for chick flicks/dramas, but his excuse of why he watched it was "it'sall about basketball, it's a basketball show!" Yeah right...but I was not about to correct him, if  that's what he believed to watch it with me.

But before we went to tour One Tree Hill, we took a pit stop at the high school where Michael Jordan went. We both felt a little weird/stalkerish that we were on a high school campus that we knew no one. So as soon as we got a picture of the gym we booked it out of there! I also learned that Michael Jordan's old high school is the gym where they filmed the high school basketball games for One Tree Hill! So that was a total bonus of visiting that high school. When we got to downtown Wilmington, we visited the place Nathan and Haley had their first tutoring session, walked along the Riverwalk, drove across the bridge, went to the river court, and saw a couple of stores that were in the show. Unfortunately, they tore out the River Court. I was so bummed! But there was a cute little gazebo in it's place now and people wrote quotes from the show all over the wood. I honestly don't know why they tore out the basketball court. Brayden and I both think that it was such a cool place to have a basketball court near the river. I am so happy that Brayden was okay with taking a tour of One Tree Hill!

The rest of the weekend was spent hanging out with the sweet family that took us in. They were so nice and welcoming! We had a blast spending time with them and getting to know them better. They were the best hosts and made us feel at home!

Luckily, the hurricane did not hit Charleston as hard as they had originally thought. We got home on Sunday and were only without power for an hour or so. During that hour that the power was off, Brayden and I decided to take a nap. A few minutes after laying down, the fire alarm went off. We jumped out of bed so fast, but we quickly realized that it was just going off because the power came back on. The only thing that was still out was our cable and internet...and if you ask Brayden and me how we felt about AT&T for those two weeks we were without it we would not have good things to say about them. But it all got fixed and we were happy campers after that!

We were so thankful to return back home to no damage to our apartment. Hurricane Matthew did not hit Charleston as hard as it was expected and we are so grateful that everyone was okay. We were so fortunate, and we are praying for everyone that was affected!

 

   Brayden reluctantly reenacting this picture for me...he told me not to post it anywhere...oops. 

"Hurricane proofing" he office...I don't think it would've helped haha

Some of our things moved into a safer place, away from windows!!

Maximus came to town!

My mom came to visit us a couple of weeks ago! I love living in Charleston, but I do miss my family, so it was so fun having her here for a week. We picked her up from the airport late at night and we didn't stop talking the rest of the night. Poor Brayden was probably lost the whole ride home because we were jumping from topic to topic and talking really fast.

I still had to work while she was here, but we went on yummy lunch dates to Five Loaves. She filled the rest of her time with shopping, taking our car in (yay for a working air conditioner!!), and cleaning/decorating our apartment. She was the best little assistant, we would come home to a perfectly clean apartment with a made bed everyday! During the weekend we decided to take a quick little trip down to Hilton Head. It was a fun little mini vacation. We went to this yummy breakfast place on a golf course called "Links". It was so good! After that we walked around the beach, went to the lighthouse, and went shopping.

Once we got back to Charleston, I had to go back to work...boo. But we were still able to go to lunch together!

On Tuesday, we spent most of the time going to the little shops on King Street. We ate at this cute little restaurant for lunch called Husk. The restaurant was in a cute little white house. We were able to sit outside on the balcony. My mom read about their world famous hamburgers, so of course we ordered one of those. She also heard their cornbread was really good, and since she is a sucker for cornbread we had to order one of those to split too! The presentation of their food was amazing! I loved the whole experience. We had reservations that night to go to The Westendorf. Brayden and I have heard such great things about it, so we were excited to try it! Unfortunately, Hurricane Matthew wrecked those plans. Since the Mayor declared an evacuation to take place the following day, all the restaurants shut down, to prepare and board up the windows. We were so bummed! Hopefully Brayden and I will make it there soon! Instead of going there for dinner, we decided to go to this little restaurant close to our apartment called Crust.

After dinner, like the rest of Charleston, we spent the rest of the night sitting at gas stations in LONG lines waiting to get gas to prepare for the hurricane. We went to the grocery store looking for bottled water and the grocery stores were all sold out! It was crazy. That night we were not able to get gas or water! My mom's flight left early the next morning, so we decided we would get gas then and go to the grocery store right when it opened, on our way back from dropping her off. We were able to get everything we needed! And luckily, my mom's flight plans were still good to go and they weren't affected by the incoming storm. Although I would have been perfectly fine if her flight was cancelled and we had to spend a few extra days with her here.

We can't wait to have more visitors!!

Quick Weekend Trip Home!

This past weekend I was able to go home for a short little trip!

All of my siblings were able to come down this weekend which made it that much more fun!

I flew in Friday night, so my parents were supposed to pick me up from the airport after Logan's football game. When I landed I got all 37 text messages from my family at once. During my brother's game he got hurt and tore his acl, mcl, meniscus and patella. My brother has been a huge trooper through all of it. At times he is consoling my parents because they are just devastated for him. It was good for everyone to be home and be a distraction through a rough little time.

Anyway...the real reason we all traveled back home was because my dad was being called as Bishop of their brand new ward! We were all so excited for him. Right around the same week he got called was the same week that he was baptized 25 years ago and the same week that my family was sealed 24 years ago! So it was definitely a special week for my family.

My parents both got to speak in church that Sunday. I loved being able to hear my parents testimonies about how much the gospel means to them. They are perfect examples of followers of Christ. I am so thankful to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints. This was a perfect weekend home with all of my siblings!