Last Week of {Break}

While my last week of summer consisted of a lot of appointments, there was some fun thrown in there too ;-)

On Monday night, Amy and Tyler asked Andy and I to be in their wedding!!! I am beyond excited and honored to stand beside my best friend as her maid of honor on their big day! :-) How often do two best friends who have been friends for life get married within 6 weeks of each other and be each others maid/matron? SO fun

Isn't that mirror beautiful!? Tyler gave Andy some funky, cool socks to wear at their wedding :) 

Tuesday was the day of our engagement pictures!!! I have been so excited to take professional pictures with Andy. In our (almost) 8 years of dating we have never had any taken! I was also pumped to work with Lori from CaptureMeCandid because she is SO talented and awesome and I knew we'd have fun! And boy was I right. Even Andy said he had fun ;) 

I was pleased with how this sign I made turned out! Maybe I have a future in chalk designs after grad school, hello etsy ;)

We died laughing at how funny we looked whitening our teeth the night before.

I also got to work with another super talented woman on Tuesday and that was Lindsey Regan Thorne of Be Pretty . She did such a fabulous job with my make-up and was SO, so sweet. I really hope she can do my wedding make-up :)

& after the long day. We were exhausted but had such a great day!

To wrap up all the wedding fun that went on this past week, my mom and I went to the Carolina Bridal Show! It was so fun to get to visit so many vendors (especially florists, bakers, and photo booths which I'm still in the market for). It was also fun being my bride role for the afternoon! Oh and all the free stuff wasn't too shabby ;)

Finally, between all the wedding planning excitement, I got to spend time with my sidekicks turned flower girls :)

I was able to give E her birthday present :)

She was trying to tell me something ha ha

The pool is magically more fun when bubbles are involved ;)

I was sad to see my summer go but I am READY to get this last semester of graduate school classes over with!

OiB Trip

Thankfully, I felt much better on Sunday and I was able to leave for the beach that morning! God really must have thought we all needed rest because it continued to rain until Tuesday morning. Once we hit the beach Tuesday afternoon, we had a fabulous beach week!!

We had beautiful views at this cottage in Island Park!

The pond behind our cottage served many purposes. There were so many turtles in the pond!! We noticed that if we stood on the balcony and looked over they would all swim towards us popping their heads out. So we decided to feed them a few nights :)

We also LOVED to hang out in this little area. It was seriously like our own little oasis. With two hammocks, a swing, some chairs, and the breeze coming off of the pond, it felt wonderful in the evenings after coming off the beach

And finally, Faith thought it was the perfect place to swim. Ha! She found out that her friend Rachel was staying in those condos right across the pond once we got there. They spent more time swimming in that pond than on the beach. Whatever floats your boat … 

My Grandaddy came to stay with us on Wednesday!

Enjoying Ocean Isle Creamery. I like to say I get my love for ice cream from him ;)

Each day around 4:00 the tide would come up so high, we would end up practically sitting in the dunes. But that didn't keep us from enjoying every minute possible!

On the last night we drove over to Carolina Beach to hit up the boardwalk. Faith had been wanting to  ride fair rides all week so we decided Carolina Beach would be a good place to go. 

The first thing we did was stop by Britt's Donuts. My mom and I have been clean eating (which I'll talk about sometime soon) but we made room for a special treat. Both sides of my family have always talked about Britt's Donuts and how it reminds them of their childhood. My Nana even talks about how she'd go as a little girl. This being my first time, Britt's did not disappoint!  

My roomie Meghan's parents live at Carolina Beach so her and her mom met us at the Boardwalk. We were ready to ride some rides after that!

The only ride I rode was the ferris wheel ;)

We ended the night by walking down the Boardwalk towards the beach and the moon looked gorgeous shining on the water. What a perfect way to end our trip!!

Wrapping Up July Update

After leaving home two weeks ago, I was SO excited to be spending 2 weeks in Boone without any travel! Don't get me wrong, I had SO much fun on all my trips but it is super hard traveling 4 weekends in a row, especially with a super busy schedule! 

Sadly, after going to Whole Foods before leaving town my poor baby got in a fight with a huge pole in the parking deck, and the pole won :( It was one of those things where I have NO idea how it happened except to think I was looking behind my car (trying not to hit other cars) and was not looking in front. Clearly not seeing that I was missing the turn by a long shot.

A woman walking by after the accident said "If it makes you feel any better, I did the same thing with my company car a few weeks ago!" While it didn't exactly make me feel better, it made me look around and see that most ALL of the huge pole/boulders had car paint, dents, and scratches on them. Needless to say, I will not be going back in the Whole Foods parking deck. Phil taped it up enough so that I could drive it home & get in checked out in the morning.

While I've been able to drive a rental car the last 2 weeks, I'm sad to say insurance totaled my baby :( It is still drivable though so we are waiting to hear back from an adjuster to see if it can still be fixed. *sigh*

In other news, I wrapped up my summer semester this week!!!! It has been a fun and BUSY summer! I ended up completing 99 clinical clock hours and two 3 hour classes. I am finally past the halfway point of grad school with only ONE MORE semester of classes! Can I get an hallelujah!? 

Finally, since my practicum ended last week and this week only consisted of a few meetings and night classes, I was able to sub for a lead teacher at the child development center I have worked at all throughout college. It was a great experience and I enjoyed being able to love on those babies all week!! However, a stomach bug started going around the center on Thursday and I got it last night :( I was all packed and ready to leave for my family's beach trip this morning and woke up, super sick, in the middle of last night. Such is the life of a child care worker. I rested all day today & hopefully I will be back in business tomorrow! I can't believe I got sick on the first day of BOTH of my two week summer breaks. Here's to hoping the rest of my break is full of fun and not sickness!