Three weeks in..

Well, I've ben in Forest for about 3 weeks now! I can hardly believe it.  I have been able to hang out with Jasons family a good amount with him being gone in Charlotte.  I have seen him a bit too :)  He has been able to take me to some of his favorite pizza spots or out for ice cream.  (Of course everything is about food).  I have really enjoyed being able to cook and bake a bit here and there.  I have been able to try new recipes and bake a lot and I really like that!  I am also settling in to my roles at my new job at the nursing home and I am beginning to build relationships with the residents.

May I just say I think I will learn more from these residents than I ever thought I would.  They are truly something else.  The way they have good attitudes and outlooks on life after everything they have been through.  Today, I got to hear one of the residents stories during a break.  She shared with me many of the struggles she has had in her life and how evident the Lords hand is on her life.  It was a truly moving experience to have her share so much of her life with me after only knowing me for a few weeks.  Almost a complete stranger to her, but it is so evident that this woman and many of the others just have so much love to give even after all of the hardships they have faced in their lives.

I have had some challenges myself being away from home, again.  With Jason being gone a lot, I have been feeling like I am here for no reason but I know that seeing him on weekends is better than not at all.  He will be done with job training this week as well so now we will settle into trying to coordinate our work schedules to be able to do some fun things!  I am definitely homesick, Minnesota sick and actually camp sick.  I think being in America but not being in Minnesota, near my family has been the hardest.  When I was in Ireland, it was so completely different that although I missed home, it was so different that there wasn't much to compare it to there.  This is a different kind of homesick.

Being camp sick is also a surprise for me.  At least to the degree that I miss camp! I knew I would miss it some, but seeing some of my friends head up there for the summer is making me yearn for those long days on the water that I used to dread sometimes.  It is a special place that is for sure.  I hope to visit or maybe even work a family camp at the end of the summer.

Next weekend I am heading to the beach in North Carolina again with Jason's family and extended family. I am excited for the ocean again and meeting a lot of Jason's family.  After that, my mom is coming to visit!! I can't believe that its already almost July.  Well, sort of.  Anyways, I can't wait to show my mom where I've been working and do some sightseeing with her.  I miss my family!

Anyways, that is all for now.  I am off to try another new recipe :)
Thanks for keeping up with my life!

Thai food that we ordered in :)

This is an area where I have gone running a few times.  Its called backwater creek and its so green!

The mountains are ever always in the background of almost any view.  This is turning into the neighborhood where I am staying.

I told Jason I was capturing everything this summer soo too bad for him I will be taking a lot of pictures!

Settling in to southern life

Hello everyone!

I have been in Forest for about a week now and it feels like so many things have happened!

Jason was gone most of the week for job training in Charlotte so I spent a good amount of time with his family.  Jason's mom is so great, she says to live here I need to act like one of her kids.  I feel a little uncomfortable sometimes with that but I'm getting used to their house and their patterns and such.  So while Jason was gone it was my main goal to find a job.  I am not sure how many places I asked for an application and filled it out and turned it in but it was a lot.

I landed a job at a nursing home called Runk and Pratt.  Strange name, I know, but its probably the nicest nursing home I have ever been to.  These people have a lot of money and the facilities reflect that.  The residents have it reeeeeeeaalll good.  I mean especially when they have someone like me serving them their meals right?  :) Anyways, that is what I do there.  I serve them breakfast, lunch and dinner depending on which shift I am working.  So basically I have 20 new friends all over 65 years of age.  I love it. There aren't many residents because this facility only opened up about a week ago! So gradually there have been more residents moving in and others taking tours and such.

The people I work with are really fun and it is such a positive atmosphere.  They will tease me and call me Minnesota and the chefs give me samples of banana bread or soup or let me have a cupcake here and there.  The residents are awesome though.  They are what makes the long hours and sore feet worth it!

So there is that.  This past weekend Jason was home and we got to do some real summer stuff and it made me feel like its actually summer! Its been weird for both of us because the past two summers we were at camp and its like I don't even know what summer is supposed to be like without camp.  But I think we will figure it out quickly, ice cream dates, swimming and boating in lakes, hiking, swimming in rivers, and the list goes on.  We packed a lot of things in to the few days he was home!

One of the days that I had an early shift and I was done at 2pm, we drove up into the mountains and hiked to a place called Devils Marbleyard. We looked at the sign at the beginning of the hike and it had a 1 next to Devils Marbleyard so we were like oh yeah 1 mile we can do that it'll be easy.  Well, it was a lot farther than a mile let me tell you and it was a lot more straight up than we expected too.  Oh well, it was good exercise for sure and the view was amazing and we made it out alive! I am excited to do some other hiking while I'm here too.

On my day off, Sunday, I went with Jason's family to one of their family friends lake homes.  It was a cloudy day but not too cloudy to keep us out of the water.  I got to wakeboard for the first time this summer and it sure made me miss camp and the beautiful boat that I got to drive last summer.  It was fun though, it almost felt like Minnesota..

Somethings I have really enjoyed about being in Virginia is 1) seeing the mountains all the time.  I am probably 20-30 minutes away from one of the mountains that I could hike.  They are so cool and I don't think I could ever get tired of looking at them. 2) Mostly everyone is SO nice.  I know they say its Minnesota nice but I don't know if thats really a thing because people are so cheerful and welcoming here.  I love it.  3) The sweet tea and southern drawls.  Its kinda fun learning more about the southern way of life and listening to everyone talk.  You can really pick out those rednecks because they will usually have some chew on the inside of their cheek.  Yuck.  But so fun to observe.

This week will be filled with work and uh work.. and some relaxing and maybe doing some cooking for fun! Thats all, here are some pictures of my life.

My adopted dog for the summer, Buddy

This is from the end of the street I'm living on. Mountains are everywhere!

The Faixes house

View of the mountains 

Devils Marbleyard

Nice and sweaty from the hike

Ivy Lake- we swam here the other night

Good book and a sweet tea on the back porch :)

Family Vacation in North Carolina

Well friends and family, here I am again! This is my new blog for the summer.
For those of you who read the Isanti County  news, I am NOT spending the summer in New York, but I will be in Virginia.  There are a few other notable false informations but oh well :)

So, I will be living in Forest, Virginia which is near the city of Lynchburg.  My boyfriend, Jason's, family lives here and he goes to school in Lynchburg, so I am the following girlfriend to be near Jason after being apart for 5 months.  I will be living with his parents while he is living in a townhouse near his school.  I am pretty excited to experience a new state for awhile! Virginia is beautiful.  I was able to take a trip there with him last summer and I love the mountains and the fact that you can drive to the ocean and back in a day.  I am also excited to spend some quality time with Jason's family as well.

Currently, I am on the other Emerald Isle in North Carolina.  My family has been planning a vacation with everyone for awhile so I have been looking forward to this for awhile!  Everyone, means 10 people plus my baby nephew so its quite a crew we have and its a big deal to have everyone in the same place for a whole week and on the beaches of North Carolina is an even bigger deal!  Emerald Isle is a little island off the coast of North Carolina with beaches and beaches.  We are staying in a beautiful house right on the ocean and its just like something out of a Nicholas Sparks book.  Its like paradise!!

We have had such a good week here and the weather has been awesome.  Its been so fun to hang out with my family after being away from them for so long! We have enjoyed the sun, the ocean, reading books and sharing meals and laughs together and of course cooing over my darling baby nephew, Charlie.  The beach has been our playground!  Its been such a fun week so far.  Jason was able to meet us here for a few days too so of course I enjoyed that :)  Seeing him after 5 months apart was so weird and actually I felt more relief than anything.  It was pretty fun to spend a few days exploring the beach with him.

Its hard to say how much of a culture shock I have had yet because I am on vacation and of course I love it here.  The first few things I noticed while being in the airports in the U.S. have been a) the dollar b) lack of Irish accents c) large people are more common  and d) African American people are also more common.  But the most significant thing I noticed was the absence of those beautiful Irish voices.  We will see how much more of a shock adjusting to life in Forest will be.  I think that driving to any of my destinations outside of the house and neighborhood will be the biggest change.  I also think that adjusting to the southern lifestyle might be a bit of an adjustment as well.  Ah well, change happens all the time in life and we just have to roll with the punches.

Here are some photos from the family vaca..

With my Bernie boy in Minnesota before jetting off again to the east coast

View from the beach house

Sunrise

Sunrise with my boy

Jason's parents came for a visit!

Jason :)

Baby Charlie

The whole fam

The girls! Plus Charlie

Well there ya have it.  Two more items of importance.. Good news is that I have an interview for a restaurant on Tuesday for a waitress position.

Bad news, real bad news, is that a friend of mine from high school passed away this week in a four wheeling accident.  I was very close to going back to Minnesota for the service to be there with and for my grieving friends but alas the money and the timing just didn't seem to work out.  Being so far away for something like this really makes me appreciate when I get to be home.  I think me and all of my friends are still in shock at how quickly a life can be taken away and how hard it can hit when it is someone so young that shouldn't have died so soon.  Kory Poissant, you will be missed by so so many! My thoughts and prayers go out to his family.

So sorry to end on such a depressing note.  My next post will be about adjusting to life in Forest and updates on jobs and things like that!