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!