A trip to the castle

The Pennys were here at the beginning of the week, working on getting Lauren an apartment in Atlanta for when she comes to McAfee seminary in August. Joel took Monday and Tuesday to take them around to apartments, the farmers market and IKEA. On Tuesday night, we took a trip to the Medieval Times castle to see the show and have dinner. It was a fun experience to eat dinner with no utensils and watch the horses and knights. If only one of us had remembered a camera, this would be a much more interesting post!

Tomorrow we're driving up to Chapel Hill for Nelson and Rachel's wedding and then back to Concord to hang with the Bradleys for the weekend. Yay!

Girl Time!

My BFF, Sharla, was in town this week for some work meetings, and I was able to steal her away for a little bit last night to have some dinner and hang out. It was some much needed girl time! It did make me sad though that we live far apart and don't get to see each other too much (though the daily email does help)...but hopefully one day we'll live close enough to have a lot more hanging out time. Happily I will get to see her 2 weekends in a row really soon!

Love ya girl, and see ya never!

Love Thy Neighbor...especially if they have a boat

Seriously though, we do love our next door neighbors, Tom and Bruce. They have been nothing but helpful since we moved in to our house 2 years ago. They have helped us move numerous pieces of furniture, let us borrow any of their tools or lawn equipment (they gave Joel the code to their garage opener) and always compliment us on our latest home improvements.

A few months ago, Tom and Bruce purchased a new boat, which they took us out on Memorial Day weekend. Well, then they decided that they wanted a little bit bigger boat...one with a cabin with a kitchen, bathroom and sleeping area. So today they took us back out to Lake Lanier for a leisurely afternoon on the new boat (we left the tube and waterskis at home since we are all still recovering from the last trip!)

Joel and me hanging out after a swim
Tom driving while Bruce and Joel ride on the front

Why did they let Joel drive? Now he has boat fever!

I hope we are always blessed with such wonderful neighbors!

Volleyball

This afternoon we went to Atlantic Station to see the finals of the AVP Atlanta Open. I got free tickets through work--another awesome perk. It was really, really hot, but Joel wanted to see his favorite girls- Misty May and Kerri Walsh. Ever since the Olympics, if these girls are on t.v. then he's watching them. They won the final match, which secured their positions as the first and second winningest female volleyball players (Misty is #1 and Kerri is #2 with 76 and 73 wins respectively)

Joel with his ladies- Misty and Kerri.

Some of the action.

I also promised pictures of the new slate floor--so here's one (it's hard to get because the hallway is so dark). Sammy didn't want to move, so you get to see his backside too.

Megan & Dion's visit

My sister, Megan, and her boyfriend, Dion, came for a quick visit this past Thursday through Saturday. It was a fun and action packed trip!

We kicked it off with a trip to Turner Field on Thursday night to see the Braves play the Cubs. We had awesome seats that were eight rows behind home plate. The Braves didn't win--but Dion is a Cubs fan...so he was happy.

Soriano getting ready to bat for the Cubs.





Francoeur up to bat--it was "Francoeour night" at the ballpark and we got free #7 tee shirts.


On Friday, we drove back down to Atlanta to go to the Georgia Aquarium. We stopped for lunch at The Varsity--an Atlanta tradition and had some great chili dogs!

Megan and me in front of the entrance to the river exhibit.

Megan and Dion at the tropical reef exhibit.

A sea turtle at the Georgia Explorer exhibit. One of the famous whale sharks that is in the world's largest tank. It is really amazing!

After the aquarium we had dinner at Krystal, since they don't have any in Raleigh, and went to see Knocked Up, which was really funny. Thanks for coming to visit--we had a great time!