May Visitors

May has been full of visitors already! We started the month with our good friend Joe staying for a couple of days. He left and that same afternoon we met the McGowans on the beach. They came down for a quick over night. It was so fun to see them! Here are a couple of pics of Cort and Cohen having fun. (Unfortunately we never remember to take pictures of the adults!)

Cort and John

Cohen and Emily

A couple of days later I was able to head down to Seabrook to hang out with my college roommate, Lucy, her mom and little boy, Maclaren. Sadly it rained, but we still had a great time catching up!

Maclaren and me

The next weekend our cousins Ann, Jon, Logan and Cooper came up for a visit. We've been trying to make this happen for a long time and it was well worth the wait! We crammed a lot into a couple of days -spent time on the beach, played in the pool, had some girl time, checked out local yard sales, went to an awesome park and took out a paddle boat and of course got ice cream! We're so grateful they made the long trip up from Atlanta!

Jon and Cooper

John and Logan feeding turtles.

Ann and Logan

Sweet Cooper

5 Years of the Childress Life

On April 2nd John and I celebrated 5 years of marriage with a trip to Beaufort, SC. This was the first time we've taken a real anniversary trip, where we actually went out of town and relaxed for a whole weekend. It was awesome! John surprised me by booking us a couple of nights at this super cute bed and breakfast right on Bay St. We had a great view of the harbor and even our own private porch off our room.  On Saturday we went on a great walking tour of the town. It was seriously one of the best tours I have ever taken. Below is picture of one of the amazing house and Live Oak trees we saw.

The rest of the weekend was spent eating at great restaurants, reading good books, and taking walks. We even took a drive out to Hunting Beach.

So here we are after 5 years together! They've been the best of my life and I'm so grateful for my incredible husband who is about to become the best dad ever!

And here we are on our wedding day...doesn't seem like it could be 5 years already!

Changes

That seems to be the theme around the Childress household these day! The biggest and most exciting is...Speck (at least that his/her name for now)! Scheduled to arrive around October 16th, Speck has brought great joy, shock and excitment to our home. As some of you know, we were actually in the process of adoption when we found out we are expecting, so it took a couple weeks for the reality to sink in. Here are a few pictures of our little one:

As you can see Speck comes by his/her name honestly!

To add to the craziness of a growing family, John and I both had changes in our careers that began with the new year. John moved on from managing a Chick-fil-A in Charleston to working as a CFA, Inc Interim Manager. In this role he runs CFA's that are corporately held rather than a franchised location. It was been incredible to watch him grow into running the business and developing his leadership. I couldn't be more proud of him. With John's new role, our family is set to move wherever CFA needs us. Our first assignment happened to be here in Charleston, so the only move we had to make was from our cute beach cottage to a coporate apartment. For those of you who were never able to visit, here's a pic of our little beach home:

Our current place isn't quite as charming and unfortunately is a 10 minute drive from the beach rather than a 2 minute walk (sad I know:)), but we are grateful for the accomodations CFA has provided for us. It looks like we will be in Charleston until the end of May. Where we are headed to next, we don't know yet.

Just before learning of our pregnancy, I also took a new job with CFA, Inc. I now work as a Grand Opening Marketing Consultant, which is a long title meaning that I travel around the country (mostly the mid-atlantic) and work with Operators who are opening new CFA locations on developing their marketing strategy. When I'm not on the road, I get to work from home so I look forward to continuing in this role even after the little one arrives.

So let's see, any other changes...baby, jobs, move...yup, I think that's enough for now!

Staycation

Can a staycation really be a vacation? This is what John and I set out to discover this week. We decided since we live on a street where people regularly travel to take their time off, we should do the same. With little planned for the week other than a vow to not step foot in work, this is how our great time of relaxing evolved.

First, we headed to Durham Regional Hospital to meet our new niece, Lillie, and visit with the new parents, my brother Brad and sister-in-law Megan. All are doing well and are now back at home.

Next we headed back to Charleston and spent the night at The Vendue hotel downtown. John took me out for an incredible dinner at Pennisula Grill and then we topped off the night at the Roof Top Bar at The Vendue.

The next day, after shopping on King Street, which ended when John gave me four more stores to go into:), we headed back home and on to our next adventure...crabbing. Here is the view from our crabbing post. We had a great time and caught over a dozen hermit crabs! Too bad because I was all set to fix a Maryland style crab feast for dinner that night.John trying his hand at crabbing.Me, enjoying the nice weather and a great book.The next day we were joined by our friends (Rick Hawkinson and Garrett and Allison Reed) and spend the day on the beach (no pics here, I don't believe in posting bathing suit pictures:)). The guys tried another hand at crabbing while, Allison and I soaked in as much sun as possible. After stuffing ourselves with a cookout and a few hours of Tiger Woods golf on the Wii, we all crashed.

Friday, we began the holiday weekend by Kayaking around Shem Creek and Sullivan's Island. I was the smart one and insisted on having a partner to row with, which basically meant John rowed 99% of the time and I rowed 50% of the time! He's pretty positive next time we go, he's getting his own boat:)

The 4th of July greeted us with a local parade that went right down our street. So cute, reminded me of the neighborhood parades we used to decorate our bikes for as kids. Then more time on the beach and cooking out with my high school friend Patty and her husband, Dan, who were celebrating their 2nd anniversary with a week in Charleston. It was so fun to see them again. After dinner we headed down to the beach from where we were able to see three sets of fireworks.

So overall I'd say the Staycation was a success! If we ever live in a location like this again, I'd be up to repeat the experience. Nonvoyage as they say:)