North Carolina Trip - Day 11

I know I haven't been the best about blogging about this trip, but I'll try to give at least most of the highlights of the last week.  They aren't quite as exciting as getting run off the road, but I think it's still pretty fun! 

When we first got to NC, we all pretty much just laid around and slept, David more than the rest of us.  I don't know why, but he took about a 3 hour nap every day for about 5 days.  I got pretty sick of that so unless I was asleep too, I made him come do stuff with me.  David finally got to play some basketball with some friends last week.  He always tries to get people to play with him in Rexburg but it usually doesn't work out.  I think he really liked being able to do that.  I think he's going to try and do that again tonight and tomorrow as well. 

David's parents have been very nice to us.  We are a little short on money because we had to pay for a tow, a hotel, and David's brother because his brother "forgot" his wallet in SLC and so we've had to pay for a lot of his stuff as well.  They paid for us to go to a movie as well as go to a nice Southern restaurant called Smithfields.  David took me to Smithfields the first time I came over here so it was a nice way to reminice.  They have some pulled pork there with the vinegar based BBQ sauce, very different from the honey based BBQ sauce you find in the West.  I think I'm still partial to the honey based stuff, but it's fun to try other stuff! 

For Christmas, 2 of David's sisters came to his parents house and we all got to spend some time together.  I got to talk to Tracy and see how much she loves to tease David (which I think is healthy for that brother-sister relationship!) but David managed to give it back to her every once in awhile so it was good.  I got to make many batches of cookies with Tracy's daughter, Chloe.  She liked the sugar cookies and being able to cut out different shapes.  Her favorite shapes was a foot and the letter "x".  I tried to get her to do Christmas shapes, but she stuck with those.  It made me laugh. 

On Christmas day, we got woken up at about 7 by the little kids.  David and I were pretty groggy because we stayed up till 2 the night before watching A Christmas Story on our laptop.  David's family has a tradition that everyone has to line up on the stairs and get their picture taken before you can open presents.  This was pretty different for me because David's parents were both awake and downstairs before everyone else.  I'm used to my family where we all have to bug Dad over and over and over before he tells us to open grandma's present and go watch it and then he'll get up.  My grandma usually sent us a movie or something like that so it bought him some more sleeping time.  Anyways, we took a picture up on their catwalk (I'm sure David and I looked BEAUTIFUL!!!  We were even wearing our matching Mitchell bowling team shirts!) and then we went down to the couch to get more pictures taken with David's sister Joy.  She had her foot operated on and has pretty much been crippled the whole time we've been here.  So after all the pictures, we finally got to open the presents.  Chloe would scream and get VERY excited pretty much after every present she opened, so I guess she was not disappointed with her Christmas.  David's mom made all of us stockings with our names embrodered on it so that if we ever came for Christmas again we would have stockings for Christmas.  His parents worked very hard to make sure Christmas was exciting and fun for everyone.

The rest of the day went about like you would think Christmas would go. After a nice nap, we had Sacrament Meeting at 3 (a little late for my taste, but that's what they were assigned) and David got to do a wonderful musical number that he played on a cello he borrowed from a lady in his parents ward.  The people he borrowed the cello from were so paranoid about him borrowing it that as soon as the meeting ended and David was packing it up, the husband was right there ready to take it back.  It made me laugh, but it was really fun.  When we got back to the house, David's other sister Mindi was there with her family.  It was great to finally meet all these sisters that I keep hearing about!  We had lots of laughs and a wonderful dinner together to end the day.

The next day we all went to Adventure Landing.  I went there with David when I came a couple years ago, and it was fun to return.  We all got to ride on their go-karts and race each other.  David's dad was very nice and paid for us to go.  They have 1 and 2 seater karts so the kids got to ride with the older people.  I have to say, I did pretty good with it for only having ridden something like that 1 other time in my life!  I wish we had more stuff like that in Idaho because it is a run thing to do if you have an hour or so to spare!    For the rest of the day and all this morning we've just been relaxing.  We went to Wal-Mart a few times (no week would be complete without a few trips to Wal-Mart!  That's what David and I sometimes do when we get bored) and exchanged a few things, but nothing else to exciting happened.  I tried to keep up with what was happening at home by texting my mom and brother, but I think that LISA and MAMA should write a blog post of their own to tell me all about it....(hint hint...)

David told me that he thinks this trip is too long.  I tend to agree.  We've been here a week and weren't planning on leaving till Friday night (not to drive all night Mom, just to drive to Tracy's a few hours away - don't worry) but David's been talking about leaving early.  I don't know if we'll do it.  Probably not because David's other siblings in Missouri area are having a big dinner on New Years that we want to go to.  I've learned, though, that there really is no place like home.  Our apartment isn't anything impressive or grand.  The 5 rooms that we spend our lives in aren't fancy, but I kind of miss them.  I'm really glad we came here and that I got to finally meet David's family after 8 months of marriage, but it will be good to go back.  That's about it.  Hopefully I'll have more later!