Eric and I have not been on a vacation together since our honeymoon to Cozumel 2 1/2 years ago. It’s not that we don’t like to travel…. we do…. but school, work, and finances always seemed to get in the way. I know you understand.

I’m really close to my family…. like I’m literally 4 minutes down the road from my mom and dad’s house. We seriously hang out with them ALL the time. I just LOVE my family and I’ve missed them so much this week. We don’t get to see Eric’s side of the family quite as often, so I was a little surprised when he INSISTED that we travel across the country to see his Uncle get married. I didn’t oppose, since I love to travel and I wanted to see where Eric spent every summer growing up.
So, we’ve been here since Thursday. I have to say, as a “side” note, God is SO freakin’ amazing. Seriously. We booked 2 round trip plane tickets to North Carolina and only had to pay for 1. I don’t know. All I can say is thank you Jesus. In the last 5 days we have spent time with Eric’s family (yes, they are rednecks from Lumberton, NC … which is the reason I fit in so well….) eating some amazing Southern cooked food. I was seriously doing so well on Weight Watchers before I came here. I promise I will get back on when I get home. But anyway, I LOVE his family. For real…. they’re all awesome. I’ve had such a great time getting to know them and where they all have grown up.

On Saturday, Eric’s uncle Jonathan got married to his new beautiful bride Renee. Here are a few I snagged from the 3rd row during the ceremony….

After the wedding we went to eat at an infamous Lumberton restaurant called Village Inn where I experienced the most incredible Hush Puppies E-Vah. And I had the worst somach ache E-Vah. LOL! Oh, and NO ONE could convince me to try the southern specialty “Liver Puddin.”  Yeah, it’s looks as gross as it sounds.

On Sunday, we drove 4 hours to see our friends who are all musicians at NewSpring Church in Anderson, South Carolina. We made it to the 4:00 service to hang out with some of them in the green room and stayed to watch them rock our faces off during the 6:00pm service… Perry Noble (the pastor) also preached my face off. It was all amazing. We were able to stay at the Worship Leader Lee McDerment’s house for a couple days, where he and his roommates Joey and Craig provided and incredible time for us! I seriously love all those guys. Lee is an awesome mentor for Eric - musicially and spiritually - and Joey and Craig blessed us so much while we were there, too… such great friends.by the way, if you haven’t heard of NewSpring Church, you TOTALLY need to check them out. They have videos of their services online that will change your world. PLUS, if you go to StoneWater and want to get a head start on some of the new worship songs we’ll be incorporating, check out last week’s service!

Yesterday we traveled to Greenville, SC, which is about 25 minutes away from Anderson. It has this amazing strip of restaurants and shops… plus  a park with a beautiful waterfall. We ate Sushi at Taco Sushi, had coffee at Spill the Beans, and I grabbed a few photos of Joey and Craig at some of the pretty buildings that were there. Oh, and Eric got an $8 parking ticket. Splendid.

Here are a few shots of Joey!

Here are some of Craig!

And here are some of all the boys (including Eric)!

And then, of course, they had to gross me out… just kidding… TOO funny…

Here’s a quick shot of me and Eric just before we left Greenville!

And here’s a picture of the the Greenville strip I was telling you about!

We drove back to Lumberton tonight and we have 1 more day to spend with the family. I can’t believe how much I love Eric’s family. They totally welcomed me in and treat me like one of them. I really hope I can see them more often!

And, hence the title of the blog… sorry about all the slacking as far as business has gone. I thought I would work more on my vacation, but hey… it’s VACATION. Who was I kidding? Back to work on Friday!