North Carolina!!

Griffin and I were in North Carolina for 4.5 days last weekend. We had a BLAST! We visited our great friends the Strongs - Clint, Stacy, Carly and Clint. The weather was perfect and I loved every second of our visit. Well, maybe not the few seconds when Griffin had a complete meltdown and pulled the gate from the wall at the top of the steps. But otherwise, it was great.

I should mention how we know each other. Stacy and I joined MOPS (Mothers of Pre-schoolers) back in the fall of 2003 when Carly and Griffin were just 6 months old. We were with a great group of women and we all became friends. The following summer, Stacy helped watch Griffin a bit when I went back to work and Dallas was looking for a job. We have some great memories of the two kiddos growing up together. Clint accepted a new job in NC about 6 months before we moved to Illinois.

The first picture is of the Duke University Chapel. We spent a couple of hours on the campus and specifically at the Duke Gardens. They are beautiful and I could have spent the entire DAY there but the Cosmic Cantina was calling our name so we left for lunch! Then we went back to see the chapel. It was well worth the time to see it.

This is the three of them hanging out after a long day of playing! They took a bath together every night.

We went to a strawberry patch the first morning we were there. They had just opened for the season and had so many strawberries. I had never seen so many and they were awesome. The kids did the picking and Stacy and I carried the baskets. We got 9 pounds of berries in about 20 minutes. (Did I mention there were a TON of berries).

The best part of picking the berries was the many, many glasses of strawberry margaritas Stacy and I drank out in the backyard watching the kids play on the water slide. Those things are addictive. We had grand plans to make all sorts of desserts with the berries and all we made was margaritas! :)

We took the kids to two different parks for picnic lunches. You would think we tired them out but they still had a hard time going to sleep from all the excitement.

Thank you Strong family for a great time!