Hello Durham...

Well, it's been quiet over here on "Livin' the Wood Life" for a while.  We've been all over the place lately...every weekend there has been something we've wanted to do, so we've been on the go.  Our eventful weekends have been jam-packed with fun stuff that has taken us from Fayetteville, NC to Savannah, GA, to the cabin at Hancock (twice), Augusta, GA and even a quick trip to Athens for dinner!  What a whirlwind!  Throw a National Championship in the mix and I'm wayyy behind on pictures and updates on what we've been up to lately!

After five weekends in a row (I think!...too much to even keep them all straight) of traveling on the weekends, Ryan and I decided (or our gas budget decided for us!) that we needed to just hang out in Durham for a while.  And while we missed being home for Mother's Day, my good friend Kalli's baby shower, and seeing TJ while he was home, these last two weekends in Durham have been so fun and relaxing...and it's been nice to not start a Friday afternoon with hours in the car for once.  And while being parked here, you'd think I'd have gotten around to some blog/picture updates, we've instead filled our time with washing our cars, hanging out by the pool with friends from our apartment complex, going to a baseball game at the Durham Bulls park, having a cookout with our small group, going to dinner downtown with friends, watching movies, and just enjoying spending time with each other.

We've made some great friends in Durham and have had a lot of fun with them over the past couple of weekends.  Last weekend, we had a cookout with our small group.  Last summer as part of "Hope for RDU" with our church, our small group cleaned up a local park.  We were going to have our cookout at a different park, but when we got there, there was a family reunion going on, so we relocated to the park we cleaned up last year...how perfect! :)

Ryan, Holt, and Adam manning the grill... 

JD and Asher found a frog that kept them entertained for a while and baby Anna tried to stay cool in her stroller.  It was 90 degrees out last Saturday!

We're so thankful for this group of friends from our church, The Summit.  Tameka, a friend of mine that I worked with at the Falcons, introduced us to her college friends Adam and Melissa when she visited not too long after I had moved up here.  They happened to go to the same church as us and invited us to their small group, so that's how we got connected to this group of friends.  

Then, this past weekend we hung out downtown, which we haven't done too much of before and it might be our new favorite place!  On Friday after work, Duke Athletics had a department-wide employee get together at the brand new Tobacco Road Sports Cafe with a patio overlooking the outfield of the Durham Bulls Athletic Park, so we went there after work...the food = AMAZING, the weather = GORGEOUS.  We had fun hanging out with friends from work while watching our baseball team take on UVA. 

The ball park is right downtown right next to the American Tobacco, which is old tobacco warehouses that have been turned into restaurants, offices, and cute little places.  And for those of you back home who haven't made it up to visit us in Durham yet, here's a little introduction to our town. Almost 2 years late, but here it is none-the-less. :)

The Durham Bulls are our minor league baseball team (ever seen the movie Bull Durham with Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon?? that's the Durham Bulls!), hence the bull bike rack.  

So Saturday night, we tried another new restaurant...well, semi-new, but new for us...called Cuban Revolution.  We'd heard it was good and our friends Charlie and Marnie suggested it (they hadn't tried it either), so we tried it out with them.  Despite the menu being slightly anti-American, the food was really good.  And by slightly, I mean it basically bashed America...not sure how my patriotic self feels about that, but anyways...

The weather was gorgeous, so we sat outside at the tables with umbrellas (below) so that Caden, their little boy could walk around.  And it was great for people-watching too, with so many people out on a pretty Saturday evening.

Here's Caden smelling some flowers along the way...

Charlie and Marnie are really special friends to us.  Not only do we always have so much fun with them, but they were the first friends that we met after I moved up here.  They had moved here just a couple months before me, and Charlie and Ryan had met, so when we were still unpacking my stuff and getting me all moved in, they had us over for dinner.  We've had fun with them ever since and are thankful to have such great friends up here, between them and the couples from our small group.  Ironically, none of our friends are from this area or have family close by, so we've definitely had to play that family role for each other.  Between throwing baby showers, taking meals to each other, and just checking in on each other during the crazy work weeks, I'm so thankful to have these friends here!

And in light of Monday night being "Dancing with the Stars" night...let's go Erin and Maks!

...a picture from a post that I still haven't gotten around to!  (Duke/UNC game standing beside Erin Andrews and DWTS partner Maks)