Introducing "Duke"

We want a dog.  Like real bad.  But the timing just isn't right...we're living in a basement, we're gone all day, we're going to be in a rental living situation for the next year with no yard... 

So instead of getting a puppy, we satisfied our puppy fix by going in with TJ and Jamie to get a puppy for Matt for graduation. 

Meet "Duke".

We have all grown quite attached and Matt has become quite the proud parent.

Ryan and I found out about the puppy from a friend whose aunt and uncle had a litter...in Florida. Since we couldn't have a dog, I mentioned it to TJ since the farm was not far from Gainesville (FL).  Now isn't the best time for him to have a dog either (with a full time summer job and then another semester left of school), so we talked about maybe getting it for Matt for graduation. TJ went to see the dog, of course couldn't turn down his little puppy eyes, so with a week left of school, he took him home with him.  In that week TJ got pretty attached and wanted to keep him, but in reality, he knew Matt would have more time to spend with him, so he decided to give up the pup so we could all give him to Matt as a graduation gift.  

He brought him home that weekend, handed him off to me and Ryan, and we drove him up to Durham to Matt.

TJ saying bye to Duke. 

 That baby just laid on my lap or at my feet the entire 5 hour drive.  He is sooo sweet and has such a good personality!  We drove straight to Matt's track meet and the little guy sat through the rain and watched Matt run before getting to meet his new "dad".  

check out the cow-lick on his tail!

He cheered Matt on in his race

Matt got to meet "Duke" after he ran his prelims

On Saturday, Duke sat through another day at the track meet.  Instead of rain, we got heat...he tried staying cool by sleeping under the shade of the bleacher. 

Isn't he cute??  I want a puppy!

Matt started working with him right away on sitting, staying, fetching, going outside to pee...

I think he likes his graduation gift.  He was just lucky that we were needing a puppy fix ourselves, but couldn't have one of our own. ;)

A blog post...what?

Well heeeey there! It's been a while...

We're clearly not "all about our North Carolina life" anymore.  It's clearly no longer football season.  And I've clearly abandoned our blog...which is clearly in dire need of a makeover!

But I just thought I'd pop in and give a lil' Georgia update and maybe catch up a tad.

In short...life is good.  We've gotten settled into our "terrace level suite" as we like to refer to our basement lodgings at the in-laws house.  We are soo so thankful that they have let us stay with them so long while we sold our house and have tried to find a place to live in Atlanta.  Thankfully the selling the house part was easier than deciding on a place to live here...imagine that (and Praise God)!  We have at least narrowed our choices down to a couple of options and should hopefully be getting moved into something soon.

Ryan is liking his job at JLL, but he stays really busy and gone a lot, partly due to his outrageous commute everyday.  I started working recently for a company called Roam Atlanta (you can check that out at www.roamatlanta.com ) in Alpharetta and also have about a 50 minute commute each way.  So we are definitely anxious to move closer.  I am really liking my new job a lot though!  It has given me a great opportunity to meet all kinds of interesting people...mostly entrepreneurs and small business owners.  Every day is interesting and I love all of the people I work with and get to talk to every day. 

Other than the major updates (living and job situations), we have stayed busy lately with weddings of a couple of our good friends... Ryan's roommate from college got married in Pittsburgh, so we had a miniature Duke reunion with a lot of friends up there, and then one of my best friends from high school and college, Breanne, got married a couple of weekends later.  Between bachelor/bachelorette parties, showers, rehearsals, rehearsal dinners, and actual weddings, we got to spend a lot of time with friends and had a lot of fun reconnecting and catching up with people we've missed over the last couple of years.

As for other things going on...TJ is home for the summer, getting to experience an actual summer break for the first time in years.  The same goes for Matt now that football is over too.  He is still at Duke finishing up his one and only track season, then he'll be joining TJ on his first ever true summer break as well.  Jamie is finishing up her freshman year at UGA and will also be heading home after finals.  It's crazy that all four of us will be home this summer! 

Ryan and I made it to Duke last weekend to watch Matt run in the ACC Track Championships that were hosted by Duke.  It was so fun to see Matt run!  The last track meet he ran in was his senior year of high school.  He won state in the 200m and was 1st runner up in the 100m his senior year and I was on a plane headed to New Zealand for my study abroad and missed it!  Now that his football career is over, this was his first spring free of football workouts and spring practices, so for fun, he decided to squeeze in a track season after four years of not running just to see how he would do.  He was hindered for most of the season by a pulled hamstring, but he still did well in the ACC Championships and Duke was really excited to have him on their sprint team this spring.

Day 1 of prelims was nasty and rainy out, but he won his heat in the 400m and got 2nd place overall.

Matt ran in the finals on Saturday and placed 7th in the ACC in the 400m. 

We stayed with our good friends, the Densmores, for the weekend and got to celebrate Easter weekend with them.  I helped Marnie put together the Easter baskets after Caden (4) and Asher (13 mos.) went to bed and didn't realize until the next morning that one of them had been for us.  Ha, Marnie and her slyness! We did enjoy that basket of candy on the ride home though!

It was so fun getting to spend some time with their sweet kids too.  Caden and Asher are seriously two of the cutest and funniest kids I've ever been around. 

Just look at Asher.  Those eyes!  And couldn't you just eat his cheeks??

And that Caden...he holds a special place in our hearts.  He can be really shy around people and take a while to warm up.  But he became comfortable around us early on in our friendship with the Densmores and rarely gets shy around us.  Even after months of living in Georgia, he was still excited to see us and acted just like we had never left.  Marnie said that when we were driving up, he was asking when we were going to get there.  :)  I just love him!  He's so funny too...the second I pull my camera out, he gets camera-shy and tries to hide from the camera.  So I try to catch him when he doesn't realize I'm trying to take a picture of him. 

And on a side note...this kid is a trooper.  He sat through two days of the track meet, including Friday in the rain... and apparently runs around his house with a baton and hurdles these days.  ;)

But once this weekend, just out of the blue, he turned around and said, "hey, take a picture of me running" and then just took off running down the sidewalk.  haha! 

After Marnie explained that if he would let me take his picture, he could see them on the computer later, he finally warmed up to the camera.  For the first time ever!  His big ole' personality completely came out of his camera-shy shell and gave me some goofball Caden poses. :)

Ha, Charlie told him to do a "hang ten", but he got stuck on the "hook 'em horns"...

but then he got it! :)

and a "real ten"

 Cute, cute, cute!  We miss you guys...and all of our other Durham friends!!!