The Graduate

We flew back to SC for 10 awesome days for my graduation, and also to see my family. We flew in on Thursday night and my grandma picked us up. She treated us to the best BBQ at Home Team BBQ (Kurt was SO happy--he loves that place) and then we drove around downtown for a bit. My parents and Collin were in Aiken for a soccer game, and they arrived around midnight. Collin was really bummed because a) it was his last game of high school ever and b) they lost. So we made him cinnamon rolls.

The next day we had lunch with my mom and dad, then drove up to Greenville to stay with Chris and Lindsay. It was so much fun hanging out with them! They recently got a new Great Dane puppy named Gracie who is so adorable. Also, since she's young, she's in her totally awkward phase. I love that phase! She kept running into stuff and bumping her head and it was really quite adorable. (Swift, I think, will never grow out of this phase. He's always running into stuff.) They took us to downtown Greenville which is completely different from when I lived there for Governor's School, 11 years ago. It was so fun.

The next day was graduation! My parents and Collin drove up for it, and Kurt's graduation present to me was a full-on Southern outfit: seersucker shorts, white cotton shirt with rolled sleeves, boat shoes, and a BOWTIE. Yes, he bought and learned how to tie a bow tie (thanks Youtube). It was awesome. And now he's in love with his seersucker shorts and boat shoes. Hah!

Graduation was REALLY long, filled with speeches and awards. Luckily I drank a ton of water before and used the restroom, otherwise I would've been fighting more than sleepiness to get through it. But it was awesome. I'm so glad I walked. It was a good official end to my Master's program. After graduation, we were all starving, so we went to the Beacon Drive-In, which is a local burger dive. The food was fast, good, and greasy. Lindsay's family went to California Dreaming, and we would've gone with them except for the fact that we were all so hungry, and also Kurt and I had to close on the refinance for our mortgage. So we had a deadline, and California Dreaming is not the place to go when you're in a hurry.

So yeah, Kurt and I refinanced our house (yay!), then headed back to Lindsay's. All four of us were POOPED. The boys took naps and Lindsay and I talked (I didn't want to miss any time with her!). Then we went back downtown that night to see more of the city.

On Sunday, Kurt and I said goodbye to the Jackman's and headed up to Chimney Rock in North Carolina. Much of The Last of the Mohicans was filmed in this park, but sadly, all those areas are closed due to renovations. Kurt and I hiked chimney rock (i.e., climbed LOTS of stairs), and beyond. The weather was cool and drizzly, which was actually perfect to make the hike easier for preggers here, and also to keep other tourists at bat. We enjoyed a yummy lunch in town, then headed back to Charleston. On the way home, we swung by the Greenville Art Festival to grab a print for Kurt's mom's mother's day present. On Friday night, we'd bought the first piece of art for our nursery--a bike print, of course.

And that's part one. What did we do the rest of the week? Stay tuned to find out!