Coming Home Again

N and I are back in the Sunshine State! The company I work for is hosting their annual meeting this week in Orlando. It's been a great experience thus far. Spending time with colleagues from all over the country reinvigorates me and my passion for what I do.

I've loved being able to spend some quality time with the people I love. We were able to go see "Hunger Games" with our loved ones and had a great time. I'm looking forward to seeing more friends and enjoying some Florida Summer sun! Updates to follow!

New neighbors

While driving home today I passed the little pond next to our house and guess what I saw! Swans!! N and I walked over and took a peak. They're so cute. Sadly N did not agree that we should try and persuade them into coming into the house.

Process or Unprocessed, what's a girl to do

So, I often have ideas of how I would like to live my life but sometimes fall short on execution. Most of these unrealized ideas are usually related to food choices. Some weeks I want to be a vegetarian, some I want to eat all seafood, some no carbs, and the list goes on. You know how that goes. Anyway this week while perusing Pinterest. Yes, I am an addict. Thank you very much Mrs. B for introducing the Pinterest world to me! Okay, back to food. Anyway, while exploring Pinterest today I ran across a post someone had done about a blog called 100 Days of Real Food. On this site, this family did an experiment, they tried to go 100 days without eating processed foods. Now this is something N and I have talked about but have not followed through on. In the same post that I found the blog on there was a comment regarding a website called The Fresh 20. This website for a cost of $5 a month will give you detailed shopping lists, meals plans and recipes every week consisting of only fresh ingredients, no preservatives. I think using a combination of these two tools, I may actually be able to keep up on my experiment this time. I signed up tonight, my first list and recipes will arrive on Friday. Let's see how this goes!

On a side note... N and I made a delicious dinner tonight of tilapia, sweet potato casserole and fresh broccoli. Nom, nom, nom.

Wilmington Food Review

Flaming Amy's Burrito Barn

Neat and trendy place on Oleander. Amazing burritos with more options than I ever thought possible, delicious queso! Highly recommended by co-workers. N and I thought we should try it. We will definitely be back!

Shrimp burrito!

Yummy queso with corn chips

Salsa bar

Saturday Morning Nomz

I love making breakfast on Saturday mornings. 

For now breakfast with my love!

Pancakes, bacon and fresh fruit with orange juice

It's my birthday!!

Thanks to my lovely boyfriend N, I had an amazing birthday. Without him my first birthday away from my family would have been truly horrible. I love him so much! My birthday brought around my surprises, below are a sampling of the many things that people did to make my day special. Thank you, I love you all!!

My birthday table

My beautiful flowers from N

Tulips are my favorite flower

My Edible Arrangement was delivered to my work.

My edible arrangement from my Mommy and Daddy.
Both tasty and beautiful

Nom, nom, nom

My cute cake from N

Birthday cards!

My flowers in full bloom several days later

My beautiful dream desk from Mrs. B

Coolest measuring cups ever from M!

Nomz

This weekend N and I had the pleasure of going out to eat with a co-worker of mine and her husband. We went to this amazing tapas restaurant called Circa 1922. One of the milestone moments I had was trying shrimp and grits. It's on every menu here.

I have to admit... I liked them!

Birthday Weekend

It's my birthday weekend! This was the first weekend that N and I actually got to spend sometime relaxing and exploring Wilmington. We had dinner yesterday with some friends and today enjoyed a quiet picnic on the beach. Little did we know it would be so cold on the beach. I started off just wearing a light sweater and had to run to my car to grab a jacket. We had planned on flying a kite but that will have to wait until later. For now there's a warm couch at home. 

Wrightsville Beach

Egg salad sandwich & caprese salad

Surfers waiting to catch a wave

Seashell that looks like a puddle

The Arrival

We finally made it to Wilmington! 

The past several weeks have felt unreal. It didn't feel like we were moving until we reached the house and spent our first night here. 

The loading process was made very easy by the great moving companies we had. BTW, in a freaky coincidence, both companies had two workers assigned to us name John. How weird is that. We had John and John in Orlando and John and John here. Super weird!!

It took us about 10 1/2 hours to get here, including a couple food and gas breaks. It was a very enjoyable trip. I had a great time talking with Nick the whole way up and calling my Dad in the moving van in front of us periodically. 

Below are pictures of our first weekend here and the journey up.

It rained throughout the drive to North Carolina

Sometimes making it really hard to see

We were finally almost there when we saw the sombrero

Pedro's South of the Border!

We finally made it and it was time to put everything in its place and assemble furniture. Below are the men hard at work.

 

Really cute shop with a GIANT chair!

We are definitely in Seahawk Country