Going home with a special visitor.

If for no other reason this summer will have been excellent because I was able to take a trip home and I took Mark with me! :-) I've never brought someone home to NC with me so it was a rather new experience but a wonderful one! I was able to really introduce Mark to the family (and if I may say, I thought it went well) and we were able to have an excellent lil vacation and really relax. We were there for 9 days. Mom hurried up and rushed us down to Myrtle Beach (one of her favorite places in the world) for about 4 of those days. We were there with her and my dad. There were beautiful sunrises that me and Mark watched by the beach and sunsets that we watched from the balcony of the beach condo we stayed in. One night we even sat on the beach talking for hours and watched the full moon rise over the ocean. It was magical!










While we were there we got to do a variety of things. We went to the beach of course! The days were sunny and in the high 70's almost the entire time that we were there. I love the feeling of the sand between my toes and sitting in the awesome sun was fun. Unfortunately we didn't get in the water much because (being early spring) it was still pretty cold.










But do not fear! Even though the water in the ocean was cold there were a couple pools, several hot tubs, and 2 lazy rivers that we could play in! And boy did we. Not only that but indoors they had a couple ping pong tables, some pool tables, and other various games that Mark schooled me at just about every time. I was pleased at how I was able to hold my own at ping pong although I'm not entirely sure that Mark was even trying that hard. Haha.















In addition to having fun and sipping frozen drinks in the hot tub we were able to do some other fun activities! We had an excellent dinner at the Melting Pot (a fondue place), we went for beautiful walks on the beach as well as on this really cool pier. We went to tourist and shopping places where we walked around outside for hours seeing the sights, feeding the ducks and fish, and finding cute Myrtle Beach shirts to get as souvenirs. Mark played some golf with my dad and we all went to a couple shows. The Good Vibrations show had excellent live music from the 70's and 80's and Dixie Stampede was a dinner and horse show. SO FUN!










When we returned home I was able to show Mark around Greenville, NC and the places that I grew up. He was able to see our home where we've lived for the past 12 years, my old schools, and just other local places. We also went and did something that I used to do when I was a kid but haven't done in years: we picked strawberries! We ended up picking nearly 30lbs of strawberries (at the request of my mother). We paid like $1/pound (an excellent value) and made over half of those strawberries into 41 jars of freezer jam. I think my parents will be eating that jam until the day they die unless they give away a ton of it. LoL










Mark was also able meet almost all of my immediate family! On Sunday we went up to Raleigh, NC and went to see my cousin's baby get blessed. All of the family from the Walker side was there and it was really great to be able to see everyone! Mark met everyone and everyone liked him (especially my grandpa Walker). We saw the Temple in Raleigh and my mom tried to plan some "ideas" in Mark's head (nothing that I haven't already planted). After church and the baby blessing we walked around the Temple and took some pictures! Then we went to Brittany's house and had dinner with my parents, Brittany, her fiance Jacob, and me and Mark of course. It was excellent! The Harper side of the family wasn't there that day but we made a trip up and visited with my grandparents on that Monday.











It really was a great trip. I loved every minute of it! I was a little nervous because I hear that sometimes people fight more when they travel together and are together day and night but Mark is so sweet to me that that was not a problem at all! It was just wonderful. Me and Mark are back in Utah now and it is raining outside. I find myself wishing that we were still in NC hanging out with my family. But we've got to get on with "real life." LoL I sure am glad I have this wonderful man with me to get through it with.