NContinued

A month has passed. A month has passed?!? It is crazy that a month has passed, and in that time, two more states.

The rest of North Carolina was spent exploring the downtown area, visiting the Children’s museum, eating at some cool little places, and taking a road trip to Durham for a day. Durham was special as I visited with a girlfriend of mine who I have now known 25 years. She was the little sister of one of my best friends and we played Barbies in Barbieland (their basement), roller skated in Barbie skates (our basement), sold painted rocks on sidewalks and attended one another’s birthday parties, graduation parties and are now hosting baby showers with each other. Because Kristy and I were the furthest apart in ages in our group of two sisters, we have mostly known each other through our sisters, but I was so excited to go see her and see how her life has developed since we danced to Greece Lightning in our (front) yard. In leotards. Her life is developing very nicely.

Kristy is a sporty, fashionable Einstein who graduated Valedictorian from our High School’s IB program. She sailed through undergrad in 3 years to get to her dream, going to Vet school. She is a young vet who loves working with horses and has done so in the fields of Kentucky and Dubai. She also spends a couple of weeks in Nicaragua the past couple of years volunteering on their horses. She has a lovely horse named Paddington who she subjected to being a mock patient of our boys for a day as we did a mini vet field trip. Kristy let the boys listen to Paddington’s tummy, heart and check his teeth. They watched him get a shot and then groomed him until all traces of dust were wiped from his very shiny coat. She then let them ride him where Austin told me, “I’m shaking because I am so excited and a little nervous, but mostly just excited!” She let our boys fall in love with horses all over again and she showed me the special bond people talk about when they have Horse Love. She made me want a pony, but only if she would move in and take care of the creature as I am still mostly skittish around those wonderful animals.

Kristy then had us meet up with her handsome Einstein husband whose life ambition is to find answers for neuro cancers and has the full ride scholarships to Duke and Stanford to back him up on those dreams. He dyed Easter Eggs with the kiddos. We then all packed it up and strolled through the Duke Gardens and had ice cream.

North Carolina, it was fun. We were sad to leave as Charlotte was a fun place that we wished we could see more of, but alas, it was time to head back down to Charleston, which turned out to be a fine decision!