My "Weekend"

I made it through Easter! The week before Easter is supposedly the hardest week to work at Kiawah because no summer interns are working yet, but the resort is at full capacity because all the elementary through high school students are on spring break. By Monday morning we had run out of bikes (all 2,000 were rented out or waiting to be fixed) and every kayaking trip for the week had been booked. The week was exhausting, but I made it though and cannot wait to see my next pay check. Even though I don't have weekends off, I went to Reyna's place Saturday night to see my favorite people.

If we took normal pictures I would post them, but we don't so this is all I have.  (Tony Reyna, Ryan Mock, and Marcus Gaillard)

Fireworks!

Today, Tuesday, is my day off! I got a nice 7 mile run and a 15 mile bike ride in this morning and now I am on to my "To Do List." My list has a million things form laundry to food shopping to catching up with friends. I thought I would post this list; that should be my list for every day:

To do list:

1. Make someone smile
2. Smile at a stranger
3. Learn
4. Notice kindness
5. Eat ice cream
6. Make someone laugh
7. Show someone that you love them
8. Find a flower
9. Say thank you
10. Hope
11. Count your blessings
12. Love
13. Love some more

Happy Easter

I would post a picture of the amazing Easter treats my mom sent me, but I put them in the freezer before Easter to make it less tempting and to reduce the inevitable stomach ache that comes when Lent is over. I thought I was going to avoid the Easter stomach ache this year and then I got to work. My boss made us all Easter baskets so I had lots of chocolate throughout the day and then I had an ice cream sunday for dinner! After the Easter egg hunt everything slowed down and I enjoyed a nice relaxing day for the first time in a while.

Hopefully I get past this stomach ache soon so I can  conquer the Spianata tomorrow

Work/ Play

Most normal people stay as far as way from work as possible on their day off, but not me. I had off Thursday and chose to drive over to Kiawah to play (not work).

The Oyster Pit at Mingo Point

Kayaks at Mingo Point

Enano creeping on the baby gators

About 1 year old gators

Bike ride on the beach

The Sanctuary Hotel

Oak trees and Spanish moss

Cactus give me some water!

I need to take some more photos to go with this but for now here is a little about my living situation...I live on Johns Island which is only about half an hour form Kiawah where I work. The apartment complex i live in is adorable and new. There are 15 buildings with 4 apartments in each and I share my 2 bedroom 2 bathroom unit with 2 other girls (a third is coming soon). We have laundry, a gym, a pool, and a playground. The complex couldn't be nicer. It is straight Charleston. The single family homes on the street behind me are all different colors and have white porches.  

My Charleston style (everyone's favorite hole in the wall) house from the fall

My apartment building now

The surrounding neighborhoods on the other hand are the stereotypical poor southern neighborhoods. They are falling apart double wides or shacks built on cinderblocks. All the lawns are over grown and most have dogs, pickup trucks, and random car parts. One of houses I run past has lawnmower parts hanging from the tree (the old man sits out side working on them some days) and the house with all the dogs and a goat tied up to their flag pole the other day.


I am confused/intrigued by their life style and they probably feel the same way about me as I run by. The other day a little boy came chasing after me on his bmx bike. "Ma'am, excuse me ma'am. May I ask you a question." As he is riding and I am running he asks, "What did the dog say to the cactus?" I asked him what and he responded, "Cactus, give me some water." I'm not sure if it was suppose to be a joke or if he had learned that day in school that a cactus can hold water, but either way it put a smile on my face as I continued my run.


I tried to look it up online but this is the closest I could get:
What did the porcupine say to the cactus?
Is that you, Mama?


Today when I was running I woman stopped to ask me if I was on track. When I responded "no" she was throughly confused and asked me, "So you mean you run for fun." Yup I do. Part fun, part stress relief, part addiction, and part a whole bunch of other things that I don't think I could explain. "Each afternoon I would run my demons hard until I left them heaving by the roadside. Finding refuge in running" So I left it as a yes. As she drove past me later her daughter hollered, while half out the sun roof, "why you run for fun?"


Just another day in the life on the Island...the culture out here definitely hits the extremes. 

The dollar store 1/4 mile from my place. The Red, white, and blue signs say that they sell beer...What the heck?

Back to the real world...kinda

For now I'm back to the real world....well almost. Yes I am working, but I am working at the most amazing resort around, Kiawah Island Golf Resort....I will post about my work soon!

Like a kid in a candy shop

And then came Tuesday. Another awesome day before I had to start work. Tuesday was my day with Enano, everyones favorite Panda! We hit up most of my favorite Charleston spots: white point gardens, the battery, river front park, 298 meeting street, the top of Charleston, 300 meeting street, King street, the customs house, and the garden walk. 

The roof

The view from almost the top of Charleston

After dinner with Hardy and Karczewski we hit up the sweet shop and watched some taffy being made. Mixing, rolling, cutting, wrapping, and then transporting it across the store!

Karczewski couldn't contain his excitment

Base to beach

Sunday afternoon I headed back to Jake and Jen’s house to go trap shooting....another amazing adventure with some of the coolest guys in Charleston.

The men and their new shotguns

Reyna

They let me try too

Later that night Jeremiah Karczewski met me at Reyna’s place. Joder! 

Karczewsi's tough

Me encanta Charleston! Karczewski and I sat around talking about all the insanity in our lives since we left Charleston before Christmas. Not only did I get to hear about the elephant that lives above him that night, but we hung out  again the next day at Isle of Palms. Even though he gave me perfect directions (multiple times) I still couldn’t make it up to the ghetto apartment that Karczewski calls home for the time being. After a stressful start with many wrong turns he picked me up in Mount Pleasant in his convertible and we made our way to the beach at Isle of Palms....yes I did get to see the 8-pack :) 

Here comes the 8-pack...

Just a day in the life

I'm going back to Charleston, back where I belong. I want peace. I want to see if somewhere there isn't something left in life of charm and grace. Do you know what I'm talking about? -Rhett Butler,  Gone with the Wind

Not only is Charleston full of charm and grace, but it is full of some of my favorite people. Saturday night Jen and Jake helped me surprise this this guy at dinner:

Reyna

and then after we went back to Tony’s apartment to hangout until this guy got off work: 

Enano

I couldn’t have asked for a better first night back in Charleston. I expected to hug Reyna and Enano hello ( and maybe even pee my pants in excitement) and then everything would go back to normal...well normal for us at least. But our first few days together was even better than that. First, I got amazingly long hugs (long enough to confuse and make other people around us feel awkward) and then instead of everything going back to normal it was surreal. I kept wanting to poke or hug or just reach out to see if they were real. I sat in the restaurant and then on Reyna’s couch like I was a kid on Christmas morning waiting for the clock to strike 8 so I could go downstairs. The excitement was overwhelming..that’s how good it is to be back!!!!