White Coat Faux Pas

Sorry that I haven't written in awhile we have had a crazy last couple of weeks! Now for a couple of updates: 

• Jon got a new calling at church. He will be the 11 and 12 year old scout master. He's pretty excited about the calling and will do a great job.  
• We spoke last week in church, I spoke on Ruth and Jon spoke on Love at Home. We were pretty relieved when that was behind us only to find out that I needed to teach in YW this week. Although it turned out to be totally fine and thanks to the four year old primary class I taught in our last ward I think I'm finally getting more comfortable with teaching. It's always been a weakness of mine not so much speaking or talking in front of people because that doesn't bother me.It has more been an issue of being able to convey what I'm feeling while teaching and being able to take the lesson wherever it needs to go I felt like I've really grown which is such a relief! 
• We drove up to North Carolina and Virginia two weekends ago to visit Jon's grandparents. We spent Saturday and then went to church Sunday with them and it was good for Jon to get to see them. It's been raining like crazy down here and that weekend was no exception so unfortunately I didn't get a chance to take any pictures. 

Now on to the big news of the week, JON STARTED PHARMACY SCHOOL!!! This has been SO long in the making and has taken years to get here so he was so excited to finally get into it. 

Jon on his first day of Pharmacy School. 

On Wednesday they held a White Coat Ceremony for Jon's class of 2017. I got off work early at we headed into Charleston. The whole thing was really nice they started out by listening to the Dean and the president of the Pharmacy School and the speeches really weren't that bad. What was painful was the next hour of watching every single member of his class. 80 in all. Walk up on stage one by one as their names were called, sign the honor code, and then get their coat ceremonially put on by the president of the Pharmacy School, as well as get a picture taken with him. Only one person was on stage at a time....It was a total snooze fest. But it was worth getting to see Jon on stage I was probably more excited than he was. Here are the photos of Jon's moment to shine. 

 They will wear these coats as well as dress clothes one day a week while they do their labs for the next four years. So Jon had his coat since Monday, and he had tried it on and it just never looked right to me. Jon has really broad shoulders, and his coat cut in quite a bit and the sleeves and bottom just seemed really short to me. He insisted that it wast just how lab coats fit but as I was watching every. single. person. get their coats put on them I was noticing that their coats seemed to fit a lot better. While I was making this observation, Jon and another boy in line made the connection. Jon's buttons were on the opposite side of his coat... while turning around and comparing to a girls coat he realized right before he went on stage that he was in fact given a women's coat accidentally. Whoops! He still looked great but got his coat swapped out later on in the week for the appropriate gender. We had a good laugh about it afterwards. Here are some photos from the event:

I am so proud of him for getting to this point! He is going to do a great job and is looking forward to getting started. We are further convinced every day that we spend in SC that it is where we are supposed to be and are loving every minute!

Battery Outing/ New Calling

So last Sunday we decided that in the evening we were going to go downtown and go for a walk along the battery. On the way there we drove past a movie theater to which Jon nonchalantly mentioned was the movie theater that the notebook was filmed in front of. WHAT?! Apparently he had come across this information while researching everything Charleston and informed me that the entire movie was filmed here, including Allie's summer home which is in our city of Mount Pleasant. So naturally I needed to get a few photos!

The battery is on the edge of the water, there is the port on one side and the massive multi million dollar homes on the other. There are still life size cannons in the park next to the homes because they had battles there? I'm not totally sure on the history you would have to ask my husband for details. I just care about the photo opps. 

In other big news I got a calling at church! I am now the YW Secretary and I could not be more thrilled! The presidency seems so great and I am really looking forward to it! I am glad to have a calling so I can fill my time at night and won't watch as much TV. A couple ladies in the ward want to get a group together to do the rock n roll half in Savannah in November, and wanted to know if I'd like to join. I'm seriously considering it so I can get back in shape so we will see! Overall it was a fabulous week and I'll try to be blog more frequently instead of all at once. Bye now!

Run in with the Gulls

I cannot believe that August is already here! This month has completely flown by! We have had a pretty exciting week with a few firsts. Last weekend we decided to treat ourselves by going to a restaurant called Long point grill that we had heard a lot about and it was fantastic! Jon got some mac n cheese which had to have been 10,000 calories but it was DELICIOUS. I'll most likely get that if we go in the future. Afterwards we went to the USS Yorktown site. It has a lot of restored airplanes and ships and unfortunately we got there right as they were closing. Bummer. Luckily they had a few outdoor exhibits that we got to enjoy. Plus we did get to see the tiniest little helicopter carrying three or four people go up right by us. Apparently they give helicopter tours of Charleston and the surrounding areas and we would love to do one someday before we leave. Here are some photos of our little date night excursion:

So on Saturday we decided to go to the beach again. I have a feeling this will become a weekly occurrence for us. So I have suddenly developed an attitude that I am now a South Carolina Resident. I have the drivers license to prove it, and although I've only lived here for a total of four weeks I've convinced myself that I am now suddenly bugged by tourists. I recognize this unfair approach I have seeing as I'm very new myself and I'm working on my attitude. Keep this in mind however with the story I'm about to tell. SO background... There is a widely held belief in SC that too many people come here to live, to visit and vacation from Ohio. This is something I have heard in my ward, at work, people in the store, and the MULTIPLE bumper stickers I have seen which read GO BACK TO OHIO! Apparently there is also a website entitled Go back to Ohio where South Carolinians can find support. So I thought that this was humorous and couldn't understand where this apparent disdain was coming from which leads me into my Ohio beach story....

So Jon and I decided to invest in a couple of walmart low to the ground beach chairs since we were going to be frequenting the beach so I was feeling pretty good about our situation. The beach was particularly crowded Saturday because high tide was in so there wasn't nearly enough room to spread out as their has been in the past when we've gone. To alleviate this problem we walked about a quarter mile down from where the bulk of people were sitting so we could have a little space.  We ended up about six feet away from another party of people which gave us plenty of room so as to not crowd our neighbors. After setting up our camp and reading for awhile we decided to go in the ocean. Keep in mind however that there was an older lady hovering over our chairs. I wasn't bothered she  seemed harmless and was just standing there so I decided to just keep an eye on our things while we were in the water. 

We hadn't gotten in past our knees before I turned around and spotted this lady with a now group of 15 entourage completely encircling our chairs. I turned around and headed back to make sure that they weren't stealing my spanking brand new $10.00 beach chairs ready for a fight. We got back to our place and to my amazement they had managed to completely set up their spot in an astonishing short period of time. To my amazement they had set their towel up against the edge of our chairs. No joke if I were to sit down, my feet would be on their two larger than life, fit ten people sitting on them, and I did count towels. I was incredulous it was crowded but not that crowded. But being the stubborn person that I am I sat down anyway, I was not going to let these people bully us out of our spots against my husbands pleadings. So I sat there and continued to read. Although you know the feeling when you are just too close to someone you have never met and it just consumes you with uncomfortableness that you can't get over? Well that happened. So I stood up in a huff and moved our chairs back a couple of feet so I wasn't totally sitting on top of them and continued to read. This was not before that we learned that these people were in fact visiting from, you guessed it OHIO. After I calmed myself down and quit muttering under my breath a flock of seagulls raining down around us I looked up from my book to see not the children but the adults in the group FEEDING THE BIRDS. Soon the surrounding camps started protesting because clearly the Ohioans didn't realize that not everyone on the beach loves the potential of being pooped on or lunches being snatched by squawking fowls. They finally ceased and we were able to go back to enjoying our day at the beach. 

Looking back now I am able to laugh. But I do wonder, could there be truth to South Carolina's disdain for these newcomers from Ohio? Probably not, I still think it is ridiculous but for an hour or so last Saturday I was about ready to go buy myself a bumper sticker.