Bringing in the New Year!

The last part of our trip was going to Raleigh to visit friends for New Years. We met up with my sister and her boyfriend at Cracker Barrel for lunch. I LOVE Cracker Barrel & I had been craving it for a while so I was super excited. We have them up here in MD but the closest one is about 40 miles away. Not really worth it, especially when there are tons of local restaurants we still haven't tried. My sister was on her way back from picking her boyfriend up from the airport. He went home to Louisiana for Christmas. This was our first time meeting him. Josh and I both like him :-)

We stayed with our friend Chris while we were in Raleigh. Josh went to play frisbee golf with some of our friends while I went after Christmas shopping! I always go after Christmas to buy things like wrapping paper, cards etc. when they're on sale. I got some really good deals but I didn't find a few of the things I was looking for. I found Black Ops on sale & picked it up for Josh. I knew he would end up getting it anyway & I like to get him things "just because" every once in a while...although they're usually a little cheaper; he's worth it though :-) We were invited to go see Tron & to go out to watch the UNC game but we decided to stay in to watch the game since our "going out" budget was blown in FL. We saved a good bit of money & we got to spend time with another one of our friends Spenser. Josh met him during a co-op at IBM. He moved to Raleigh from PA after he graduated. Shortly after he moved closer to us, we moved to MD. Anyway, we missed him the last time we were down & he had other plans for New Years so we wanted to spend time with him while we had a chance. It was a pretty low key night but that's kind of what we were in the mood for. It was an absolutely horrible game but we still had a good time.

The next night was New Years Eve!!! I can't believe how fast 2010 went by! Chris threw a party, a bunch of friends came over & our friend Kallie came up from SC. We haven't partied that hard in a long while & I needed it. I thought I missed being a college kid...& I know I still will sometimes (AKA Football Season)...but I'm definitely over staying up until 4 am just to feel like crap the next day. I'm too old for that now. haha. We had a great time but it ended too soon. We'll get to see Anna & John at the end of February but I have no idea when we'll see everyone else again. We took a lot of trips back home these past 7 months & we've been spending way too much money traveling back & forth.

Some lovely ladies :-) Miss you already!

I realized a lot of things while I was in town. I don't miss Raleigh as much as I thought I did. Sure, I miss my friends...but Raleigh really isn't any better than where I am now...except they have Cookout. When football season rolls around again I'm sure I'll miss it a lot, because that's something I can never bring up here. When we first moved, kept wishing I could bring everything from Raleigh up here because there was so much I didn't do while I was there. I realized I experienced Raleigh for 5 years, if I didn't do everything I wanted in that time, I probably never would. Also, if I dwell on Raleigh, I'll never get to appreciate where we are now. We live in a great area with so much to do...I really couldn't ask for more! I also know that if we were still in Raleigh, things wouldn't be like they were when we lived there. We would still have "real" jobs, although mine wouldn't be in my field & we would still have responsibilities like we do here.So...basically I realized that my husband makes perfect sense. He's not very big on looking back at the past...he's all about moving forward. I think this is something I really needed. I've always been one to look back & miss things...just wishing I could go back and re-do this or that. In reality, that's not possible. Why spend time wishing you could do something you can't when you can spend it reaching your goals?

Enough of the deep stuff...we left to come home on New Years day. It was sad to leave our friends but we were both more than ready to just be home. To sleep in our own bed & get our clothes out of the closet instead of a suitcase. We got home around 6:30 & did pretty much nothing for the rest of the night. We had dinner on the couch in our tiny little apartment & watched TV. It was great :-)