Here's the update.

Okay, okay...this one's for Lizzy...

April 3rd, 2009 - I became an aunt! Valentine Josiah was born at 6:24pm, 7 lbs 3 oz, 20 in. :) Aimee had to have an emergency c-section and was pretty upset when they told her. I think the reaction was a mixture of not being in control of the situation and having not slept in 48 hours really. But nevertheless, everything went really well. :) And he's AMAZING. I got to go see him last Tuesday before I headed out on my road trip with Amber. And he fell asleep in my arms! He was all fussy and stuff when I first got there, but then they let me just sit with him and he passed out. He loves me!! :D

April 7-12, 2009 - CHARLESTON! :)
Tuesday the 7th, I headed home, saw Josiah a bit :), and then Amber picked me up at 3:00pm. We drove to Nashville (which really isn't on the way) and stayed with Amber's grandma. She's the cutest thing in the entire world! She made us a spaghetti dinner and even bought some tiramisu from Publix. :) Then we just hung out and watched tv and the news. Then I showered and we went to bed, ready for the long drive the next day.
Wednesday the 8th, we got up early and left for Charleston! Amber made a great playlist with 515 songs for the entire trip! (Sunday we were only at song number 250 or so...but it was a great mix.) We had a good time catching up on stories and gossip and all that. It was fun. :) Then we arrived at Jenny's house and she made dinner for us. We ate, hung out, watched a movie, and then got to bed not too late.
Thursday the 9th, we got up, got ready and headed to Magnolia Plantation. It's seriously about 5 miles from Jenny's apartment...just down the road! It was beautiful! There were random peacocks just walking around the grounds too....it was crazy and slightly scary... But so fun! We went on a "slavery to freedom" tour too...it wasn't much, a 15 minute talk by a man that used to be a professor, and then a walk through 4 old cabins, but the talk was pretty good. Then we went on a house tour too. It was really awesome. I didn't see any, but there were probably secret passageways in there! Hehe! Then that evening...we went to a Charleston Riverdogs baseball game! We went out to dinner first at a restaurant on the river...soooo pretty! Then we headed to the game. It was opening night and so much fun. :) I haven't been to a baseball game since I was probably 8 or so, so it was extra fun! It got kinda cold once the sun set, but it was okay. The Riverdogs lost because they can't catch worth beans, but the experience was great anyways.
Friday the 10th, we slept in and hung out a bit in the house...then around 11:30ish, we made some sandwiches and headed to Sullivan Island beach! It was COLD at that beach! The sand was pretty wet, and Amber and I only had towels, not chairs like Jenny and her roommate Shannon. We tanned for a while and then did some cartwheels and drew things in the sand. It was fun. Yay! When we got home, we all showered and got ready to go out to downtown Charleston for a bit of shopping and dinner. (And I had thought I didn't get any sun. It really didn't look like it then even, but later that night, when I was getting ready for bed, my chest had gotten SO BURNT! Ow ow ow!) Downtown was SO CUTE! It's like Holland, but bigger...but not too big! There's lots of shops and great restaurants. And the College of Charleston is downtown too! SO AWESOME! I'd love to go to a school in that city!! It's seriously gorgeous. Plus it's on the water, which I always love! Yay! So we went to J. Crew for Shannon...I just stood stunned at the prices! (One of those hair claw things...you know, the small ones that people will hold half of their hair back with...$15.00!!! Ridiculous!) Then we headed to dinner on King Street, which is kind of the main street of downtown. :) Yum! Then even though we were stuffed, we went to a GREAT frozen yogurt place called Fresh Berry. It was SO CUTE!! And so yummy. :) Then after that, we walked back to the car, headed to Walmart for a redbox movie (Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist), and went home to watch. (That's when I noticed my burn.)
Saturday the 11th, we decided to go to the beach again! We went to a different beach though, Folly Beach, and it was MUCH warmer! It was so nice. :) And I got burned on my back that day. Oops. It's not as bad as my chest though. We packed sandwiches again, and we left a bit earlier so we'd have time to get back and do other things in the evening. The only bad thing about the beach was that even though it was warm and the sand was dry, it was really windy so Amber and I got covered in sand. But it was still sooo nice under the sun. And I took a walk along the beach and found a great shell...it's one of those that you can hear the ocean in, ya know? I left it with Jenny though. I knew I'd get rid of it if I brought it back home. Oh, and I also saw lost of dead, washed up jellyfish. Ew. I was nervous I'd step on one. Then I saw a sad, little crab that was upside-down struggling in the waves, so I got sad and decided to turn around and go back...I didn't have anything to help him flip over with. :( (Amber and I saved a crab the day before at Sullivan's...he was upside-down too.) Hmm, then after the beach, we headed home, showered, and headed back out to downtown. We walked through the Market...which was pretty cool. Lots of local artists and jewelers and stuff like that were there. I got some cracker things for my dad and some grits for my mom. :) Then we just wondered around the city, taking great photos (really, my friends took the pictures since my camera is a piece of crap that is staying together with a piece of packing tape), and seeing the sights. We walked down to Waterfront Park...which, you guessed it, is on the water...and I saw a dolphin! He was right by the pier just swimming around. :) Yay! Then we walked back into town and ate on the rooftop of a crab house restaurant thing. Of course I didn't get crab, in fact, the crab must have been incredible because they most definitely didn't specialize in chicken parmesan. It was the worst meal I had in Charleston, but that's okay. After dinner we went to a candy store and Jenny got some pralines. I stopped by Ben and Jerry's and got some ice cream (and I made Amber try their lemonade sorbet because it's AMAZING). Then we headed back to the car and went home. Actually, we stopped by a grocery store for Jenny since she needed to get some asparagus for an Easter lunch she was going to the next day. Then we went home. Amber and I packed and got ready for bed. After hanging out a while, we went to bed.
Sunday the 12th, we all got up at 7:00 and Amber and I were on the road by 8:00am. The weather was great all day for the drive and the scenery was GORGEOUS! We drove back up through Knoxville and it was an even better view than driving down to Nashville and over. :) Amber and I had lots of laughs and sang pretty much the entire time at the top of our lungs! It was great. And Amber, the rockstar she is, drove the entire way! I offered to drive whenever she needed, but she kept saying she was fine! She drove about 11 hours just on Sunday!! Crazy. When I got home, I hung out with my parents for about 30 minutes. I gave them their presents and then took some Easter leftovers/random food in the kitchen (rosemary potatoes that my mom made for dinner, half a box of pasta, and a tomato) and headed back to Muncie. I spent the night unpacking and doing laundry. Lovely!

Hope you enjoyed reading my whole life, Lizzy B. :)