Celebrating Bill

20 years ago today, I became a big sister.  Since then, I've had the great privilege of watching Helena grow up, seeing her change from my baby sister to the diva of the family to warrior woman on the field.  I got to see her blossom into this beautiful, graceful, compassionate woman who cares deeply for others and constantly encourages everyone around her.  She is a truly "accomplished" woman (yes, we both love Pride and Prejudice...) - she reads extensively (as a nursing student, there's no avoiding that...), speaks Spanish, super smart, a formidable opponent on the lacrosse field, sings beautifully, has this talent with music and piano skills that I'm totally jealous of, her doodles look like those really cool patterns you find on southern-belle type fashion accessories, and she's got the magic touch when it comes to baking.  No joke.  If you ever get the chance, ask her to bake you a chess pie.  It's incredible.

So today, I'm celebrating Helena - Bill, as we call her.  She is a joy in my life, and I'm really excited to see where she goes after college as she continues to grow and become an awesome nurse.

Bill -thanks for being my totally cool, goofy, little sister and being willing to pretend like you're still shorter than me in our family pictures even though you've got a good 3 inches on me....  Have a wonderful 20th birthday!!!!

Tenting on the ol' campground

After we got engaged, one of the first things I did was register for a KitchenAid Artisan mixer, since you know, those things are awesome.  Right after that, I registered for a two person sleeping bag.  Jeff and I both really enjoy doing outdoorsy stuff, like hiking and camping.  We were given some great gifts - a super light two-person backpacking tent, a two-person sleeping bag, a two-person Eno hammock....  I sense a theme.

So this past weekend, we packed up our awesome new gear and set out for the Eno River State Park to camp out for the night.  We parked and hiked a little over a mile in to our campsite, which had a tent pad and a fire ring and a bench, and it was set back away from the others.  We were near a creek and the river, and since Jeff has this nifty water filter bottle, we got all of our water from the river.

setting up the campsite

It was wonderful to enjoy the sunshine and the green trees and the quiet and calm of the forest, just the two of us.  However, it got pretty cold pretty fast, eventually reaching 37 degrees in the early hours of the morning.  Cold!  I was not quite as prepared with my clothing options as I should have been, but now I know...  The next morning, we made ourselves hot apple cider and scrambled eggs for breakfast in our little cooking stove, and then hung out in the hammock for a bit before we packed up and hiked back out along the river.  There were a ton of turtles hanging out!  The water was really clear too, so we could see the occasional fish swimming around as we walked past.  All in all, a really nice trip!

our awesome new tent

yay trees!

that's our two-person sleeping bag in there...

our Eno doublenest hammock

camp fires!

setting up the camping stove

turtle!