North Cherylina

The first week in June, my mom went with Jean on a church history trip to Kansas City, MO and we decided to take advantage of her being so close to North Carolina. Jean stayed in Kansas City for an extra week, and Liz came to hang out with me for a week - I was so excited!

Still being fairly new to the area (being here over a year still makes me new to the area, right?), I don't really know too many fun things to check out, but Conor was nice and made us a list of some things we could go do. But I also know my mom well enough to know that she loves just hanging out, playing games, and seeing the places I go to on a regular basis. I had some ideas of things to do, but most importantly, I just wanted to hang out!

We packed a lot of fun things into one week. The first few days were spent driving around the area, showing off my new digs. All my mom could talk about were the magnolia trees we have everywhere around here. We also introduced her to some of our favorite places to eat - Q Shack, Locopops, Ritas, Backyard BBQ Pit, Carrburritos. We even made it out to the first food truck round-up in Durham - some of Conor and I's favorites were there, plus some new ones.


This is the old Durham Bulls park, where they filmed Bull Durham.


This is the line my mom and I started in - needless to say, the food truck round-up was a success.


We ate at Only Burger, my favorite! About a month later, Conor was looking through a local magazine, and my mom and I had our picture in there! Local celebrities!


Here is where Conor ate - it took him almost 2 hours longer than us to get his food. I was mad. I don't want to talk about it...


Isn't this the best dog EVER?


It was really hot, that poor dog. I took about 20 more pictures, so you're welcome for showing only 2.

After checking out the Raleigh-Durham area, I decided my mom needed to see a North Carolina beach, so we headed out to Wilmington, NC to stay a couple of days. While there, we toured the Battleship North Carolina and the Burgwin-Wright house. The Battleship North Carolina was a self-guided tour, but at the Burgwin-Wright house, we paid to have a tour from the cutest old lady ever. I think she was probably hoping to not have to show anyone around that day, but she was nice enough to show us around.


I'm still mad that I didn't sneak a picture of our tour guide. But we're cute enough, so it doesn't really matter.


There are lots of entrances to the beach in Wilmington, we chose this one.




It was windy...


Blue is definitely Liz's color - posing in front of the Battleship North Carolina.


This is my favorite picture. Possibly of all time. Back story - we went to the Locks about 10 years ago for a little family trip and this random guy was there with his son. A sea plane flew over our head, and the man immediately dropped to one knee, put his arm around his son, and completely overreacted. "Jackson! LOOK! It's a sea plane! It's going to land! It's got pontoons!" Wow. I'm sorry you had to sit through that. It sounds way better in my head, because I have the guys accent to work with here. Sorry. Carry on.


The Battleship had rooms set up like they were when they were in use. Lighting was awful, so my pictures aren't great. The cramped quarters made me want to run through the exhibit, not walk. It's amazing how well they had everything planned out and arranged in there. There was definitely no women on the planning committee. If you want to learn actual information about this place, check out the website. It's been 3 months, I don't remember.


They had pictures and cartoons all over this wall, and I of course spotted this one from a mile away - "Oh balls!"

Overall, my favorite part of having my mom here was just playing games with her on the couch and watching TV. It's what we do best together, and I can't wait for her to visit again so we can get back to it! Thanks for coming mom!