The City of Angels - The Mini Series (Part 1)

July 13th - July 23rd

Many months ago, Joe & Lisa approached Jed & I about helping bring a group of people from New Life & [nlcf] out to Los Angeles to give them a small taste of what life was like to live and live missionally. Those years we spent in Los Angeles have had a huge impact of both Jed & I and we were super excited to show people and a vision & mission of what God is doing in a city that we fell in love with.

During the months leading up to the trip, we had over 40 people interested, worked with 5 churches, 3 other organizations and hosted 1 unsuccessful fund raiser to make this dream come true. By July 13th, 19 people boarded a plane to LA for an unforgettable week. It felt like the perfect team, 4 couples, 6 kids, 1 recent college graduates, 1 college student, 1 recent high school graduate, 1 PhD student & 1 university staff member.

We all headed out to LA on a direct flight for Dulles to LAX on a Saturday late afternoon. It seemed like a great idea as we arrived in LA right around 7:30pm. Just in time for dinner and what better place to take a bunch of newbies to the area then IN N OUT!

Much to Jed & my surprise, we showed up and Eric, Audrey, Tim & Wendy were there to welcome us & our team to the city.Eric & Audrey had even made us a "Welcome to LA" poster! It meant so much to me to see there faces as soon as we got there.

Hayli, Dave, Scott, Katie & Aaron

Jed, Alice, Wendy, Tim & Aaron

MengYun, Terri, Audrey & I

Aaron, Alice, Audrey, Me, Eric, Jed, Wendy, Tim, MengYun, Terri

After a fantastic dinner, the team headed to Hope International, where we would be staying for the week. Hope has a building behind there sanctuary that has a preschool on the bottom and living space on the second floor. Pastor Ed was nice enough to allow our group to use the two common area rooms for us to stay and even provided mats, sleeping bags, pillows and even 2 cots and 2 mattresses.

Most people were ready to call it a night when we finally got situated in our new home while a small group of us decided to hang out in the hall way playing cards. During out time hangout in the hall way, we had the chance to meet some of the guys that lived upstairs and a few we would have the chance to work with this upcoming week.

This is going to be a great week!

A Hokie Wedding

July 6th

This weekend we kept it local. We had the honor of attending Brent & Stacey's wedding this weekend in Blacksburg. Brent & Stacey both worked in the Athletic Department with Jed so it was great to have a huge reunion of many friends that have moved on to other universities around the country.

As we got into the church for the wedding, I realized that the battery on the camera was completely dead so we joined everyone else with taking pictures with our phone. (Good thing I ungraded to a smart phone recently...)

The wedding was absolutely beautiful and Stacey looked incredible!

After the ceremony, we headed to The Inn at Virginia Tech for a really fun reception. Jed got the dance party started after dinner when and adorable 6 year old came and asked him to dance. He didn't have the heart to tell her no so off he went.

Once the dance floor was opened with these two's dance party, everyone else joined in and we had a great time celebrating Brent & Stacey.

Jed, Lauren & Alicia

Jed, Damian, Me & Anna

Alicia, Angel, Me & Jed

Jed, BJ & Me

Jed, Damian, & Me

Even the Hokie Bird got in on the action!

Jeremy, Angel, Alicia & Brent with the Hokie Bird

We had such a fantastic time, we hated for it to end. Congratulations to Brent & Stacey! Good Luck in Greensboro and don't for get to come back and visit!

A Classy Long Weekend (Part 3)

June 26th - June 29th

Saturday was our last full day and we planned to make the most of it. We had gone through all the brochures that were left for us at the house and found a place off the beaten trail that sounded fun, the Audubon Center at Beidler Forest. What intrigued us about this place was being able to go kayaking/canoeing through the forest so we hopped in the car and headed out. This place was in the middle of no where. There were a few times that we started to wonder if we were going on a wild goose chase. We did finally find it and we immediately started to question our decision to go but we figured that we had driven this far, so we should at least go check it out even if we were the only people there.

As we walked in, we immediately asked about canoeing. They looked at us like we had lost our minds. Clearly the brochure was wrong or we had all read it incorrectly. The Audubon was a 1.75 mile self guided tour through the heart of the swamp. We had come this far so we decided to check it out. Then we realized that we were in a swamp and there are TONS of bugs so before we hopped back in the car to head out the lady was nice enough to let us use there bug stray. We asked her if the bugs were bad and her response, "They will bit your face off.", great, this should be interesting. So after applying plenty of bug spray we headed off down the boardwalk.

It was definitely a neat walk and something I am not sure I have ever really seen before. It was considerably cooler with all the tree cover but there were a TON of bugs. Everyone continually got eaten as we spent a while enjoying all the signs and sounds in the swamp.

When we got back from our tour, we noticed "pet" snakes. When they saw us looking at them, they quickly came over to take them out for us for Jed & Audrey to hold them.

We were starving by the end of our time at the Audubon and since it was in the middle of no where we had to drive all the way back to Charleston to get food but it was definitely worth it when we found Bon Bahn Mi. It was a great Vietnamese Sandwich shop and it was really good.

After a late lunch, Audrey, Jed & I hit the hot streets again to explore some more of Charleston. Jed had heard that there was a gum post some where in the city. After verifying were some friends, we found them, kind of...

Apparently Charleston doesn't embrace this the same way Seattle & San Luis Obispo. I think Jed was pretty disappointed but he didn't let that stop us for continuing to find fun stuff in the city.

And we couldn't help but stop at Sugar Bake Shop again while out and about. That place was pretty addicting!

That evening we headed out to find dinner and found a pretty cool Italian place called Pane e Vino. We had a great time just hanging out and enjoying our last night together. After dinner we were not ready to head home so we wondered around downtown and remembered a bar that had been recommended to us. We spent the rest of the night at the Gin Joint relaxing, people watching, and getting wet in the rain.

Our last morning in Charleston we walked back downtown to a place called Toast. It was quite a popular place with a really long line for a table but we were committed and waiting in the early morning heat for a table. The food and atmosphere was good and I think we were all glad we waited.

As we were slowly making our way back to the house to get packed up and take Eric & Audrey back to the airport we ended up getting stuck in two huge down pours. It was so funny as we tried to find shelter under different awnings during the first big rain, at a gas station for the next down pour before we just decided we were already wet and had no other option but to just walk in the rain the rest of the way.

We made it back to the house, got cleaned up, took a family picture before heading out to the car where we ended up getting stuck in another down pour before getting to the car. It was all a pretty funny way to end a fantastic weekend with great friends. Can't wait for our next adventure!

Picture Courtesy of Eric Blumber

A Classy Long Weekend (Part 2)

June 26th - June 29th

Friday morning we took our time getting up and out. Audrey, Jed & I headed out to The Bagel Shop to grab some breakfast for the rest of the weekend. On our way back we stopped at a bake shop that was just around the corner for our house. This place had amazing cupcakes & cookies that we decided to get to pack in our lunches and for dessert that night. The place was called Sugar and it was GREAT!

Once we finished breakfast and packed our lunches, we headed out to check out Boone Hall Plantation. I would HIGHLY recommend this plantation. It was great. There was so much to check out. We started at the butterfly pavilion.

 After the butterfly pavilion we headed over to the highlight of Boone Hall Plantation, the Gullah Theater. By far the best thing on the plantation. It was a great way to tell the story of what life was like working on the plantation.

Our next stop was the tour of the main home on the plantation. They allowed us to walk through the bottom floor and spent time telling us about life in the main house. This home is still in use today. The current owners come and vacation and work there a few times a year and live on the second floor of the main house. It was neat to see that it was still in use.

Our next stop was the Plantation Coach Tour, we hoped on a little opened air bus and they drove us around the plantation showing us crops, old movie sets and telling us many stories about Charleston, the plantation and even the Civil War. It was a surprise to see how they are continuing to use so much of the property for so many different things.

Once the tour ended we quickly made our way to the dock area. Now a days this area that is right on the water is used for parties, celebrations and weddings. It is quite a destination area, this is the very place that Blake Lively & Ryan Reynolds got married not too long ago.

Before we left the plantation, we spent some time walking around the flower gardens and trying to capture the beauty of the Live Oaks that lined the drive way.

We really enjoyed Boone Hall Plantation even if we wanted to melt from the heat.

As we left Boone Hall, we made a quick stop at the local Farmers Market that the plantation sells a lot of there produce for some refreshing ice cream before heading down to the water front.

It had been raining on and off the entire time we have been is Charleston so we didn't come down to the beach with the intention of swimming but we were hot and too close to the beach to not stop and check it out.

We made it back to our place, got cleaned up and headed off to dinner & ended our evening at D'Allesandro's Pizza. It was a fun hole in the wall pizza place. We definitely felt like locals eating here.