1st Anniversary. Lake Lure & Chimney Rock

Monday, June 16th, was our one year wedding anniversary. Because our anniversary feel on a Monday (due to leap year) that I needed to spend at school studying for the bar, we took our "anniversary trip" on the weekend of the 14th and 15th. Laura and I spent the weekend at the Lake Lure Inn. Saturday was spent on the lake and Sunday was spent at Chimney Rock Park.

We had a great time during our weekend getaway! On the evening of the 16th we enjoyed a dinner in, and ate our one year old wedding cake. We were both very surprised at how good the cake was after spending twelve months in the freezer. Here are some pics from our trip.

Laura and I on a Lake Lure tour boat

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The Dirty Dancing cove

Great views were easy to find


A shot from the boardwalk

Chimney Rock with Lake Lure in the background

Laura and I on Chimney Rock

Dinner Saturday night.

The beach

In some ways, it is hard to believe we have been married for a year, but at the same time, it seems like we have more than a years worth of memories from the last 12 months. We have been truly blessed and are excited about starting our second year of marriage!

Thomas More

I have long had a great admiration for Thomas More, he was an outstanding lawyer, author, judge and diplomat, who rose to the highest office in England, next to the King. He was also a Christian who believed that his first, and most important, calling was to follow Christ, whatever the cost. He was a man who had a huge impact on this world, while living for the next. As a result, he chose death rather than to betray his conscience. Moments before he was beheaded for his faith, he humbly described himself as "the King's good servant, but God's first."

I just came across this meditation that he penned while he was a prisoner in the tower of London, in 1534.

Give me thy grace, good Lord, To set the world at nought, To set my mind fast upon thee. And not to hang upon the blast of men's mouths. To be content to be solitary, Not to long for worldly company, Little and little utterly to cast off the world,And rid my mind of all the business thereof. Not to long to hear of any worldly things, But that the hearing of worldly phantasies may be to me displeasant.Gladly to be thinking of God, Piteously to call for his help, To lean unto the comfort of God, Busily to labour to love him.To know mine own vility and wretchedness, To humble and meeken myself under the mighty hand of God, To bewail my sins passed, For the purging of them, patiently to suffer adversity.Gladly to bear my purgatory here, To be joyful of tribulations, To walk the narrow way that leadeth to life. To bear the cross with Christ,To have the last thing in rememberence, To have ever afore mine eye my death that is ever at hand, To make no stranger to me, To foresee and consider the everlasting fire of hell. To pray for pardon before the judge to come. To have ontinually in mind the passion that Christ suffered for me, For his benefits uncessantly to give him thanks. To buy the time again that I before have lost. To abstain from vain confabulations, To eschew light foolish mirth and gladness, Recreations not necessary to cut off. Of worldly substance, friends, liberty, life and all, to set the loss at right nought, for the winning of Christ. To think my most enemies my best friends, For the brethren of Joseph could never have done him so much good with their love and favour as they did him with their malice and hatred. These minds are more to be desired of every man, than all the treasure of all the princes and kings, Christian and heathen, were it gathered and laid together all upon one heap.

It Is Well With My Soul

I love this hymn, and as with many great hymns, the story behind it gives the words more meaning.

Horatio Spafford was a successful Chicago lawyer with one son and four daughters (still living with he and his wife). He had a large amount of money invested in Chicago real estate. By the late 1860's, Spafford had been blessed with a great family and very successfull investments.
Then, his son died and the Chicago fire of 1871 wiped out his holdings.

After loosing a child, and much of his fortune, Spafford and his family desperately needed a rest. So in 1873 he planned a trip to Europe with his wife and four daughters. Last minute business caused Spafford to delay his departure, but he sent his wife and four daughters on the S. S. Ville Du Havre as scheduled, promising to follow in a few days. On November 22 the ship was struck by the English ship Lochearn, and it sank in twelve minutes. Several days later the survivors landed at Cardiff, Wales, and Mrs. Spafford cabled her husband the brief message, "Saved alone."

When Horatio Spafford made the ocean crossing to meet his grieving wife, he sailed near the place where his four daughters had sunk to the ocean depths. There, in the midst of his sorrow, he wrote these unforgettable words that have brought solace to so many in grief:

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll,

Whatever my lot,

Thou hast taught me to say,

It is well, it is well, with my soul.
Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,

Let this blessed assurance control,

That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate,

And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

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If you have time, check out this video:

It Is Well With My Soul

Brevard. Graduation. Raleigh

It has been quite a while since my last post and much has happened. I am currently in the daily grind of preparing for the North Carolina Bar Exam, which will be on July 29th and 30th. Laura's first year of teaching will come to an end next Tuesday, June 10th.

A few weeks ago Laura and I spent a weekend with Wade and Emily Johnson and my grandparents at my grandparent's cabin in Brevard, NC. Laura and I arrived early Friday afternoon, spent some time with my grandparents, and played the local par three golf course. Wade and Emily made it in late Friday night, the four of us had an action packed day on Saturday that included stalking white squirrels (check out this pic that Laura took, pretty sure the little guy was posing for us!), hiking up to Looking Glass Rock, checking out a couple of water falls, and eating dinner at the Pisgah Inn (one of our favorite spots). We had a great weekend with the Johnsons and my grandparents!

The next event on our calendar was my graduation. How time flies, it is hard to believe that law school is over. All of my family came into town for the weekend. Tiffany (my sister) and Webb (her husband) stayed with Laura and I, we really enjoyed having their company here in our apartment! Laura's parents also came into town for my graduation, It was the only time that we have had so much family here, save the wedding. Laura put together a surprise party for me. She did an incredible job, I am not sure how she managed to organize and conceal it so well. The party was a cookout at Salem Lake that included croquet and bocce ball. It was a great way to celebrate the end of our time together in law school!

We spent last weekend in Raleigh with Laura's family, and as always, we had a great time! We managed to get in golf at the driving range, billiards at Magnolia Glen (where Aunt Lucile lives) and croquet. In between these activities we enjoyed some great food and fellowship!

There is more that I could write about, but I need to get some sleep so I will be ready for a Friday filled with Criminal Law.

Davis Cup. 35 days 'til graduation.

This weekend the defending World Champion U.S. Davis Cup team has been taking on the French team, here in Winston Salem. It is the second year in a row that there have been Davis Cup matches here in Winston. Last year Laura and I went to all the matches, as the U.S. downed Spain on their way to the championship. This year we attended the doubles match on Saturday with Laura's parents. Unfortunately, the Bryan brothers lost, but we had a great time and got to watch some very good tennis.

Last night, the four of us ate dinner at River Birch Lodge, had some birthday cake (which Laura made) to celebrate Bill's upcoming b-day, and watched Into The Wild... very good movie that I would highly recommend. The book is also good.

Two Weeks until my exams start, and 35 days until graduation...hard to believe that law school is about to be over! The last couple of weeks will be busy, then I will hopefully have a week or so to catch my breath before graduation and a summer of bar prep.
"The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is." C.S. Lewis

more car trouble, Charleston, CRBR

Cooper River Bridge Run

As I wrote the last entry I was sitting on a couch, in the Thompson's apartment, in downtown Charleston, waiting for a tow truck to arrive from Columbia to pick up our car and take it back to the transmission place that we had picked it up from the day before. We were gone from Tuesday-Sunday. Our car was in the repair shop from Tuesday-Thursday and again from Friday-Sunday. It was a bit of an inconvenience, but certainly could have been much worse. Yesterday, Anna drove us to Columbia to pick up our car. After about 1.5 hours on the interstate (headed to Winston) the over drive light started blinking and I thought we were going to be on the side of the interstate...again. The car made it 3 more miles to the next exit where we pulled into a gas station. While there, my dad called and informed us that he had talked to someone at a Mazda dealership who had told him that there transmissions tend to get overheated on long trips and that we should stop every hour or so and let it cool off. We did this, and it worked well. We are now back in Winston and the car is doing fine. We are going to have a cooling block put on the transmission, hopefully this will take care of the problem.

Despite the car hiccup, we had a great time in Charleston. On Thursday night, Ryan and Anna took us to dinner at Southend Brewery & Smokehouse. On Friday, Ryan, Laura and I spent the afternoon on the beach at Kiawah Island. Anna works on the Island, so after work she joined us for a bike ride around the Island (not on the beach).

On Saturday, the four of us ran (with 40,000+ other people) in the Cooper River Bridge Run (CRBR) 10K. It is a huge annual Charleston race (event) that happened to be the same weekend that we were there, Laura and I registered for the race on Friday and ran in it on Saturday. On Saturday afternoon, We ate lunch at one of my favorite Charleston spots, Poe's Tavern.

Laura and I walked down King Street and around The Battery on Saturday evening, we then met up with Ryan and Anna at The Kickin' Chicken to watch the final four games and eat dinner.

We had a great time with Ryan and Anna and really enjoyed Charleston!

Transmission trouble. Hilton Head

This week is Laura's spring break, so we decided that I could skip class and we could take a trip. We left Tuesday morning, headed for Hilton Head. Our plan was to spend two nights in Hilton Head and then drive up to Charleston and spend 3 nights with Ryan and Anna Thompson there.

At about 12:45 Tuesday afternoon we were passing through Columbia, SC, when the transmission in our car gave out. We spent about 1.5 hours on the side of the interstate, then we were towed to "the best transmission place in Columbia." At this point we did not know what was wrong with our car, we hoped that it was something that could be quickly fixed so that we could resume our trip to Hilton Head. Unfortunately, we learned that our car would not be ready to go again until Thursday afternoon. At that point we had a couple of options, we could spend the first few days of our trip in Columbia, SC, or we could try to rent a car and get to Hilton Head. We opted for the latter. Essentially every rental car place in Columbia was out of vehicles, but thankfully we finally found someone who had one car left, Rent-A-Wreck. We jumped on the opportunity to take over a Chevy Cavalier for a few days.

After our unexpected detour in Columbia, we left at around 5:00 for Hilton Head...in our new (temporary) ride.

In Hilton Head, we stayed at the Crowne Plaza Resort. We loved the resort and the Island! Despite our car troubles, we had a great time there! On Tuesday night we went for a run around the plantation that our resort was on, then went to a sports bar for a late dinner. On Wednesday, we decided to bike to the Harbour Town Lighthouse and check it out, then bike to The Salty Dog Cafe for lunch, then back to the resort of an evening on the beach. The island has great bike trails that follow major roads and make it easy to get around. It ended up being a bit more difficult than we anticipated, mainly because our bike trails kept dead ending into resorts. After riding around on the island for an hour or so, we decided that it would be better to just get on the beach and bike around the island until we came to the lighthouse. After biking on the beach for a while we decided that the lighthouse could wait and we should just get lunch. We finally made it to the Cafe and had a great, lunch there. If you are ever on Hilton Head, you have to check out The Salty Dog Cafe! After eating we biked back to our resort, via the beach. The excursion took a bit longer than we had anticipated, but we had a great time. On Wednesday night, we ate dinner at the Old Fort Pub. A very nice seafood restaurant on the water that I would highly recommend, catch a sunset there if you can!

We got up early Thursday morning so that we could see the sunrise on the beach, unfortunately it looked like a tropical storm was coming in...so there was no sun to be seen. We ate breakfast and packed up before going on a run around the plantation. We checked out of the hotel and decided to drive over to the lighthouse and eat lunch before leaving the island. We ate lunch at The Water Front Cafe, another great restaurant that I would recommend visiting.

We are now in Charleston, but the car saga has continued... more to come.