Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! This is a beautiful picture Charlie painted for me for Christmas! It is absolutely beautiful. It is a representation of our date at Pullen Park. You can read about the date below. He is so talented! I made him a bunch of food for his freezer so he wouldn't live off of McDonald's and canned vegetables. Thank you everyone that helped with recipes!

We are enjoying our first Christmas together. I have been off work since Friday so we have been able to spend everyday together. SO nice!!! We have already been to Charlotte and are going to Wilmington tomorrow. Tonight we have church and are going to see his family. It's very busy, but we are happy because we are doing it all together!

Camping at Pilot Mountain

Somehow Charlie convinced me to go camping. I hadn't been camping since I was in elementary school and a Girl Scout. Basically, it went down like this...

Charlie: "I'm going camping in a couple weekends with some friends."

Jenny: "Oh, so we are spending the weekend apart?"

Charlie: "No, you should come."

Jenny: "Am I going to freeze to death? Are there going to be showers? What about rats?"

SO...because we cannot stand to be apart, I sucked it up and went camping. Everyone that knew me thought I was crazy and wanted to know where the real Jenny was. I am a hotel kind of girl!!! I do not do outdoorsy things, especially for a whole weekend! I even took a day off to make it a long weekend. So we spent three days outside camping and I got a sub. Seriously, where is the real Jenny!?

Charlie was prepped for the whining. Although, amazingly there wasn't too much of it! Once again, would the real Jenny Kerns please stand up? My biggest concern about camping was rats. Charlie's biggest concern was bears. I mean really, aren't we more likely to see rats than bears???

We went with 2 other couples, Kurt & Suzy and Phil & Julie. I'm pretty sure we got on everyone's nerves! I actually had a good time! We hung out by the fire, walked up the trail on Pilot Mountain, and just relaxed. It really was fun! At one point I did have a crazy moment. I was walking to the bathroom (yes, thankfully there were bathrooms) at night and heard something. I screamed loudly and jumped. I was pretty sure it was a rat. BUT it wasn't. The noise was me crunching leaves as I walked and what I saw was my own shadow. :) Thankfully, I did not SEE any animals. Although at night you could definetly hear them walking around outside! Poor Charlie didn't get any sleep because I was up all night freaking out about every little sound! Oh...and I had to take showers with spiders.

So, while I didn't complain while we were camping, I'm pretty sure I've done enough in this post!

Scooter

I cannot continue our blog without mentioning Scooter. Scooter is Charlie's dog. I don't know how to write about Scooter without showing some frustration! Don't get me wrong, I love Scooter and he has his sweet moments. HOWEVER...he can definetly work my nerves! Scooter doesn't like sharing Charlie's attention and affections. Numerous times my face has almost been taken off by Scooter trying to break up a kiss. Scooter also likes to show his anger towards me by soiling the carpet in my apartment. Needless to say, I will not be getting my security deposit back!

Scooter being pampered.

Wilmington

We spent one really cold weekend visiting my family in Wilmington. We went to the Battleship on Saturday. It was FREEZING and rainy. Not a perfect day for the Battleship. Although, the Battleship isn't normally my idea of fun. But Charlie wanted to go so I indulged. I have to admit, the Battleship visit was fun!! Charlie can make anything fun!

That night we had dinner downtown with my family. Downtown Wilmington is beautiful and one of my favorite places! We went to Elijah's which is on the waterfront. Chris and Paul talked Charlie into getting the Carolina Bucket. This is literally a big, steel bucket! It was filled with corn, potatos, crab legs, clams, and I don't know what else! Charlie enjoyed it. This isn't the best picture, but it gives you a little bit of a visual.

First Date

So we talked on the phone every night after Charlie asked me out. It started as short, 3o minute conversations and then escalated to 3 hours a night. Which I must say exhausted us to no end! I was supposed to go to a Downhere concert on Friday night. If you know me well enough, that was supposed to be the highlight of my year! But I was so taken by Charlie that I skipped the concert and went out with him instead! We went to a birthday party for his friend Kurt. Krystal took pictures of me getting ready.

We met at Calvary and went over to Kurt and Suzy's. The whole way to the church I was nervous! We had talked so much that week though that it took a little pressure off! Upon seeing each other we gave each other a big hug! If you have ever seen us together you would know that Charlie is so much taller than me! So of course I was on my tippy-toes. We looked at each other and I kissed Charlie! I really can't believe that I did that!!! We spent the night hanging out with his friends which was a lot of fun.

The next morning when I woke up I had a "relationship request" on Facebook! HA! So I take it Charlie was impressed with our first date as well! However, our first date was supposed to be what we did on Saturday...

Charlie picked me up at Chris and Krystal's and we went to see the El Greco exhibit at Duke. It was amazing artwork! We had fun and went to an early dinner. We both had plans later that night...one of the last and few times we would spend apart on a weekend!

On Sunday, we went to church together. After church we had lunch and went to Pullen Park. Pullen Park is where a lot of the magic happened! We graded papers under a tree. Being that both Charlie and I are "people pleasers" and "goody two shoes" I have to add that we jumped a gate across the railroad tracks and graded papers under a tree. Love makes you do crazy things! I thought it was so sweet that Charlie wanted to help me grade papers!

THEN....while standing in line to get tickets for the paddle boats Charlie misheard me! He thought I said I loved him...that is not at all what I said! But in return, he said he loved me! Now I know it sounds crazy, we had just had our first date 2 nights before, but we knew. So needless to say, this is probably my favorite date!!! Sitting under the tree was romantic, riding the paddle boats was romantic, talking on the park bench was romantic...I hope I never forget that day!

How it all started...

A good way to start this blog is start from the beginning! Charlie and I met through my brother, Chris. We were kind of set-up. We went bowling on a Friday night for Chris' birthday. We "somehow" ended up bowling on the same lane together all night. Charlie made it a point to say goodnight to me. A month later we watched a video of the bowling party. There is a part of the video where Chris is moving the camera between the two of us, "Charlie. Jenny. Charlie. Jenny." I think someone was trying to bring us together!

This is the best picture I can find of the 2 of us bowling. Lorelei is being "dried off" after spilling her drink.

The next day we went hiking at Raven Rock with Chris and Krystal and the kids, and Grice, a friend from Calvary, and his kids. We didn't talk too much. We walked together a little and I made it a point to sit next to Charlie on a rock and share Goldfish. At the end of the day, Charlie asked how often I was in town. I think he was gathering information to ask me out...

Sharing Goldfish on the rock. He is too cute!

On Sunday, we sat together at church, the wonderful Calvary Chapel Cary. And we had lunch with Chris and Krystal at the Hibernian Grill. We didn't really talk much at lunch, but we did sit next to each other. When it was time to go and we were in the parking lot, Charlie officially asked me out! I felt bad for him because we never had a chance to be alone, so he had to do it in front of Chris and Krystal. He asked me out for coffee, which is funny because I don't think we've ever gone to get coffee together. Of course I said yes! And that was the beginning of our beautiful romance!