One year, Labor Day, and sunsets...

Today was a catch-up day from a great weekend away at the BEACH. Caught up on the gym, caught up on sleep, caught up on healthy foods again. The only easy part was the sleep...whew.

Anyway, the weekend was AMAZING. Celebrated ONE YEAR with Amanda down at Ocean Isle over the last few days, and straight-up bummed it at the beach. One year. It still amazes me how much we've done and experienced over the last 12 months, and how fast it's all flown by. One thing I'm sure of, though, is that I'm looking forward to making even MORE great memories as we venture into this new year together, and whatever the future holds for us.

Our actual anniversary was Friday the fourth (which is actually the first birthday of this blog too...hmmm...HAPPY late BLOGDAY, blog!). We got to the beach the night before and had the luxury of sleeping in until the late hour of 9:30ish (the sun was pretty bright, but hey, no complaints). The day went fast, but we made it to the lower point of Ocean Isle to catch the sunset, and when I say sunset, I mean SUNSET. You could see it falling as we walked down the open beach, and the weather was perfect. There were wisps of blue and purple and orange in the air, and as the sun continued to go down, it melted into dozens of different shades of red and yellow. Once we got to the point, we stood at the channel between the ocean and the Inter Coastal Waterway and in the golden reflection of the sun. Now, I'm trying to give you the best description I can of this sunset, because I don't have pictures yet. I'll post them when I get them, and they're beautiful, but they still won't do justice to what we saw that evening. Imagine the entire color spectrum glaring against the contrast of the dark clouds. Remember the abbreviation from physics? ROYGBIV. They were all there, and it was brilliant. The waves were crashing and fighting each other in and out of the channel, and the sun turned the beach orange as it began to hide behind the trees on the horizon. It began to fade to red towards the end, and then it was gone, leaving us with an orange sky straight from the tip of God's paintbrush to our eyes. WOW. And then we got a giant full moon to light up the waterway. Crucial.

The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing and enjoying our time together. We biked Sunset on Saturday and discovered Bird Island, a lagoon behind a jetty at the lower point of the beach. Here we made a few friends and talked for a bit, which we always seem to do on our trips. People feel our vibe, and we feel theirs. It's cool. It was a beautiful day, and really the last of the sun we saw until Sunday night. Other than biking, we bummed around the place a lot, which was nice because we don't get the opportunity too often. Watched movies, popped popcorn, and cooked in the kitchen. We saved money from this, had some great meals, and spent time TOGETHER, which is the main reason we were there. It was great.

Besides enjoying our celebration, I got fired up to start doing some serious things in the next few weeks now that we're back. As much as it hurts to say it, Labor Day Weekend is kind of the unofficial end of summertime. Now that summer is unofficially over, I'm ready to get rolling with some positive changes in career status. The economy still sucks, as it has since I started this blog a year ago, but there are other possibilities. I'm going to look harder for jobs, but grad school is also more in the picture now. Don't know for sure if I'd go, but let me say that I bought a G.R.E. study book today, and I'll be signing up for the test in the very near future. Who knows what could happen with this in the coming months. All I know is that, as always, I'm excited.

Outta hear for now, but I'll be back soon. Goodnight.

Drew