celebrating the 4th

it's been a busy couple of weeks since i last posted, and justin and i were happy to see the holiday weekend approaching so we could relax and spend time with some friends and family.

i accepted a job offer last week to begin working at an agency here in town as an intensive in home family therapist. though it will be a couple of weeks before i start actually going out to see clients, i had trainings this past week and several more lined up for next week. this is a great agency that has a positive reputation in the community and is looking to grow over the next few years. the program that i will be leading involves a team approach where we help families and at-risk youth stabilize their environment so the youth can remain in the home. i am really excited about this and can't wait to get started after all my training are complete.

in the meantime, we've been enjoying the summer and some of the new "toys" that are out on the market. we searched for a wii fit all last weekend--with no success. we eventually ended up borrowing one from heather and wylie and were immediately hooked. after calling around during the week, we gave it one more shot yesterday and lucked out--toys 'r us finally had some in. so now we are proud owners of the balance board. what a cool accessory and awesome game to add on to our wii library.

we also went to see "wall-e" last weekend and loved it. pixar never dissapoints! (though they didn't do outakes or bloopers after the credits again :(--we waited around just in case, but maybe they've gotten out of the habit of doing that in the theater releases.)

and finally, we've spent some lovely evenings in little washington. i still haven't made it down to the beach this summer, but perhaps it's because we keep darting over to washington for dinner and really enjoying ourselves on the waterfront. last week, it was to celebrate my new job and get out of greenville due to the water contamination that had all of the restaurants closed in town. we headed on over to backwater jack's, a great waterside restaurant with a tiki bar atmosphere, complete with a double-decker outdoor porch and awesome views of the river. after delicious shrimp burgers and the best sweet potato fries i've ever had, we walked along the waterfront and got some ice cream. after such a nice evening, we considered going that way again yesterday for the 4th of july. i knew i was scheduled to take pictures for the paper at the greenville town commons, but i had already planned on going down there early before it got too crowded or dark. we thought about going over to kinston for the baseball game and fireworks, but once we looked into it, the tickets were already sold out. new bern was just a little too far to drive, and they have the main bridge closed so we'd have to drive through town to get to the point park. so... it was decided we would head on east to washington to catch some waterfront fireworks. we packed my tripod and camera, picked up some bojangles and got an excellent parking spot for the evening. i had to share some of the pictures from our evening out there, and after hearing that it downpoured in greenville just as the fireworks began, we're really glad we ended up going.

(since justin still wants to do a baseball game and fireworks, we're going to go see the mudcats play this evening and enjoy their second fireworks show after the game)

the docks were full and there were tons of boats coming up and down the river yesterday evening.

a candid of justin as we walked along the waterfront.
the lights of the boats reflecting off the water--that was one of the most popular spots to view the fireworks!
i was so happy with how these turned out--there are more up on flickr, but these are just a couple of my favorites.
part of the "grand finale"--they had said a couple of weeks ago that washington wouldn't be able to do their fireworks because of the burn ban and the huge wildfire that started last month, but they changed their minds earlier this week and i'm so glad they did!alright, that's it for now. we've got a couple of things to take care of around the house before we head to zebulon. check out the pictures on flickr and reflector