The Greensboro 'Crickets'

When we moved down here, we discovered that Greensboro has a local minor league baseball team- The Greensboro Grasshoppers. Early on, John decided it would make way more sense if they were called The Crickets- and that just sort of stuck. We had been meaning to go see a game all season, but it's been so hot that anything outside sounds absolutely miserable! Two weeks ago at work, one of our vendors came in and invited John and me to come to a Grasshoppers game on Monday in a suite purchased by the company she works for. I guess she hadn't realized yet that I have no influence in the company I work for! :) Creative Snacks also has two season tickets to the Grasshoppers, so we invited our good friend Phil to join us and just take whatever seats were open- since I only had two suite tickets.

Not a bad skyline for a baseball game!!

I popped up to the suite to thank the woman who invited us but told her I couldn't stay because we had a friend with us, and she insisted that Phil come up with us! So the three of us had a fun Monday night- the suite had free food and drinks along with air conditioning- not a bad way to watch a baseball game!

Phil and John- so glad we have such a good friend here!! Phil also hopped on board the 'Crickets' train with John and now refers to the team as the 'Crickets' as well.

We didn't stay for the entire game, and I don't think any of us could say with certainty who won (I do know it was tied when we left at the top of the 7th), but we had such a fun time together getting spoiled a little bit in a suite!

I love him!!!

There's never a shortage of laughs with these two! 

The Jonker's Visit!

This past weekend Johns parents came to visit! Poppy had never seen our apartment in person, so it was fun to show him our apartment and around our city! They arrived Thursday and we had a great dinner at a local restaurant that John and I had never been to- it was fun to catch up with just them! With John being the second to last child and us not having any kids yet, we kind of go with the flow in the big bunch so we always cherish the time that we get to spend with just his parents.

On Friday, John and I both had to work for a while so his parents stopped by Rental Works and Creative Snacks and got to see where both of us spend our work days! It was really fun to bring them in to that part of our lives! They even got a few free snacks out of the visit to my office! :) Poppy spend quite a few hours  with William and John at Rental Works and then we all decided to have a nice dinner at Ruth's Chris Steak House with some of our friends. The pictures aren't great but I managed to snag a few!

Some of our friends!! Kelly, Nanny, Poppy, William, Phil, John, Brad and Lauren.

We're so thankful for their visit!!

Saturday John had to work again, and Poppy went with him, so Nanny and I got some shopping done! There's a Farmer's Market about 20 minutes from our apartment that we had heard was great so we decided to check it out and it was incredible!! It was by far the largest Farmer's Market either of us had ever seen! We didn't even have time to see it all! We also had a chance to go to Costco and stock up on a few things that John goes through daily (particularly hot dogs and Lays Potato Chips!!). It was fun to explore the town just the two of us! 

We also swung by and saw John at work!

Saturday night we all went to dinner and a movie. We saw "The Help", and if you haven't seen it- I highly recommend it! I hadn't heard much about the movie and had never read the book but I cried (John would insert a "go figure" here). It's a true story that's told in a very real way- I'm looking forward to picking the book up from the library! After the movie we tried a little deli nearby- it was fun to try a few local eateries with Nanny and Poppy!

The weekend flew by and it felt like Sunday was here before we knew it! We showed them around our shopping areas that we had and stopped into The Fresh Market so Poppy could check out more of the products that the company I work for makes.

Figuring out their favorites!

And before they left we tried one more local restaurant that a co-work of mine, Lindsay introduced me to that I really liked- and fortunately they did too!

Our time with them went so fast, but we are so thankful that they took the time to come visit us!! 

End of July update

I've definitely been slacking on my updates, and I recently realized I was also terrible at taking pictures during the end of July! We haven't gone on any big adventures lately, but have definitely still been having a lot of fun! John has been working a lot, and working hard! There have been a lot of transitions in employees at Rental Works, which has forced the others (like John) to help pick up the slack. John is definitely fully immersed in the business and feels like he's part of the team now! I think it's giving him a good taste of what small business is all about!

The company he's working for, is owned by a family friend (Which is why we came down here to begin with), and through him we met another family who helped me find a job! I am working at a company called Creative Snacks, and I love it! It's a snack packaging company that sells wholesale to distributors. They sell everything from dried fruits and vegetable chips to chocolate/yogurt covered just about anything! They have a relationship with a couple organizations here in town, and only hire refugees to work in the production room. There was a really cool article written about them in a local paper that you can read here. I couldn't find the link at the newspaper, so it's on the website of one of the organizations that they hire the refugees through. My job there entails a lot of different projects- so I guess it's a good thing I'm a project kind of girl! :)

I went back to Grand Rapids last minute the last weekend in July to see my family and as usual, it was busy! It was my parents anniversary one day, our annual Malburg Invitational another day and to top it off the power was out at my parents house the first bit that I was there. My dad was still bumming around home after his surgery, and with no power, we had a family anniversary dinner for my parents of pizza and corn on the cob! I've really been working on being present when I'm back in Grand Rapids ad not worrying about the fact that I can't see everyone while I'm there and just trusting that people will understand and no feelings will be hurt. I'm such a people pleaser that that's definitely been a challenge though!!

We also had some fun visitors last week- Jared, Belen, James and Elena came to Greensboro! They stayed at the Duke's but we got to see them quite a bit! They were here for two days during the week, so the first night they were here, we had just an adult dinner at a cute little restaurant with Jared & Belen, William & Jessie, and mutual friends of theirs, Hannah and Josh. Then the following day, we all went to dinner over at Hannah & Josh's house in addition to another couple who everyone knew- Andrew & Kristen. Everyone had to leave kind of abruptly so it ended up being just John & I left over at their house for dessert. We had briefly met them once before, and then had dinner with them the night previous, but we ended up staying at their house probably later than they had hoped- we had so much fun with them!! They are such a great couple, with adorable kids that we're definitely looking forward to getting to know better!

So that's it for July. I think we have some fun things coming up this month, so hopefully I'll have more to say- and I'll work on taking pictures for a visual!