Patriots Point

We are at Patriots Point today touring the Yorktown. It is hot today, and the weather is sunny and 85! The Yorktown is huge, and the view of the bridge is beautiful.

Happy Halloween from Charleston SC

Toby is wearing his Halloween bandana to celebrate. He is sad though as he just had to say goodbye to his great-grandma and grandpa. Toby loved getting his daily deli meat turkey from his great-grandma!

Carriage tour

We are taking a carriage tour with Palmetto Carriage Company. We did a tour of Zone 3, it was a lot of fun. Here are our two mules Laverne and Shirley!

Drayton Hall

This is another home of the Drayton family, who also owned the Magnolia Plantation. It is one of the few homes that survived the Civil War. Also, one of the oldest preservation homes in the country. This home is a preservation site, not restoration, which means they are preserving what is there. This also means that if something is missing, they cannot recreate it, they have done some repair work using what is in the house. Also, there is no furniture inside, this house is only for looking at the architecture and using your imagination.

Magnolia Plantation

Magnolia Plantation is beautiful!

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Road to Charleston

Macy and Toby in the car as we drive to Charleston, they are so cute. Macy is very excited, as she usually does not get to go on trips. Toby is an old pro at traveling, and just settling in for the long ride. It should be a fun trip!

The Twins at 6 months

We went out to dinner with my step-sister, her husband, and their twin boys today. The twins were wearing their Halloween outfits, and looking very cute. Mom is holding James and Mike is holding David. They are starting to get so much more playful now, so it is exciting to see how much they change.

Last day at work

Gift from patient of duck decoys, he made them by hand and hand-painted them. Very sweet of him, and I know it required time...however, I'm not quite the duck hunter. I do believe that I have found them a good home, so I am happy about that.
My last day of work went well, and I will definitely miss my coworkers. I hope to keep in touch with them.

An old wedding reenactment!

While at the Tryon Palace, they had a reenactment of an 18th Century wedding. Most people couldn't afford a fancy church wedding, so they usually had a minister perform the ceremony over an anvil. This was a symbolic meaning to "forge" the marriage and the couple together forever. Kind of cool symbolism, and neat to watch this ceremony. The funny thing is, the couple getting fake married are actually engaged in real life getting married in January. They have now been fake married 4 times! LOL, they should be quite prepared for the real thing in January!

The Birthplace of Pepsi

New Bern is also the birthplace of Pepsi-Cola! This store is at the original spot where Caleb Bradham first invented Pepsi-Cola in his pharmacy in 1898. The store has a few artifacts, a video of the history, and you can of course buy Pepsi products to drink. A cute little store with some cute artifacts and collectibles.

The Tryon Palace

As this is my last weekend in Jacksonville, I decided to take a quick trip up to New Bern (at less than an hour drive from my apartment, not a bad day trip). One of the main attractions is the Tryon Palace Historical Site and Gardens. The Tryon Palace is the first government house for North Carolina, built between 1767 and 1770 by Royal Governer William Tryon. New Bern was North Carolina's first permanent capitol, and this was their government building and the residence of the governor. In the Colonial periods, the governors were appointed by England's King George III (whose painting was in the legislature room to remind them who was their boss, the king actually paid for and sent the painting over for that purpose). The home was allowed to be called a palace because it was a place where government business took place. It's actual name was "The Palace," however, it became known in history as 'The Tryon Palace' because William Tryon was not well liked, and he raised taxes to have this house built to his standards. Not to mention, he only lived in the house for 13 months, because as he was appointed governor to NC, he had already applied for governor of NY (as that governor was on his sick bed, and Tryon did not like North Carolina). Actually, the South was not the desirable place to live at the time because of Malaria from the mosquitoes. At the time, they did not know the bugs were to cause, and thought it was just the hot, humid weather (also why George Washington did not come visit South of Virginia until he was up for Re-Election and had to for publicity, and he only did so in March when it was not hot/humid so he wouldn't get sick).
The original Tryon Palace was destroyed by fire in 1798, and more than 150 years later (or 50 years ago) the palace was reconstructed using the original construction plans and information found in letters and excavation. As William Tryon took all of the original furnishings with him when he moved to New York (he made the tax payers pay for the construction, but he was nice enough to foot the bill for all of the furnishings- probably because he knew he would be moving soon, and wanted to take his things with him), and his home in New York burned down, they used the claims ticket that he filed to suspect what was in the original Tryon Palace. Wow, that must have been a lot of leg work to figure all of that out! The preservation society then went to find originals or replicas of everything they could to make the Tryon Palace what it is today. It was a great place to visit, and definitely interesting to hear all of the history.

Tryon Palace

In New Bern, NC touring the Tryon Palace, the original seat of government for North Carolina. Of course, this is a replica, as the original Tryon Palace burned down many years ago. More history to come...

Last day of Secret Pumpkin

My secret pumpkin brought me two chocolate chip muffins this morning. Plus, I found out who she was!

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Secret Pumpkin: Day 2

My secret pumpkin did another great job today! I got another cute card, she-devil socks, a yummy smelling fall candle, and candy! Okay, so I might be getting a bit spoiled. Tomorrow is the last day, and I will find out who my secret pumpkin is. I must say, I will miss working here, everyone is so nice.

Secret Pumpkin Day 1

Today is the first day of the secret pumpkin days at work. Here is the cool goodies that I got this morning. The blue ring and the pink eye lights up! It was a very pleasant surprise this morning. I cannot wait to see what the next two days will be.

Toby's Car Seat

Since Toby travels with me often, I bought him a little car seat for a little extra safety and he can see out easier. I bought this a couple of years ago, but as we were driving the 3 hour drive back to Jacksonville, I thought it would be a good time to get a picture of him in it. By the way, only 2 more weeks at Jacksonville, NC, the time here has flown by! I am going to try to do something fun and interesting this weekend, so hopefully, I'll have fun pictures to post!

Elon Alumni Weekend

Elon University hosted the first annual alumni celebration weekend this weekend. The start of it was a Continuing Education course on Friday, and the other events were various things to see where the program is now and how it has changed. As I have Fridays off from work, I decided to take in the free cont-ed course and see some of my fellow Elon alumns and were we are now. In all, there were 38 or so people there, and 6 (including me) from my class. It was great seeing everyone, and I cannot believe how the labs have changed in the 3 years since I have been there. The labs are now equipped with the nice mats for demonstration (as our class just had wooden, non-moving mats), there are about 6 LCD tvs in the 2 labs, and even video cameras mounted on the ceilings. How this works is the screens all have the power point presentation on the screens, when the professor is up front demonstrating a technique, instead of all of us crowding up to try to get a view of it, now they flip the camera on and can zoom in as needed for everyone to see! How high-tech! Apparently, this is also in the Anatomy lab, so the students now are more easily able to see what the professor wants them to see on one of the cadavers. Much better than so many people crowding around the body trying to see something so small. And the best part is, they have a new air control system in there, so it doesn't smell so bad anymore. All I can say is, wow, now I know where my tuition money went.
The above picture is of the welcoming sign and a picture of me and one of good friends from the class ahead of me, and she was my big sister in the program, plus we worked for a year at Cape Fear. I promise, we didn't plan to dress alike!

Get your flu shot

I just went to get my yearly seasonal flu shot at work today. Upon check in, you get a free mini-hand sanitizer. Then, after your shot, they gave you a chocolate bar that says "Have a Shot of Chocolate" and a button to advertise to others to get their flu shot. In addition, they had little cans of juice (all sorts of flavors) and muffins! Sorry, no picture of the orange muffin, as I devoured that before I left. Hey, if you have to get a shot, you might as well get goodies!

The Missing Link

Here is a picture of the Manual Therapy book that I bought while I was at the course. It gives lots of helpful hints and pictures on how to perform various techniques. I tried a bit of the exercises and techniques that I learned in the course on some of my patients. Only time will tell, but some of the things did seem to work well.

Weekend Course

This weekend, I was able to participate in a continuing education course called The Missing Link. This is a course that combines biomechanics and kinesiology (basically, how the body is put together and how it moves) to come up with exercises and treatment plans. It was a very informative session, and it helped me to learn many techniques that should help in my treatment of future patients. It utilizes some interesting theories that everything comes down to the core, and in many cases, a weak Glutueal muscle pulling many things out of proper alignment. We actually got to see these concepts at work in 2 very different patient examples, and it was amazing. I can't wait to start trying some of these techniques in my own patients.

The good news is, I now have completed all of my continuing education requirements for this and next year!

Time Flies...

Wow, so I cannot believe that it is already October! Since I leave for work so early, it is usually still dark out, and when I get home it is starting to get dark again. Gotta love the days getting shorter and working 10 hour days! It also means that I only have 3 more weeks until I am finished with this assignment. No, I don't know where I will be when I leave here, but I will be taking a week off that include a little mini-vacation to Charleston with family! I am very excited!

If I haven't already said, the next assignment will probably be my last assignment. I have been traveling for nearly 2 years now, so I feel like it is time to pick a place and get some roots. I have had some amazing experiences, but I am ready to be at one place and grow some stronger bonds with my coworkers. The plan is, if I like my next assignment (trying to get around the Greensboro/High Point area), then I will sign on as a permanent staff. We'll just see what happens.