We had a great time visiting Byne!

We left on Thursday to travel to North Carolina to go visit Byne. He is up there playing baseball for the Catawba Valley Stars. He left on May 22nd, but it seems like he has been gone for months. We stopped in Auburn to pick up Byne's girlfriend, Cayla. Then we were off with the plan of driving above Atlanta then sleeping before going all the way to NC. I am a planner (that is an understatement)! I usually plan every minute of our trips, book hotels, print google directions - a regular Mrs. Organization. This trip Mark did not want to book any hotels. He begrudgingly let me print directions, but he wanted to just fly by the seat of our pants and find places to sleep! This worried me, but I obliged. I told him that it would be cheaper to plan ahead, but he ended up being right (I hate when that happens)! We stopped the first night at the Best Western. The girls and I were unsure - the bed linens seemed a little stiff and "crusty" but the room was clean. We made fun of Mark endlessly for his choice of hotels, but he was a great sport.

We woke up on Friday morning headed to NC. In the slide show you can see where we stopped at the rest areas in SC and in NC to document our trip. The girls climbed a wall in SC to get a picture with the flag, that was too funny. Lakyn had no fear and Cayla was scared half to death, but she did it! We arrived in Monroe, NC for the first game right before the start of the game. Byne played first base and did a great job! You could tell he was so happy to see us, and we were thrilled to finally lay eyes on him! After the double header, we headed the 1 and 1/2 hours to Hickory (where Byne lives). Mark let us pick the hotel this time since we teased him such about the Best Western. We picked one with soft linens (a Marriot)! We were finally settled in to our spot for the weekend. More ballgames, shopping, dinner, swimming,and two days later we left for Athens, GA to watch our final ballgame. Aunt Cathy, Uncle Tom, and Hannah met us at the ball field to watch him play. It was a great day at the ball park. The weather was fantastic! We had the best time visiting and Byne did GREAT! We left from Athens for Macon on Sunday evening. We spent the night with Aunt Cathy in Macon. We stayed up late talking and then woke up Monday to more eating and shopping. We returned home Monday! We had the greatest trip! We spent a whole lot of time in the car, but everyone was so glad to see Byne and we had fun together. The slide show is a picture walk of our trip - ENJOY! Byne didn't even whine about taking too many pictures, I think he was just so glad that we were there! We are now rewashing and packing for our annual Fourth of July trip to the Lake. I hope you all have a fabulous Fourth of July!