I love my new home here in the mountains; UVa-Wise is a beautiful school and I wouldn't trade my opportunities for anything in the world, but I miss my home by the beach. That is why I welcome summer time with open arms, now more than ever. It means that I get to sit on the beach, scoop ice cream, and have adventures with one of my all time favorite people.

Cape Charles is my home and I have fallen in love with the never ending crashing of the deep blue waves; my heart looks for the ocean now. I have even vowed that I will never leave the beach, I don't think I will stay in Cape Charles but I will never leave the beach. The east coast gives many opportunities for this: Florida, Connecticut, Maine, Carolina -- there are so many different choices and I'm excited because of the inconsistency of it all. No two moments at the beach are exactly the same.

I love sitting on the beach, I love basking in the sun, and I love jumping in the waves. Getting time in to just waste a day away at the beach is such a blessing; a day spent at the beach is a day well wasted. Filling a cooler up with ice and drinks and just switching between the water and the sand is probably one of my favorite past times.

You all know that I love scooping ice cream. I have grown so much during my time as an ice cream shoveller at brown dog ice cream; I spend a majority of my summer doing this. It offers up such diversity; I have met many different people from many different areas and they all have a sweet tooth. I love learning new things and getting to meet new people from different places; we have had people from Germany, Egypt, Russia, France, and the list could keep going.

The many adventures that I take over the summer normally happen with my person. We spend long days on the farm and even longer nights across the bay. We go to the movies, we go out to eat, and we even get serendipitous tattoos with almost no planning beyond where we were going to get breakfast on the day it was supposed to happen. The best part about having adventures with my person is that I can do all of my favorite summer things with them! The beach is definitely where we spend most of our time, but you can occasionally see us getting ice cream from brown dog, picking peaches at Pickett's Harbor Farms, or even walking through the mall in Virginia Beach.

I am much more comfortable in a cold climate, but a lot of my favorite things take place once it gets warm. I miss my beach back home now that I spend most of my time in the mountains and I cannot wait until May when I get to go back (for much longer than a week this time).

I left my heart at the beach, I'm ready to get it back.