Ilona Virginia Carter
January 9, 1958 - February 27, 2008

My sweet Aunt Ilona passed away early this morning. As many of you know, she was fighting colon cancer for the last 8 years. In the past few years, it spread to the rest of her body. In January, we were informed that she had several brain tumors. In the past week, her health declined very rapidly, something I was not prepared for. She was admitted to the hospital this past Sunday and her health continued to decline very fast. Luckily, I made it to Lexington on time to say goodbye to her.

Ilona was the sweetest person. She has one son and they were each other's lives. She loved animals, especially her dogs and cat. She had two basenjis named meko and pangi when i was growing up. they passed on but she got two more names p-nut and pheonix and also a black lab mix named padme. My dear aunt loved life. She painted and was very talented at it. She loved the Beatles and Jane Austen Books. She absolutely loved being at the beach. My memories of her are filled with her laughter and great sense of humor. She was always there for me. She spent her life loving other people. She was SO full of love.

Ilona was always positive throughout her fight. She never gave up and she fought hard up until the very last second. I know that she is in heaven and that is comforting. She was among few who make up the best kind of people that exist in this world.

I will post more soon. I am still in Kentucky and will want to put up more pictures and words. Right now my mom's side of the family is all together while a few are working through the details of her funeral (except that it is going to be a celebration and not really a funeral because that is what she requested!)

My heart is aching. I love you Ilona! You will be greatly missed and not a day will go by without thinking of you. I can't wait to see you again.

My mountain trip

I went to the mountains of North Carolina this past weekend with my sweet friends that i made from Village Green (my old apartments). We got there on friday evening and returned on sunday evening. Here is the break down of the trip for you:

friday: arrived at our cabin in ferguson, nc. the 'neighborhood' was called Leatherwood (if you ever go on a trip in the mountains i would highly recommend this place as it is a community of a bunch of mountain cabins). anyways, we unpacked the cars, played ping pong and got in the hot tub!

saturday: we had a yummy breakfast and played several board games (we played balderdash which is my favorite game EVER). Around 2:00 pm, my friend Kathryn and I headed out to a grocery store to get the rest of our meal that we were supposed to make on Saturday night. We took my friend's GPS system. The system's name is Jill. She told us the closest Food Lion was 10 miles away. Jill lied. It was actually 45 miles away. We made it there just fine but Jill decided to give us an alternative route on the way home. We ended up going down a gravel road (NC-1526) telling us to turn left. The left turn had a sign that read "do NOT trespass." well felt like we were in a scary movie. no joke. so we laughed because we didn't know what else to do. then we turned around and arrived to our destination 3.5 hour after we had left. cool. we cooked dinner then played more board games, including poker, and also got in the hot tub again.

sunday: we had to get up early because we had to check out of the cabin by 11am. we turned the keys in and then several of the people headed home. the car i was in headed to blowing rock, nc and had lunch at my VERY favorite bbq place in the entire world: Woodland's BBQ. There has only been one time that I went to Boone that I have not eaten there. We were considering going skiing but ended up not going because it was raining and gross outside. we tried to call several places about hiking but all sad that sunday was not a good day for it because of the weather. we were sad but headed home.

overall it was a great trip and i am really glad i got to go! i love this group of friends so much. i am so glad that i lived at village green for almost 3 years and got to make these friends!

here is a slideshow of a few pictures from the weekend. I didn't take as many as I would have liked but there are a bunch of the cool cabin we stayed in! enjoy!!!

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Happy Belated Valentine's Day!

I spent Valentine's Day with John (ofcourse) during the day and then with Claire and Ava!! I babysat them so Jen and Jason could go out on a date! It was super fun and a great way to spend Valentine's Day. I got some candy necklace kits to do with the girls and that was so fun! Enjoy the CUTE pictures below!!!!!

sweet John

Ava with her candy bracelet

Claire with her candy necklace and bracelet

sisterly love!

sweet boys

Yes I did make them pose but it was worth it! this is my favorite picture!!! And it was such a warm beautiful day. The four of us (me, john john, Nicholas and Peanut) played outside for a while to enjoy the weather!

sweet brothers

this is right after John rolled over for the second time!!!!! he has been rolling from stomach to back the whole time i have been working but on tuesday he finally rolled over from back to stomach!! i have been working with him the whole time so i was definitely a proud nanny!! :-)

my room

as requested, here are pictures of my room. i will post more of the apartment soon but i hope this will suffice for now.

that door leads out to my personal balcony with my very own storage unit!

lame picture of my bathroom but it is fairly small. but still cute!

view of my bed. the bed frame is currently MIA. also i am standing in a little foyer in my room. behind me is my ridiculously huge walk in closet. i have so much space!!! i am getting my grandpa's desk soon though so then i will have more angles to take from.