We had a couple days of beautiful, humidity-free days here in Myrtle Beach. But the typical South Carolina summer weather has returned. Before I melt, let me get started with the Thursday Rundown…

Meeting a Star – Today I had the opportunity to meet Nikko Austen Smith, a cast member on the OWN television show “Queen Sugar.” How did such a thing happen? Well, Nikko is actually a CCU alumna. In fact, she just graduated in May! She auditioned for the show right before commencement and got the role. She returned to campus today to give an interview about all the exciting developments in her life (as always, Robin Russell did a spectacular job). She was gracious enough to grant me time to take photos and video of her for future social media content. Nikko is an individual with a BIG personality and no ego. It was a pleasure to meet her.

Nikki Austen Smith and I this morning (I did not mean to focus the photo on me…I feel like a jerk!).

Subway Drive Thru – Depending on where you live in the country, you might have Subway restaurants with drive thrus. Here in South Carolina, it is very common. As we can all guess, ordering a hamburger at a drive thru is much different than ordering a sub sandwich. A lot more can go wrong when you are ordering different types of breads, cheeses, veggies, and sauces. Because of this, I usually just go inside at Subway and order at the counter. Last Saturday, with Sloan comfortably in her car seat, we decided to use the drive thru. Although the sandwich artist only made one error on my sandwich (I didn’t want it toasted) it was the wait that made me wish we had went inside. With only a couple cars in front of us, it took about 15 minutes for us two get our two subs.

A photo I took at the Subway drive thru last Saturday.

A Resemblance? – On Sunday, I sent a photo to our very active Reser Pride 5.0 text messaging thread (it includes my immediate family and our significant others) of Sid, Sloan, and me at the bowling alley. It took just a second for my brother to respond with “Brent! Sloan looks just like you in that photo.” You be the judge. Here is a comparison that includes the photo that I sent to our text group and a couple photos of me when I was young.

Do you see a resemblance? The photo in the top corner is just a zoomed in photo of Sloan from the family photo. The two other small photos are of me.

Flying with Baby – A year ago on this date, Sloan flew on an airplane for the first time. We stressed ourselves out over how she would do on a cross country flight but she ended up doing great. If you are flying with a child for the first time, just make sure to relax and don’t care what other people think. For the most part, passengers will be understanding. Next week, Sloan will embark on her third plane trip. Traveling with a 16-month-old is different than traveling with a 4-month-old or a 9-month-old (Sloan’s ages on her other two trips) but we know she, and us, will survive.

Sidney and Sloan on the plane exactly one year ago today.

National Pecan Pie Day – Today we recognize one of the best desserts there is in this world. Treating yourself to a warm slice of pecan pie every now and then, especially on National Pecan Pie Day, is always okay. BUT, let me just reiterate that my Southern friends have it correct when it comes to the pronunciation of pecan – it is PEE-can, not PEE-con. Come on everyone, you pronounce it phonetically. Okay, enough with my lecture, go enjoy some dessert.

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Things are getting very, very busy for our family. Hope everyone else is in a good spot right now. Thanks for taking time to read my blog and I wish you a wonderful summer weekend. Don’t Blink.