What a great summer!

Hey there, hi there and hello there to one and all. What a cool summer it has been, literally and figuratively. South Carolina has had the collest summer in decades rarely getting over 100, which has been nice! While we have had a good bit of fun with travels and visitors to boot, July kicked my butt ... literally with a nice fall off my bike while training 17 miles away from home, then a broken hand playing soccer followed up by a biff off my stationary bike!
The Duck has seen its fair share of shakeup with a new Chief Operating Officer here at Aflac Group starting tomorrow, should be fun! Our teams have been rockin' and rollin' amidst a busy business planning season which has led to numerous heel clicks in the hallway succeses:) Our Fun Friday activities continue every week and Music Mondays are in full swing with a new playlist entitled, O No You Didn't Nate, featuring Gwen Stefani, Miley Cyrus and N'SYNC of course:) Hard to believe it's been five months up at Group, but I couldn't be happier with such a great team that make all the hours at work not seem so much well, like work! We also started our mentoring progeam up in Columbia called TEACH, which is basically a classifieds for mentees/mentors to help connect employees throughout the company to opprtunities to learn and grow, a great way to spend my "other duties as assigned:)"
So the volunteer front has been pickin' up a bit too, mostly with United Way. A couple months ago I reached out to the United Way to see if we could organize an event and last Saturday we held our 1st Annual Aflac Groupo Day of Action where over 40 Aflac employees, family and friends volunteered at four different sites throughout the Midlands, including my wife, mom and sister:) I also joined the steering committee for Young Leader Society on the volunteer committee, and they loved the Time for Art idea, so hopefully get to present it in the coming weeks and pull off for the Spring! Jenny has also been rockin' the volunteer action making nearly 50 Courage Capes for children with cancer at the hospital she works at, pretty inspirational I must say!
Mom and Steph also joined for an amazingly wonderful weekend full of sun, pool action and some travel.  We played a lot of cards, even in the pool (thanks Tracy:)  After the volunteer action we visited the local farmers market and some sushi before our Sunday excursion to Charleston.  We had fun driving down to the historic city on a great historic carriage ride through the city.  Tasty seafood and a stop to the Atlantic so Steph could stick her toes in for the first time, always great to have visitors!!
Jenny's birthday week was in full swing during August with a surprise visit to the ATL for the Bodies Exhibit, Cheesecake Factory and a concert with our good pals the Demkos, fantacular good time.  O, and then this past weekend we had the chance to go to the Childrens' Trust benefit gala where we boogied on the dance floor and Jenny dominated yet another silent auction.
The ol' doctorate is hummin' along as well as I just finished one of my last elective courses in HR leadership. I actually had a whole week off, so I have started on the dissertation Chapter 1, one page at a time is the motto.  While I have that goin' on, we're also still training for the half-ironman the end of September.  Today marked our longest workout, 2 hours on the bike and a six mile run, feelin' it a bit I must say.  While training is OK, I think I prefer some soccer or other sport that doesn't include hills and has substitutions:)
This next month is going to be pretty awesome I must say starting this week at Aflac, we are finishing up our United Way campaign and are on target to hit our 10% participation goal, fingers crossed.  Then I get my cast off this Thursday (thank goodness) which is also the day Jenny and I voyage down to the happiest place on Earth, Disney World with Tyler and Lucia, going to be epic.  Then a trip to Boston for a wedding followed by our 6.5 hour workout for the Ironman, I'm already tired, I should probably go to bed:)
Nate