Saturday, August 27, 2022

Spring Break 2022: Charleston

 The last stop on our southern spring break tour:
Charleston, SC
Went on a short walk to the waterfront

This great egret was not at all shy and
just hung out right on the railing.

We watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the musical.
It was great!
I especially loved the special effects at the end
when Mike Teevee gets shrunk.

Got lunch at the Tattooed Moose.
One of Whitney's things she loves to do is to eat
at independent, local restaurants.
It's fun to try new places with her. 
It was pretty good.
They had elotes (street corn), which made
Whit and me SO happy.

Explored downtown Charleston a bit.
It was more crowded and difficult
to get around than Savannah.
I like Savannah more.


They have a great big market for makers,
which the girls LOVED.
Care Bear found an air plant in an adorable little
concrete pot. And I got some really cute silver
earrings that are modeled after some famous
gates in Charleston. I guess that's a thing in Charleston,
lots of fancy homes with fancy gates.
But we didn't get to see that part.

We also got to spend a couple hours serving while 
we were in Charleston.
I had been in contact with a nonprofit called 
Pay It Forward Projects.
They purchase homes, renovate them, and then 
rent them out to homeless families affordably.

They were just about ready for a family
to move into this home, so we got to
help clean it up and get it all ready for them.
What a great project!
So grateful we could help a bit.

And, finally, Care Bear chose to have us do an
aerial silks class while we were in Charleston.
We went to Aerial Fit and had a semi-private
lesson with a very nice man named Clayton.
It's always interesting to see how different
instructors teach differently.
My girls are so good.



Our teacher was great because he would give
Whitney and I kind of easy things to work on
and then he would take a few minutes with Caroline
and give her something harder to do.
It was perfect.

I am NOT good at this.
It hurts my feet.
And my muscles.

But it does give me a greater appreciation for
all the stuff that Care Bear can do.
And make it look pretty!
And easy!


Clayton was the first instructor to teach C how to
do a foot lock! But then it was kinda awkward because
she didn't want to tell Sabrina that she had learned
how to do it. So she just waited until Sabrina taught
her a few weeks later. Ha!


It was a fabulous spring break! We got to see so much and make lots of fun memories. Hard to believe it's our last spring break with Whit at home. Glad we could do a lot of things that she loves.

Tuesday, August 23, 2022

Spring Break 2022: Savannah

The fun continued in Savannah, GA.
We got there in the evening and got checked in to our hotel.
It was near a full moon, so I wanted to go watch the moon
rise over the ocean, which is one of my very favorite things
to do. The beach was about a half hour drive from our hotel.
Andrew and Caroline didn't want to come, but Whit joined me.
It was awesome!
We drove to Tybee Island,
where they have a lighthouse.
I loved this night sight photo from my phone.

It was chilly and windy.
We took our beach chairs out and sat and watched.

It wasn't quite as spectacular as the last one I got to
watch, because there were clouds on the horizon.

But when the moon popped up between the clouds...
So cool!

Windy hair, palm trees, and hoodies.


Poor Andrew woke up the next day with a migraine.
And he knew he had packed his headache medicine,
but he couldn't find it. So he tossed and turned for 
most of the night. Luckily, our hotel room had a separate
front room with a closing door, so he moved out there
sometime in the night so he wouldn't wake the rest
of us up.

Since he had slept so poorly, he went back to bed in the morning 
(after he found his missing medicine).
The girls set off on adventures
in the morning without him.
First stop: SCAD story.
Marianne and I went last year and LOVED it.
I knew the girls would love it, too.
We all wanted to enroll in art school by the time
it was finished.

Their gift shop had some fun art displays, too.

Love the architecture around town!

Fun doors!

Andrew called when he was feeling better
and we ran to the hotel to pick him up.
We decided to get lunch at Mellow Mushroom.
Loved their fun sign.
DIDN'T love the service there.
I'm so glad this wasn't my first visit there or I would
never go back. It took FOREVER. And then our waiter
told us that the cooks had dropped one of our pizzas
and had to make it again. I think it was an hour and a half
ordeal to get our lunch. And it wasn't even very busy. Ugh.

Then we walked around some of their fun shops.
Great Wall of Candy

Yummy gelato.

Andrew's foot was still in a good amount of pain from
surgery. He did as much walking as he could handle
and then would sometimes just sit and wait for us 
while we went in the cute shops.

Aren't these colorful purses so pretty?

To walk down to the riverfront, 
you have to take these super steep
historic steps.

Use at your own risk!
Luckily, we were safe.
They have a free public trolley that drives around Savannah.
It was great!

Love this mural

Down by the river

Jumping pic

I love this pic of me and Andrew.
Almost all of our pictures together
are selfies.

Hobbling back up the historic steps.

More cool architecture.


We stopped at Forsyth Park.
The big live oaks with the Spanish Moss hanging
from them are just spectacular!
I love the vibe there.



Magnolias were in bloom.

Beautiful fountain in the middle.

Handstands


More Qwixx


We did an escape room together the next morning.
It was haunted doll themed and kinda creepy.
But we made it out!

Then we drove back to Tybee Island in the daytime.
We thought we would go swimming.

But it was SO windy and cold.
We just chilled on the beach for a bit.

Long enough to take a jumping pic.

Care Bear and I went for a walk down the beach.
Saw this guy kite surfing, which was pretty cool.


Not many people on the beach!

When we were sufficiently cold and sandy,
we packed up and headed to an arcade.
I had looked up two different ones.
One of them had go-karts, so decided to head there.
Care Bear and I loved them.
Whitney didn't like it much.
Andrew had fun, but felt like he was too big for the carts.
And the arcade games there were lame.

So we headed to the other arcade I looked up. Ha!
Some of the games we wanted to play were broken,
but we still had fun and got to buy some stuff with our tickets.
We played a round of laser tag, too.

Last stop of the day: Leopold's Ice Cream.
It's apparently an iconic place in Savannah.
Which means the line goes all the way down the block.
Andrew's foot can't handle standing that long, 
so we held our place in line while he found a place to sit.

Yummy!
Loved it.
Care Bear tried something brave, I think it was Rose Petal.
The first few bites were delicious,
but then it got old.
The rest of loved ours.

The next morning, we packed up to leave Savannah.
We stopped at Botany Bay Wilderness Preserve in SC.
We had to drive on this cool tree-covered dirt road for a bit.

You walk on this trail out to the ocean.

There's a cool wetland in between.
We saw some fun water birds.
There are supposed to be Painted Buntings there at
that time of  year, but we didn't get to see any.

When you get to the ocean, it is this awesome
driftwood cemetery!
Lesson learned for next time: You need to go at LOW TIDE.
I didn't know that and we were there at high tide.
So there was very little beach to explore.

But it was such a unique place.

Loved walking around

And finding some shells.
You are NOT allowed to take any.
They are VERY strict about it.

I've never seen a conch this big in SC

Drew wasn't able to explore much,
but he found some cool shells, too.

Sandpiper.
(I think)


Pelicans



So happy we could spend some time exploring
this place. I'd love to go back sometime.



See that snowy egret out there?

On our drive out to Botany Bay, we passed this restaurant
that looked so cute. I knew nothing about it, but offered
it as an idea to stop for a late lunch/early dinner.

It was FANTASTIC.
All of us LOVED it.



So happy to spend this time exploring with my fam.
The world is GORGEOUS and I love seeing new parts of it.