A Day at the Beach

We are quite spoiled and go to the beach all the time, but it's often just a quick (and somewhat tiring) break between other things. However, two weeks ago we managed to have an actual relaxing day at the beach. My uncle and cousins were staying at Sunset Beach, which is just a little over an hour from here, and we were able to spend a whole day with them relaxing and enjoying life.

We arrived around 10:30 that morning, and after my children roused the last two sleepy heads out of bed (nothing like waking to the gentle sounds of a herd of children running through the house screaming in excitement), we were on the beach by 11am. We played until around 1:00, and then we stumbled back into their beach house for a late lunch. We we hermits all afternoon, staying inside while the sun was its hottest. Both of my brothers and my sister-in-law arrived around 2:30 that afternoon, and their appearance just encouraged our air conditioner time. By 4pm, the kids were zombies from too many hours of video games, so we wandered back out to the water. We played for a couple more hours before eating a monster seafood feast. The only strange part of the day (aside from the fact that the fish for dinner was imported from Lake Erie!) was remembering that we actually had to return to real life the next day.

Charleston

We ran away from the kids. See Part 1 of our adventures here.

Hey Jewel, Leon, Mike, and Talia!

Yesterday we walked, and walked, and walked. We left our hotel around 10:45 in the morning, and we didn't get back until about 5:45 last night. In between, we saw lots of downtown Charleston. We stopped for food, too. We had lemonade at Chick-Fil-A, lunch at an Irish Pub, and we found a Godiva store that served swirl waffle cones dipped in chocolate. (The ice cream cones were bigger than your head!) Here are a few of the things we saw yesterday.

We walked by the campus of the College of Charleston. Their mascot is a cougar.

The city sits on a peninsula, like Wilmington does. The Cooper River runs alongside, and there is lots to see in the river. A famous battle in the Civil War took place at Ft. Sumter.

You can see a battleship.

We drove over an enormous bridge to get to downtown. (Jewel, you would've loved it!)

There are tons of big, old houses. They are really, really tall.

You can take carriage rides to see the houses.

You can see old battle stuff, too.

It was lots of fun, but even we wanted uppies after walking all day. We relaxed for awhile in our room, then we walked to dinner, which thankfully, wasn't too far away. We went to a local restaurant that had the best fried chicken EVER. Dad also got some collards, and I got okra and tomatoes. It was awesome.

Today we are off to Charlotte to see Liverpool. See you soon!

Love,

Mom