Carolina's part 2- SC & Charlotte

Here are a couple of pictures from the first post that I just downloaded from my phone... then we will start Part 2!

At the baseball game in Greenville.

Corbin loved Splashville in downtown Asheville...

Conner and Corbin playing in the water.

Part 2 of our trip was spent mostly in Charleston, SC and a few days in Charlotte, NC. After the wedding we still had a night at the rental house and we wanted to have one more day of just taking it slow before heading off to Charleston. We ate at an awesome southern Carolina style BBQ with my parents and Jed and Kara before taking off, 12 Bones. We got there at about 11:30 and by 12, the line was around the side of the building.

We then took off for a scenic drive down the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was thunder-storming and huge rain thunder heads blocked a lot of our views and kept us in the car instead of going on a little hike. We then headed up to Kelcey and Alex's for the night even though they were not there. It was nice and relaxing to have it just be our family and be up in the woods all snuggled in. The next day we headed down to South Carolina and Charleston.

After much searching for an affordable place to stay in Charleston that was both close to the beach and to downtown, we found a great little two bedroom, two bath Condo in Mt. Pleasant. It was the perfect place for us. It was a convenient drive from all attractions and we all had our own sleeping space. Eliza slept in the bathroom and Corbin in his own room! We had a little pond right outside our window with turtles, fish, and ducks! And a pool in the complex. It was really nice to spend 4 nights here.

We headed into downtown Charleston the first day. Wow, what a beautiful old city! We had to tame down our site seeing with the kids in mind but I think we still got to see a lot. It was hot but the breeze from the water was good.

An old Theater.

Very cool architecture. Some of the building's were from the 1770's and some were from the 1800's too. Lots of cool little alley ways and garden areas.

Another cool thing about them all was how they built their porches. Instead of building them on the front, they built narrow houses and the porches were all on the sides. It was funny to see their front doors actually lead to the porch instead of straight into the house. They were also all angled along the coast/board walk so that the wind would blow through the houses and cool them off.

The old downtown part of the city is very affluent. Almost all the houses are restored and beautiful gardens and lots. One street we walked down had only BMW's, Lexus, and Mercedes parked along it. But then right next to the freeway was the housing projects. You could feel the under current of racism and "segregation" in the city.

Eliza did an amazing job of just going with the flow the whole trip. She napped when she could and wherever she could. I remember Corbin doing this when we traveled with him when he was 1 yrs old too. While in Charleston we started to move nap times a little later and towards west coast time, it seemed to work pretty well. That way we could do a bunch in the morning and go back to the condo around 3 and take a nap till 5 and then get some food after.

Speaking of food. Adam spent a lot of time trying to find the best places to eat. He did a great job and we enjoyed many good southern and just plain good food. I think we both gained 5 lbs! Eliza also lived off of macaroni and cheese. She ate more than Corbin did. We would order a side item for them each time and she would almost always eat more than he did. I don't think either one of them ate a veggie the whole time...

The Unitarian Church Graveyard was very cool. They have not maintained any of the gardens or plants, trees, flowers, shrubs in the graveyard. They kept the paths clear but other than that they just left it be wild. It was very fun and somewhat "creepy" literally!

Like I said, our condo had a pool. Corbin has not spent much time in the pool since we took lessons when he was really little. At first he was holding onto Adam for dear life. He would not let go. Then all of a sudden he got a hang of the floaty things and was off! He just went "swimming" holding onto the floaties, nothing else! He had so much fun!

Eliza on the other hand...she is pretty fearless with most stuff but the deep water was apparently different. She has never really been swimming yet. She loves the bath but I think she could tell this was different. She cried and cried and clung to me. She did not like it when Adam went under water and came up. She did not like me letting go of her and leaving her with Adam. Finally after 3 days of the pool when we were in Charlotte, she liked it. I signed her up for some pool time in August here in Bham. Hopefully she will like it.

We had planned on going to the beach on the 2nd day but woke up to pouring down rain and 80 degrees. So we opted for the Aquarium instead....

After nap we decided to venture out to the beach at 5:30 pm. We packed snacks and all of our stuff and headed to the Atlantic Ocean at Isle of Palms County Park. Unfortunately the park closed at 7pm, so we only had a short amount of time...but it was still nice. And even at 6pm the water was warm and amazing!

Corbin again loved it! He had so much fun in the waves with Adam. He could have stayed forever. We had to drag him out.
Eliza was not so fond of it, again. But she did like the sand. She ate enough of it!

The next day we went to the Farmer's Market in downtown. It was big and there were lots of yummy farm fresh veggies and fruit. And arts. We enjoyed some ice cream at 10 am. Then we headed to the beach. We spent 3-4 hours enjoying the beach before the thunder started rolling in. Again, Corbin LOVED it! He would have just walked in and done it himself if he could have. I got some good sun lounging. Eliza even got so tired that I just held her in my arms and rocked her a little and she was FAST asleep! I laid her down behind my chair and made a little shade tent for her. She probably slept for 40 min- 1 hr! I got some beach reading in too! And Corbin and I made a sand castle while Adam attempted some body surfing.

The tide almost made it to our little spot of sand before Eliza woke up. I was trying to figure out how I was going to move her back without waking her up. But it never reached us! We spent about 30 minutes trying to get out of the parking lot along with everyone else and the mass exodus when the rain and thunder hit. Then had a fatty dinner at Jack's Cosmic Dogs.

The next morning we headed back to North Carolina and Charlotte for 2 nights. On our way back we had to stop and eat a picnic lunch somewhere along the highway. The kids were melting down so we stopped at a gas station to ask if there was a town with a park or something near by. We found a city park in a small town at the next exit. Corbin played with a little boy who was at the park with his grandma. I am sure we looked very out of place and very non-southern. It was hot.

We spent two nights at the Embassy Suits in Charlotte and returned our rental car. There is not too much to do without a car and two small children so we took the light rail into the city and wen to the Science Museum. It was a pretty cool museum and very nice and cool!

Adam on a bed of nails.

We got some more pool time in. Free drinks each night at the manager's reception and free hotel breakfast buffet. Hotel food is not the best food.
We loaded up all of our stuff, way too much. And headed home on Eliza's first birthday!

Happy 1st Birthday, Eliza Jolie!

We had a great trip. A few other things I learned about the south besides the obvious and noticed were...
They still use Styrofoam in the south
A lot more people smoke cigarettes
People dress up all the time
Air conditioning is set at 68 degrees and feels wonderful. Which is the temperature here this week and feels cold
It rained almost every day there but people say it rains here all the time...

We made it home with a pretty good flight again. Eliza made friends with everyone around us towards the end of the flight because she needed to move around. When we were 17 miles from home both kids woke up from home and screamed the whole way home. Corbin was crazy tired. We got a good dinner in with fresh peas from our garden and even had time to open a present for Eliza before bed.

Thanks for all that helped us along the way for a great trip! I am constantly amazed by how well the kids did and how adaptable they were. Traveling with kids is different but still doable. Next time I just need to pack less stuff :-)

NC part 1- Pre-wedding and wedding fun!

Ah, finally getting around to writing my part 1 for the blog. It's Friday night and we got back on Tues. but we still haven't found our groove being back. Our house is a disaster and we are both too exhausted to do anything after the kids go to sleep. But I wanted to write a few highlights from our trip. Sorry it's a big epic!

It was a GREAT trip. Our kids did a great job. They truly amazed me. We saw great people, great things, and celebrated two amazing people!

Eliza was walking before we left but she went from some crawling to no crawling. I think she perfected it in the airport during our lay-over in Denver. They both did a great job on the airplanes. They both lost it while we had to wait on the runway to get off the plane in Charlotte but it was short lived.

Adam blogged on Numble about all our food experiences while on our trip. Our first real night in Asheville we had some yummy food on the deck of our rental house. Our view was amazing.

Another highlight from the trip was getting to see one of my oldest and best friends and her family, Kelcey. She lives outside of Asheville and I don't get to see her often enough. We were originally planning on staying with her for 5 days after the wedding but our plans had to change because of a death in her husband's family and the memorial service was for the same week as we were supposed to be there. Life throws you curve balls but the small amount of time we got was better than none! We felt a little like star crossed lovers too because on the day we were supposed to go and see her and have the kids play, Corbin got croup the night before. Seriously! It was not too bad but it was still definitely croup, which is contagious. So just Eliza, Adam and I went up to their house to play and check it out (Adam had never been there).

Even though we live so far apart, we stay connected though our blogs and similar family values. We wish we lived closer but it's pretty cool to see our kids grow up at similar ages and experiences.

We went to a minor league baseball game in Greenville, SC one night with some of Jed's buddies. Wow, was that an experience. People in the south dress up to go out to baseball games. High heels cute dresses, preppy clean cut boys in loafers. Seriously. It was also packed. A minor league game. We lasted in the stands for about 5 minutes. Good thing they had a play ground and a hill to run down. Eliza was like a crazy girl, way past her bed time. So was Corbin.

But the ice cream was melty. The hot dogs were good. It was hot. And Corbin loved the sprayers they had misting all the kids. Corbin was dead tired but managed to stay awake the whole 1 + home. Talking the whole way.

We got another day of play in with Kelcey and her kids at the local children's museum. Adam had as much fun as they did.

And now for the real wedding events! First I would like to talk a little about my brother and Kara. As soon as Jed told me about her, I liked her. Then I met her and I love her instantly. She seemed like the perfect match for my brother. She equals and matches him in so many respects. She is smart. She is funny. She is fiery. She is active and willing to try new things (like skiing, biking, camping, etc) that my brother loves to do. She is handy and independent. She works tirelessly for those without voices and those without. She is politically active. She constantly amazes me and I am now honored to call her my sister-in-law. She is perfect for my brother and I am so happy for them both.

The rehearsal.

After the rehearsal we went back to the house and had a BBQ. Of course of all days that Corbin did not nap, it was this day. He was a little crazy. We all almost lost it at this point... but it was fun to see some old friends and some of my brothers/parents friends from long ago.

The day of the wedding. Jed and Kara planned/did the whole thing themselves. They are a little more disorganized that feels good for me but they still always manage to make it come out perfect in the end anyway. The ceremony was planned for 6:30 pm. At first this felt really late to me but after spending a week in the South, I realized why! It was fun to see everyone dressed up. It think everyone looked amazing!

Buppa and Ellie.

Mom and son. My mom looked absolutely stunning in her dress! And my brother so handsome in his suit!

And I know I am a little biased but I think Corbin and Eliza were just too cute in their cute little seersucker outfits!

And Adam cleaned up real nice too! He really wanted a suit jacket and although we were in the south a lighter jacket would have been nice, it would not be a good choice for events up here in the great NW. He was sweating just standing there and only kept his jacket on for pictures. But he looked HOT to me!

Kara's nephew, Conner, stayed with us. He is 5 going on 6. He was so great with Corbin the whole time. It was cute, he was dressed in the preppy southern attire with blue seersucker and a crisp white shirt, white socks and loafers. Corbin was casual NW in brown seersucker, linen embroidered casual white shirt, and flip flops!

The ceremony was amazing. It was heartfelt, personal, funny, hot, and very loving. I of course was not able to pay as much attention to it as I would have liked making sure that Corbin was not swimming in the river, yelling, or throwing rocks/sand and that Eliza stayed content.

They had no just one wedding cake but 9! Too many choices! But all good!!

In the south it's customary to make a grooms man cake. Usually it's from the college you went to but for Jed he wanted Red Sox. So he and I made a red velvet cake and Adam decorated it. Yes, you heard it, the Mariner's fan decorated a Red Sox cake!

A piece of New England down south from Tucker Mt. Co-op sugar house.

Me and Kelcey!

It was a gorgeous night for a gorgeous couple. A wonderful wedding. Fun seeing old friends & family, meeting new people/family. It was so much fun to celebrate these two amazing people.