Vacation Part II

After our little jaunt to Fort Sumter, we decided it would be fun to drive around to see some of the architecture before parking to do some walking around and shopping!  In a great attempt to see what is referred to as "Rainbow Row" we drove down by the waterfront and looked at the colorful houses, it was only later that we realized we did not actually see the real "Rainbow Row," we just saw a few colorful houses--which is apparently a thing in Charleston!

Pink House

Coral House

For the record, this is what Rainbow row is supposed to look like (picture taken from the internet)

 Charleston is also home to many many beautiful churches:

And awesomely named streets, here I am with my namesake:

King Street Love

After some shopping and checking out the market, we went to see the pineapple water fountain and to walk by the waterside!  Along the way, I couldn't help but notice just how beautiful everything is in Charleston and how nicely everything is kept up!

Allison & Me at the pineapple fountain (along with some random kid swimming in the backgroun)

The city was so beautiful and it was nice to see some sailboats out for the day when we were there!

I also loved seeing the architecture and the horse drawn carriage rides all over the city!

simply beautiful!

And if you did not see it well enough before, here I am with King Street again!

We had quite the full day on Sunday in Charleston and came back to Allison & Jason's for a nice dinner on the grill and some Netflix before bed!  On Monday morning, Allison and I met up with my friend, Mary, who is currently in Charleston while her husband is in school at the base there.  It was great to catch up with her just a few weeks before her little girl made the arrival into the world!

Mary & me

 After breakfast, Allison and I went back to the Island, ideally for some sun time, but by the time we arrived back, it had started raining, so we grabbed a late lunch with my mom and her friend and hung out before Allison left to go back home.  It was great to get to catch up and to see their new house and I enjoyed every second of it!

Vacation Part I

Since I have all of about 5 committed readers, I thought I should get back to reporting the stories of my (sometimes boring, sometimes exciting) life!  And where better to pick up than vacation?  This is a travel blog after-all!  

Our journey starts the Saturday before Memorial Day, when the Bons and I left Richmond to head for Hilton Head Island for almost a week of fun in the sun!  The plan was for Allison and Jason to pick me up from the Island when we got there and I would head back to Charleston with them for a few days, coming back Monday evening when Andy and his friend got to town (and of course when Allison & Jason had to head back to work).  Follow along in pictures below....

No trip to South Carolina (on 95 anyway) is complete without the obligatory South of the Border pic!  Obviously Padro says Hola!

After getting in the car with Allison & Jason for the "quick" 2.5 hour drive back to Charleston, we caught up and grabbed some dinner and drinks (none for Mrs. Preggers) at a super yummy Mexican restaurant in Charleston, then headed back to their house for a relatively early bedtime!  Sunday we were up early for church, breakfast/lunch, then into the city for some touristy fun!  Allison and Jason gave many options of fun things to do, but me being the nerdy nerd that I am wanted to tour Fort Sumter, so off we went.

I have the best tour guide!

To get to Fort Sumter, you take a 20ish minute boat ride to the monument, we were some of the last people on the boat so we got to sit inside, where the air conditioner literally spilled a gallon of water out, and the carpet smelled of mildew--not a great start!  But I had two tour guides that were mapping out our post Fort Sumter tour time!

Jason & Allison diligently studying the map of Charleston

While they were mapping out our next steps, I was busy reading up on the history of Fort Sumter:

When we were coming up on the fort, we went out on the dock to see it in person and get some pictures!

It was cool to see this part of history!  I enjoyed learning about the battles fought here and to see this piece of our past.

I really only thought this picture was cool cause it looks like that dude is walking on the canon!

We snapped a few pictures and did a brief tour because we wanted to get back on the boat to grab some good seats on the way back!  Here I am with Ms. Allison and her cute pregnant belly!

Best Tour Guides in history!!!

Ummm hello!  This canon is so big, I wanted to get a picture next to it for size.  The best warning from the tour guide was to not put body parts or babies inside the canon because it could be dangerous!  It makes me wonder how many people have stuck their babies inside of the canon--why is this a warning?

We got back on the ship in time to get some bottles of water and great seats on the deck!

We had a great time at Fort Sumter and had even more fun after we finished the tour, so stay tuned for part two and three of vacation posts coming soon....

Why so long?

Well it has now officially be over a month since my last post!  There are a number of reasons for this time lapse:
1. I got a new phone and I have not yet figured out how to sync it with my blog to upload pictures automatically, so I obviously use the easier approach and just pretend like I do not need to update my blog
2. I have been BUSY with life, which is never a bad thing!
3. I was on vacation for a week in there
4. Who are we kidding, there really are not too many reasons, it is really just laziness, so hopefully I will be back up and running soon, so stay tuned, I got a lot of updates forthcoming.....

....as soon as I get my butt in gear!

Kicking it with the kiddos

About two weeks ago now (wow, I am behind), I went to Norfolk to visit with the little guys.  Tiffany had planned to work a consignment sale on Saturday while Josh and I stayed home with the kids, well after those 5 hours, I have a new-found respect for my sister--I literally do not know how she does it every.single.day!

Three little boys all under the age of 4 makes for a LOT of energy, but it was quite the fun weekend anyhow!  Since I know yall are going yeah, blah blah blah, bring on the pictures of the cuties, here they are:

Corbin would plug his ears when mom was making him a smoothie

Most precious moment ever, we were on a walk/motorcyle ride and he parks it, gets off, picks a flower and says here Auntie Lala, I got you a flower!  
Be still my beating heart!

Training to be just like Uncle Andy!

Yummy sweet potatoes!  Who cares if they go in your mouth or not, they look better as makeup anyway!

A little less messy!

Cool Dude glasses

Horrible Selfie of me, but Garrett was so enthralled by the camera, it was too cute of him not to post!

Straight chilling!

Let the belated Easter Egg hunt begin....

For the next 6 or so hours, it was all about the candy and him asking about 52 times if he could have some more candy!  Whoopsie!

About to stand!

 On Sunday, I requested a trip to the zoo, with which my sister responded "We can go, but know up front that it is going to be horrible."  I was like it's the zoo, it cant be that bad!  About an hour later as we were totting two babies in our arms while pushing the stroller and having a 3.5 year old complaining that he is still hungry, I got it!  Although, I still managed to enjoy the few good moments we had!

Minutes later, he squeezed the neck and goes, I looove loooove looove this turtle

Peacock with feathers down

Peacock with feathers out!  This was the first time I had seen this in real life!

This was the best of about 4 of these pictures that I took!  And I think it captured the day pretty well!  Corbin with his hands in the cereal, Holden on the edge of crying, Garrett not sure what is going on and my beautiful sister just grinning and bearing it all :)

My hope is that one day life will be easier and simpler for her and Josh, but until then, I will still enjoy capturing the absolute craziness of 48 hours in their household!

A great surprise...

I hope all of you mothers out there had a fabulous Mother's Day!  We kept ours pretty low key, I had my brother over, along with two friends (aka "adopted daughters") to celebrate my mom.  We grilled steaks, enjoyed baked potatoes and salads and she even got her favorite dessert--homemade Shoney's hot fudge cake!  But probably her most favorite part of the day was her mother's day surprise.

So, a little background: I moved back home last year after first selling my house, then second having the rental house I was living in sold out from under me.  So instead of finding yet another temporary address within 6 months, I just decided to move home (assuming this would be much more temporary than it has become, however life happens and you blink and it's a year later).  Anyway, my mother has graciously allowed me to live here rent free, so as to save for a future house, well I wanted to pay her back in a big way, so alas her mother's day surprise:

This will be pretty hard to top when her birthday rolls around....

Racin' Weekend

Well I feel like you are all due an update on what's been going on in my life and since it is about to be ANOTHER weekend, I figured I better get on that!  

Last Friday, I was able to babysit Kristi and Mike's little girl, Bethany while they went out to dinner for Restaurant week.  Bethany was an angel and we had fun, we even took a selfie:

On Saturday, I had the morning to get some errands and projects done and then spent the afternoon/evening with 86,000+ other Richmonders for the NASCAR race.  We had a great time, unfortunately Denny Hamlin did not pull through with a win like I had hoped for, but it was still a beautiful night for some Racin' (as a random aside, while tailgating before the game, we ran into a Candian dad and son duo here for their first race and the dad asked if it was an accent why some people call it racin' and not racing.  I told him with all the pride I could muster that us southerners do not always see fit to put the 'G' on the end of things, in fact we aren't always just racin', sometimes we are grillin' or fishin'.  I thought it was funny that even people from other countries pick up on the subtleties of our unique language down south!)

Me and Kathryn

Sunset over the racetrack

Me and Andy (he is looking very much like a die hard race fan here)

Lap # 1

Kathryn and I with our headphones on (and my sweet American Flag Sunglasses compliments of Andy)

The group watching the race!

The rest of the weekend was equally as great, we had some beautiful weather and even enjoyed a cookout with friends on Sunday, though I do not have any photographic proof of that!  But it was just such a pleasant weekend, but did not prepare me enough for the rain we would have almost all week long!

Despite the rain and tornado threats, the show must go on, we had tickets to Wicked on Tuesday night, so Kristi, Anna, CJ and myself went to dinner before hand and then attended the show in our THIRD ROW seats!  It was a really good show, I think my expectations were up too high, but I enjoyed it nonetheless!

This weekend I am off to Norfolk again to see those cute little babies and Corbin, I literally cannot wait...8 hours and counting....

Happy Birthday CJ (a little late)!

I am always so late on these, I posted one for Anna back in September but I think I was about a week late on that too, so I am just staying true to form!

CJ and I originally meet when my roommate, Sara invited her to our annual Christmas Potluck celebration.  At the time I had heard so much about CJ and was excited to meet her, I thought she was cool but I think I may have only ever seen her once or twice more during our college years.  Fast forward to Kristi's wedding and the bridal shower leading up to it, we were two of the few single girls left so we obviously bonded over being single.  

With the new Mrs. Beabout!

Kristi may have brought us together but a love of traveling, throwing parties, and adventure has made this friendship last!  It is hard to even pinpoint a date when we started hanging out but this picture from June of 2010 definitely shows we have aged a bit since some of the initial hang outs:

OMG, look how young we are?

Through the years, we have definitely grown more in out friendships and compliment each other nicely--CJ likes to drive and I like to ride along in the car and clean out her purse, console, glove box, etc.  We even survived a 10 day, mile-intensive road trip together--which really says a lot about testing the bounds of friendship!

If I suggest something, CJ is almost always up for helping out and getting involved--take for instance:

A 1920's murder mystery party:

Or tacky sweaters and singing at the nursing home:

A Virginia Tech football game or even a basketball game that we made a last minute call on to go to:

  

Plus our mutual love for all things Hokie is kinda awesome too!

 She has even made it to not one, but a few southside speedway races with me and Osl:

We share a love for the holidays and get so excited about Christmas:

And this past Christmas, she even got to take part in Williams Family Christmas Breakfast (my mom's side of the family) as she was in town on Christmas day!

I am so thankful for your friendship, CJ and am truly blessed to have a friend as awesome as you!  You are a person of great generosity, you put up with my (seemingly) uncontrollable desire to straight and organize, and you are just a great role model of what a true friend should be!  Thanks for always having my back and I hope your birthday was as great as you!