Charleston South Carolina - Winter Break Escape!!

 The first plantation stop would have been missed if not for the need of a potty stop - it is RIGHT off the highway going up highway 17 and according to google, doesn't exist.  Weird.  Anyway it was right off the highway and more of a gift shop than a true plantation.. but still very pretty and neat to go into the house and see most of the rooms.

 As is typical this is a "girls" trip and here are the girls :o)

 This is a A joggling or jostling board there is a large workup in wikipedia on it.  Interesting and the first one we saw of MANY over the weekend :o)

Just a nice view inside the tree - as seen below with ME in the picture (thanks mom for letting the world know I went too)

 I do love the HUGE live oaks all over the southeastern seaboard... I wonder why the don't grow with long low limbs like that out here?  maybe they just didn't plant them out here?

 the view from our hotel - the standing joke is "the tides out" or in... I love tides and grass... not sure why, I just do.  I get a kick out of the tide raising and lowering.  That's charleston that you see in the distance

 Day 1 - our first tour.  We managed to see a LOT of the town this way... and figured out where we wanted to go from there :o)

 On the sea wall overlooking James Island.

 What we didn't know was that the Southeast Wildlife Expo was in town and is every Presidents day weekend - lesson learned there - this is NOT a presidents day weekend destination :o) 

http://www.sewe.com/  if you wanted more info~!

We went BACK to battery park (sea wall photo above is right next to this...) to CLIMB trees!  This is something you can NOT do in most places with the long low limbs, however, we had seen a few folks parked their bikes in the park and hung hammocks from the limbs, so fair game in my books!! 

 Angela opted to try for the lower tree.. she's not as adventurous as Liz is when it comes to putting herself in danger on limbs... she didn't get very far.  There are a couple of teenagers trying this same tree... one was farther up when I took a few of these shots - just out of range.  one was WAY in the middle of the tree.  Liz didn't get quite that far.

 gratuitous cannon shot, then we went back to the car to drive back through town and check out the "doc dogs" - however we found out the hard way that NO ONE wanted to go... I thought they wanted to go, they thought I wanted to go.  Ha!  We didn't go see the dogs, we stayed in the park to watch the sunset - per Angela's request.  So we got turned around and on the main road you can see in the background above and parked again... however, this time Mom would be able to watch the sunset from the warmth of the car :o)

 I debated putting this one in here... self portrait and a typical kid shot.. It's just so US...

Day two since we opted out of the Doc Dogs, we headed to Magnolia plantations (http://www.magnoliaplantation.com/) to supposedly take a boat tour of the swamps and bird preserves.  we were about a month too early and it's still considered winter and the boat is NOT open yet - bummer!  So we took the cart tour instead - still just as nice, but a bit chilly on the long runs...  And of course the petting zoo was a hit with the girls.  Rightly so if you can feed a bunny AND and albino peacock :o)

 On the walking tour around the house. 

 this looks out toward the river in the distance...just past the little line of trees that had a small land bridge by the river... nice peaceful walk with some of the trees just coming into bloom.. you'll see that a little farther down...

 Relaxing on the DOUBLE size porch overlooking the grounds... very nice!!

 This is a well published bridge... been in a lot of southern magazines.. have you noted that Liz isn't in any of these shots?  She went off on her own on the hiking path.. we seriously thought we had lost her for a bit there... she was about 1/2 mile away at the most... but had to RUN back to the house through the maze of trails to find us...

 speaking of mazes...this is a large hedge (topiary?) maze :o)

 on the cart headed out to the swamps and old rice areas..it's a little breezy and slightly chilly, but not bad...

 Even the gators were sunning along with the turtles :o)

Old slave cabins.

 wildlife...

 Spanish moss and low limbs...

 The house... beautiful, isn't it?

 So... after the plantation, we went to the outlet mall to shop a bit.  Found just a few things for the girls (tanks and Rue)... then went for a drive over the north side of Charleston, down to the island there.  Looked at all the ocean front homes and drooled.  Then headed back through Charleston and out the other side to Folly beach.  This is where the girls are right now... on the playground at Folly.  they went out on the beach itself to get some shells and such... then we went to a nice dinner at a sea side shack.  Good food...

Look who's out of braces! (For now!)

She's in her retainer even - it's the new "Invisalign" type... pretty cool, eh?

Random photos

Ok, I have put captions on this sheet MULTIPLE times and the dang pictures keep shifting, so you get what you get on the text on these... %^&*( pictures!!!
This is what happens to pots when you let them freeze, it's NOT all the way through; just the outer shell is cracked off - weird.

Liz, the adventure girl got a short hair cut this year. Winter not withstanding... she got this right before the horse show. It's cute, however has to be COLD in this weather. The hairdresser loves the fact that the girls will try new haircuts all the time :o)


Mom wanted to go see the Lipizanne stallions... so we went with her friend, Dad and the girls. Had a great time watching all the pretty horses preform

Fun show!

The ill fated plane that blew it’s engine on take off.

Another first – the only time I have used an emergency exit to exit the plane above and enter the new one as well – they didn’t have any stairs at this airport – it wasn’t meant to handle this size jet. Good thing the runway was long enough :o\

Fog coming into Norfolk from the sea

The first part of the tunnel and seagull pier going across the bay. On the way back from a road trip we passed directly under two large ships – one going out to see on the first tunnel (longest one) and one coming into port on this very tunnel

The same tunnel seen from the surface. Very cool thing to see.

Fish Taco’s at Aqua in Cape Charles. We had dinner the night before at Croakers (I had fried flounder/shrimp/crab cake) and the night after this we went to the Waterman (?) at Virginia Beach for some peppercorn flounder. I have to find that recipe. It was very good!

This was today coming home – just cool cloud patterns

Flying and new experiences

I had a fun (?) experience with flying to Virginia last week (Tuesday).  I thought it was going to be a beautiful flight.  Hardly anyone was flying.  The airport was semi-empty.  There were a lot of folks milling about talking about their cancelled flights into the north and central US with the storm that was ripping through the states.  The plane was mostly empty every other seat unoccupied – unusual in this day and age of flying.

Our take off was directly into the LOW clouds as it was foggy, misty, dreary day in Atlanta.  We're just into the clouds and BOOOOOMMMMMMM with a slight shutter, then silence.  No one is screaming, no one is talking, just quite.  We're not dropping, there is no smoke - however, no one is coming over the intercom to address what just happened.  Everyone waits very patiently (and quietly) - it's VERY quiet in every way - amazing when you're NOT going fast how quiet airplanes are.  There is little or no wind noise; there is no engine noise from climbing.

The flight attendant finally came on and told us the pilot would tell us what happened when he could and assured us he was probably pretty busy making sure everything is OK.  Gee, I HOPE he is busy trying to keep us in the air!!

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‎‎5 minutes later, the pilot finally comes on and tells us we have an engine problem.. ya think?  Is it back on the ground from take off?  The pilot first said we were to land in Columbia South Carolina; however we only managed to limp to Augusta.

If ever there was a silver lining to this story is that due to the storms and the huge number of cancelled flights due to the storm, they were able to fly us a plane up in a matter of hours, not day - and not shuttling us all back in puddle jumpers to Atlanta.  We arrived in Norfolk at 6:30pm instead of 2:30 pm, however could have been a LONG day long or more process to get us all out of there had it been a full flight and a regular flying day.

A few accomplishments...

Today put in two new sets of door locks - and have them rekeyed to a single set of keys... now to start the replacement from brass to stainless through the house... three done... 12 more to go (give ore take)

• Kitchen
     • Tile in the kitchen backsplash
     • Paint the kitchen (ok, these have to go in order – tile first – THEN paint
• Master bathroom
     • Paint the ceiling with the new ceiling paint I just purchased
     • Paint the walls to match the brown in the potty room.
• Have the living room painted (by someone else)
     • I would LOVE to get some crown molding put up at the same time….
• Trees:
• Call the dentist
• Install screen door
• Paint the front door frame
• Sprinklers:
     • Find the sprinkler box UNDER the ground from when the wall was put in a year ago…
     • Get the new sprinklers laid
     • Borrow the trencher and put the new sprinklers

The list is shrinking... slowly, but it's shrinking... and what did I do this weekend?  NOTHING!!

One more project DONE!!

And without lifting a finger - just having an opinion on placement between leaving work and going to my Dr's appointment - now that's a trick! 

Now everyone say a prayer that these lovely trees grow and fill in and make a very PRIVATE backyard and lovely little oasis for our world...

For those wondering they are Cryptomeria - Japanese Cedars - although looking up everything they really aren't a true Cedar - which makes me happy as Mom is allergic to Cedars.  They should get HUGE and fill in nicely.  I'm hoping for at least a 2' growth this next year and continued as time goes on.... everyone say a prayer they all do well and flourish!!

One HUGE project done...

...during... not sure why I never seem to remember to do a "before" shot!

After - 1

After - 2

OK, so the thing was, I got the wild hair to check ONE thing off my "to do" list.. and thought, why not the ceiling?  I got started painting... near the sink and completely ran out of ceiling paint.  Crap!  Popcorn ceilings SUCK up paint.  So... I went to Lowe's, and thought while I was going, i would pick up the wall color too.  Just in case I decided to get REALLY ambitious. 

Well, I got the WRONG color.  I picked up the paint chip for the front door instead of the bathroom - can you say CAVE dark??  Yeah, that color is sitting in the garage now waiting on a project for someone, anyone to use it on. 

So... I go BACK to Lowe's and get the correct color - in for a penny, in for a pound, right?  I get the ceiling painted and decided that yep, while on a roll, get the walls done too.  I cut in all the walls and I think I got the first coat on before dinner.  Then sliced my finger wide open making taco salad of all things.  Yikes... however was determined to get the 2nd coat on the wall and be DONE with this tonight. 

This is the end result.  Every time I would sit down and relax - as in for dinner, I got sooo stiff, I figured I had BETTER get it ALL done tonight or it will NEVER get wrapped up tomorrow!  I did get some trim paint too, however, that will wait for another day, I'm afraid!!

Lighting throws these pictures off, shading etc.  I'll try and get some with natural light tomorrow.