A Visit to South Carolina

Last week the girls, my mom, and I traveled to South Carolina to visit family friends for a few days.  A few years ago the pastor of my parents' church and his family moved down there to join a church and they are now starting their own church there.  Mike is actually the pastor who married Ben and me and my mom is really good friends with his wife, Bonny.  Ms. Bonny is also an identical twin so she just loves my girls!  A few months ago mom asked me if I would want to go visit them so we set the trip up.  We flew down on Sunday and flew back on Thursday.  This was actually the girls' second flight.  They flew at 5 months old when we went to Tampa for Ben's grandmother's funeral.  And I must say that I prefer flying with 5 month olds than 16 month olds!  At 5 months they don't move much and are content with being held.  At 16 months all they want to do is move and not be held!  Overall the girls did well on both flights with a few minor fussing here and there.

On the way out the flight wasn't full so we were allowed to take the car seats on to put the girls in.  Mom and I worked up a sweat getting the girls and the car seats onto the plane but once they were buckled in it was really nice not to have them riding in our laps.  A nice gentleman offered to carry the stroller to the gate for me so I didn't have to drag it up to the plane while holding a car seat and trying not to drop a baby haha.  I feel like they fussed less because they recognized that they were in their car seats and that was familiar to them.  I had Natalie for both trips.

Natalie read her favorite book "That's Not My Cow" by herself for at least 10 minutes!  They love the "That's Not My" series from Usborne books.

This has nothing to do with visiting SC but I saw it on Instagram and immediately thought of Ben!  He always says I'm a rainbow because I love all things colorful, wild, and bright.  I call him my cloud because he likes neutral colors and brings me back down to earth when I need it.  So I took a screenshot and sent it to him!

At Ms. Bonny & Mike's house there was this little bench that had a Raggedy Andy doll sitting on it.  Poor Andy got thrown to the side as the girls declared it their bench.

Noelle did not want to share the bench with her sister.

One night we took the girls outside to play and they ended up playing with the sprinkler!

Natalie (in yellow) liked it spraying over her but Noelle went right up to it and kept putting her hands right in the stream of water.

They were pretty soaked by the end.

We went into Charleston one night for dinner at a restaurant called Fleet Landing.  We got there early so we decided to stroll through Charleston a bit.  This is a picture of a building (the one on the left) that houses all sorts of open stalls for people to sell things.  It used to be a carriage house for the horse-drawn carriages back in the day.  We got there as most shops were closing up so we just browsed quickly before heading back to the restaurant.

This is some sort of customs house and it was right near a port where the cruise ships leave out of.  I don't know how much it is still used as a customs house.

The restaurant.  The food was delicious!  I recommend it if you're ever in Charleston.  The building used to be owned by the Navy and then it sat vacant for a number of years before being rebuilt into the restaurant.

After dinner we were going to walk around some more until we saw this off in the distance...we decided to do a car tour instead.

A rear view of King Street, the street where all the shopping is.  It reminded me of Fifth Avenue in NYC.

This was the street with the Rainbow Row Houses but I took the picture too late to get any of the Rainbow Row houses in it.

The Battery, a promenade/seawall next to a river.  It was used in several wars as a defensive wall.

Glad we chose the car tour!

All of the houses in Charleston were so unique!  I would love to go back and walk around to see them better.  The houses that faced The Battery were enormous!  The architecture was really neat to see as we drove by.

View of the river as we drove.

One night Ms. Bonny made spaghetti for dinner...Natalie LOVED it!

Mike reading to the girls.

Cuddled up with Ms. Bonny watching Micky Mouse. (Noelle in blue, Natalie in green)

The girls were also introduced to the iPad during the trip (anything to keep them happy on a flight, right?!) and now any time they see it they want to play.

Me and my girls! (Natalie in grey, Noelle in pink)

 

Then Ms. Bonny wanted a picture but the girls were not feeling it.

Mom & Ms. Bonny

Mom, Ms. Bonny's daughter, and Ms. Bonny

A (little blurry) picture of us!

A few other things to note from our trip...

-about 12 hours after getting there Natalie came down with a fever and threw up her breakfast.  She was fine about 24 hours later and about 24 hours after that, Noelle started her fever.  So we spent most of the time with someone being feverish and clingy.

-We also went to Jimmy John's one day for lunch because Ms. Bonny's two sons work there and were working that day.  While eating, Noelle shoved a ton of food in her mouth, gagged, and threw it all up and onto the floor so Ms. Bonny's son had to come over and clean it all up!  About 5 minutes after we got her straight, Natalie reached over, grabbed my water cup, and dumped the whole thing all over the table and floor!  Poor guy had to come back and clean us up a second time!  I will say that if JJ had high chairs, the cup incident wouldn't have happened.  Jimmy John's, get some high chairs!

-Another event of the trip was I was going up to get the girls up from their nap and smelled a pretty yucky smell coming from someone!  When I went in I saw a huge mess in Natalie's crib.  She had decided to take her diaper off, a diaper that was FULL of #2, and sit it in the corner of her crib.  In the process she got some all over her and the sheet.  When I walked in she looked at me, handed me the diaper and said "uh oh!"  Uh oh was right baby girl!  It took me awhile to get her cleaned up but we finally got it.  I took a picture of the mess but didn't want to gross anyone out by posting it.  And if you were wondering why I was the only one cleaning, the other adults were out running errands so it was just me and the girls.

-Ms. Bonny & Mike's three kids were WONDERFUL with the girls.  The boys were so sweet with them, playing with them, "flying" them around the house, holding them, all of it.  Her daughter was also a big help, reading books with the girls, grabbing things if we forgot something, playing with them.  It was really fun to see kids I used to babysit play with my kids!

-For both flights I bought the girls some lemonade to put in their little Camelbak bottles.  They love lemonade and I wanted something to encourage them to drink as we took off and landed to help with their ears.  On the way there my mom opened up the bottle for Noelle and the pressure caused the lemonade to spray everywhere!  It soaked my mom and got me and the row behind me all wet.  I laughed at her only to have the same thing happen to me on the way home!  Note to self...don't put lemonade in Camelbaks and then fly with them!  Or unscrew it a bit to let the pressure out before drinking.

We had a great time visiting old friends and we were sad to leave them.  It was awesome to hear how God was using them to plant a church in the Charleston area and we're hoping that next time we go we will be able to join them for a church service.  I told Ben I'd like to go back with him someday because there are so many things to do in Charleston (without little kids haha).  

Well, we are at the beach now, enjoying the sun and the sand!  Have a great day!