Six and counting: October 2012

In September, I went to visit my sister and nephew in S.C. Justice had graduated from boot camp and I wanted to see them. It was really fun. I didn't bring anyone with me and let me tell you, it was nice to pop in a book on tape and just drive. As much as I love hearing my kids and love their kid music, it was nice to not have to respond to anything (other than traffic). We spent the one full day I was there in Charleston. First, we went to Folly Beach and walked on the pier. Then we went down to the ocean. I had totally forgotten my swimming suit. Bec said that they didn't have their's either so it didn't matter. We were just going to walk along the very crowded beach but when Justice said something about this being his first time at the ocean, I put all those plans aside and told him we needed to go in and body surf. So we shed off our shoes, socks and electronics and ran into the ocean. It was really fun and I was glad that I hadn't chosen a white shirt for the excursion.

Justice and I are the two little dots in that last picture. Justice was really surprised just how salty the ocean was. I totally remember that thought on my first visit. We all know it is salt water but it still comes as a surprise. After the beach we just walked around the beach town. I love beach towns, they are so relaxed but busy at the same time. Then, we decided to go the 15 minutes to Charleston. We walked around the downtown for about 3 hours. It was so awesome. I have never been in a historic city like that. I didn't realize that the whole downtown would be kept historic. I kind of thought they would just save a few buildings and modernize the rest. It was really neat. There was a block or two of stores. It was like going to a strip mall but they were in the old buildings. You had Gap, Victoria Secret, Forever 21, Loui Vatan (sp?) (obviously I don't shop there), and everything! Then there was a street that were all Law School buildings. My friend who went to Savannah for college said all her classes were in the old buildings down town. There was no college campus. Pretty cool (although I love the feel of a college campus). Bec and Justice had been here the day or two before so they took me down a couple of block called, "Rainbow Row". It was the houses where all the rich people lived. The color of their houses were coordinated with their occupation. All the blacksmith's had the same color house etc. These houses were HUGE! They looked like Apt. buildings from where we were walking but then Bec informed me that we were walking on the side of the house and it was the helps entrance. When we turned the corner and actually saw the fronts, well, lets just say I couldn't capture a whole house with one shot. I had to get two sometimes 3 shots with my camera for one house. Oh, and the thing that was really cool to me, the ally's. It was just like in the movies when you would see the little homeless children living in the ally. (I didn't see homeless children but the alleys looked the same.) I don't know why that was so cool to me but when I went back through my pictures, I had about 50 of different alleys. In the middle of town, they have a big market place. It goes down one street about 4 blocks or so. They sell everything there! It would be so fun to be able to go someplace like that whenever you wanted to. Oh and everywhere you look, there are people making baskets. Basket weaving is huge there and they are expensive. They do look really good though. Another thing was that they had horse drawn carriages everywhere. That is not so strange to me because SLC has them too but some other carriages they had were people pulling them with their bikes. Who needs to work at a gym when your whole job is biking people around the city?!

Last but not least, Charleston is "Army Wives" friendly,that happens to be my favorite show. I had a great time and it was fun to have some one on one with Justice and Rebecca.