My Trip to SC - Pictures from Charleston

Hey vintage peeps - it's been a while, eh? I had a perfectly good excuse for my absence the first couple of weeks, but the last two? Nah, just haven't felt like blogging! I had an amazing time in SC though! Will and I went down there back in March for 9 days and we ate tons of great food, went on some day trips, renovated my parent's bathroom. It was great seeing my family & visiting some of my favorite places in SC!

One day, Will and I went to Charleston. I love Charleston & hadn't been there since the summer before we moved here I guess. That was 4 years ago and for as much as things change in that amount of time, it's nice to go back to somewhere that hasn't changed in centuries!! The weather was great - sunny and warm - and Will and I spent several hours just walking through the city & parks and pretending we were tourists.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from that day.

Our view from the parking garage. We could've easily parked on a lower level, but what fun would that have been when we could drive to the top & take in this outstanding view of the new bridges?!



After we ate lunch at Wild Wing Cafe, we walked down to the Waterfront Park. I was hoping we'd see some dolphins but no such luck. I took a ton of pictures of other things though - like this one of Will. He's holding my Vera Bradley bag. lol



And then there was this guy. His eyes totally creep me out!!



This single, sandy ladybug was nice enough to sit there while I took a picture.



Will and I toured this boat one day while we still lived in Charleston. It was, uh, interesting. And I was quite thankful to get off! I have this issue with claustrophobia and those tiny little hallways weren't helping things. I was happy enough to just take a picture of the Yorktown from across the river - no need to go on another tour!



While we were sitting in one of the swings down at the waterfront park, we heard the familiar roar of a C-17, the planes Will used to fly on before we moved here. Those things are huge!! Funny story - Monday, Will and I went grocery shopping and he picked up a package of brats and was like "these are the kind we used to fix on the c-17s when we'd fly back home from Europe. We'd start cooking them in the oven on the plane when we'd take off and they'd be ready halfway home". I was like "isn't that a 9 hour flight??" and he said "yeah, it took about 5 hours to cook them in the oven." Hahaha Can you imagine?! Five hours to warm up a brat?!



Here's the famous Pineapple Fountain. I don't know why I didn't have some of my wedding pictures done around this thing. We saw a bride getting her pictures made here and it made me really regret my choice of photographer for my own wedding.



One of my favorite things to do in Charleston is to walk around looking at all of the historic houses. I love seeing the old bricks, the old iron fences, all of the details. This house had amazing window boxes.



Aren't the tiles on this roof amazing? I love them. It reminds me of the tile floors in bathrooms.



Here's another picture of my favorite steeple in Charleston.



Our wedding reception was held in this building. It's the Old Exchange Building & Provost Dungeon.



Wow, this turned out to be kind of long so I will come back (hopefully tomorrow) with pictures from our day in Myrtle Beach!!

Whew!

Hey guys! I thought I'd get back into posting regularly after my visit to SC a few weeks ago but as luck would have it I came down with a horrible cold! My germ infested relatives were nice enough to share with me and now both Will and I are hacking and sneezing all over the place. I was pretty much out of commission all of last week, moving between the bed and the sofa and back to bed again. It was horrible. I'm still not 100% better although I'm not quite as sick as I was last week. Now I'm in that itchy throat, cough-until-you-gag phase and it's almost impossible to go anywhere because I never know when I'm going to have one of those coughing attacks and well, gagging in public is a bit embarrassing!

Our visit to SC was pleasant. We exchanged Christmas gifts with my side of the family, went to my nieces 2nd Birthday party, visited with relatives and came home in a timely manner! I didn't get to do any thrifting while I was down there, so that was a bit disappointing but I kind of expected that. It seems like there's never enough time to get it all done when I go back home! There's always friends I didn't get to see, places I didn't get to shop and food I didn't get to eat. lol

In other news, it looks as if we're planning a little family vacation in March and we're heading to Florida. Will, as you all know, is in the Air Force and this year (like in 2003) Disney is doing a special promotion for military families. The active duty member receives a 5-day Park Hopper pass for free and up to 5 of his dependents or friends can get 5-day Hopper passes for $99!! So, it appears as if we'll be heading to Florida in March and we're taking my parents, sister and niece with us. Oh, and our two doggies. We're looking to rent a house (hopefully with a pool!) and we'll be there for at least a week. I'm going to try to persuade Will to take me down to Sanibel Island while we're in Florida too but I'm not sure if he'll go for that. And my mom and sister have both already talked to me about their desire to spend at least one day while we're down there at thrift stores! Wooot! Thank goodness we're driving because I plan on loading up on tons of fabulous goodies should we happen to find decent thrifting spots!

So, that's about it from here in snow & ice-covered Maryland. I need to venture out today and pick up a few things for my Etsy business and maybe do some thrifting. I hope you all are doing well. And I hope I can get around and visit everyone soon. I miss my blogging friends!!

Back to reality

Hello, my favorite vintage peeps. Hahaha. I make it sound like I actually have a lot of people reading my little ol blog! I've been away for a while but I'm back now and hopefully will get back on some sort of regular posting schedule. Which in reality, means about 1.5 times a week, but still.

So, Will and I just returned from a little jaunt down to the mountains of Tennessee and I have never been so happy to leave from a vacation! I know that sounds ludicrous but it's true. This vacation is proof that not all vacations are magical and that sometimes vacations can pretty much suck.

Now, don't get me wrong. I absolutely LOVE being in Eastern TN and in the mountains but the circumstances with this particular vacation were just so, ugh, I can't even form the words. Will and I went down and met up with my parents and my sister, her boyfriend and my niece. Everything was going okay the first night down there. Even the second day seemed to start off okay. We were going to go to Dollywood and have a fantastic time riding rides and eating tons of junk food. Except Dollywood is closed on Thursdays and we didn't know it until we got to the little entrance to the parking lot. Things just got worse from here on out.

Friday morning we woke up to torrential downpours and tropical storm-like winds. It was insane. The cabin we rented, which was quite nice I might add, sprung a few leaks around the windows and doors. That's how hard the rain/wind was. Oh, and then we lost power just as I was starting to get ready. No more power = dead curling iron and I went to town looking like a hot mess.

By Saturday the weather was fair again and the rest of the family went to Dollywood but Will and I skipped out. There were just so many things we wanted to do that we hadn't done yet and since it was our last day, we decided to skip going to the amusement park and actually get a few of the things done. One of our stops was at the Apple Barn, which I normally LOVE, but I ate a fried pie and drank a huge glass of apple cider and within about 20 minutes I became violently ill!

So, as you can see, our vacation wasn't that great at all. The weather was horrible one day, I was sick as a dog for several hours on another, I only spent about 5 minutes with my mom (which is another story I won't get into here because it just makes me so damn mad), the leaves looked like crap and Will and I didn't do hardly anything we had planned on doing.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to stop at any of my favorite little antique stores in the area either. But, today is 25% off day at the Value Village and I have every intention of drowning my vacation blues sorrows by getting there when the doors open at 10:00. I found a couple of cute little vintage Christmas things there last week and I cannot wait to go today & see what I can find.

In other news, I absolutely HAVE TO pick out a paint color for this scrap/craft/office room this week because I am painting this weekend. I am the most indecisive person ever when it comes to paint. I am torn between painting this room a shade of pale green, like maybe a very pale jade color, or maybe pale pink, or even pale turquoise. Gaaaaaaah. Why can't I make a decision?? And I must find a bookcase this week. My room looks like a bomb went off in here and it is driving me crazy. I think having a bookshelf/case would offer a lot more storage and could help me keep this place a little more neat. I hope. lol

So, what color should I paint this place?? Pink? Green? Turquoise? Something entirely different?? I need help people!

I have a confession.

I am a compulsive list maker. And I swear, the older I get, the more I am convinced that without a list, I'd never get anything done. I make lists for everything. From regular grocery lists to lists of things I need to do around the house to projects I need to start/finish- it's never ending!

My latest lists are all centered around my big ol adventure I'll be taking in just a couple of weeks. My husband found out in April that he'd be going out to Wyoming for a month this summer. And that I could come along, too. So, as you can well imagine, I've spent the last 3 months making lists!! When I found out that I could come along I immediately decided that I wanted to make a road trip. Sure, I could just as easily fly out, and it would probably be cheaper to do that, but then I'd miss so many great things along the way.

I've searched Google so many times for things to see, places to stay, routes to take that my mind is absolutely spinning with all the possibilities. I've made so many lists- things I need to remember to pack, the mileage between big cities, Mom & Pop motels along the way. And here I sit, 3 weeks before my journey is to start and I am so overwhelmed by all of the information that I can't even decide which route I'm taking to drive out to Wyoming.

When I first told my Momma of my plans I think she thought I was either joking or insane. Maybe a bit of both. I guess she's just worried about me driving over 4,000 miles round-trip alone. I can understand that. I'm a little nervous myself. But I am also so excited that I find myself actually squealing out loud when I discover another cool place to visit! Yes, squeal. Like a pig. I'm not perfect, okay?! Anyhow, my Momma also wishes she could take time off from her job because she'd go out with me. She can't take that much time off though so she's going to watch my two doggies for me while we're gone. My doggies *LOVE* staying at Nanny & PaPa's house. Love.It. They get away with so much crap down there- I can't say I blame them.

Now I'm just waiting for some actual concrete dates from my husband, and he's waiting for dates from the people at the Vice President's office. And this is the military we're dealing with and as anyone that has ever been affiliated with the military will tell you, nothing is ever set in stone. Basically, I'll probably find out the actual dates about a week before we're supposed to be in Wyoming but hopefully it will be sooner than that.

My plans for now are to drive down to NC a few days before I'm supposed to leave & meet my mom to drop off the dogs. Then I'll come back up here to MD, load my car with all of my junk, check my eleven billion lists and then set off for my month long vacation. Well, I guess it's going to be longer than a month. I'm taking about 5 days to drive out there. I'm allowing myself plenty of time to stop along the way so if I see any concrete tee-pees or corn mazes that I simply must check out, well, I'll have time to do that.

And then last night at dinner the husband asked me what my plans were in September, after we got back from Wyoming. Uh, I didn't really have any plans. He told me that as soon as they get back from Wyoming that they'd be leaving again for 8-10 days to go overseas. So, now my plans are to take a different route from Wyoming and head to SC from there. Instead of coming back to MD first and then driving down to SC to pick up my puppies. Ack! That means I can see even MORE of the country than I thought I would. Plus that extends my adventure another week or 2 at least! Eeeek! (yes, that's me squealing!)

So, that's that. I still have so, so much to do. I need to get my car tuned up, I need to actually sit down and (gasp!) make a list of everything I need to get done over the next three weeks, I need to make reservations for the places I'm going to stay. Three weeks really isn't that much time to do all of the stuff I need to but I think it'll all work out. I hope.

Anyone have any fabulous ideas of places I need to add to the "MUST SEE" section of my lists? I haven't decided yet if I'll take I-80 or I-70 but the difference is only about 100 miles. I'll probably base it off of which route has more things to see along the way. Any suggestions? Anyone ever driven cross-country? Any tips you can offer? Thank you in advance for any suggestions/ideas/tips! I'm hoping I'll have internet access while I'm gone so I can bring you all along on the journey!