Sunday Scrapbook: Moments from the Week

 

Friends, Ryan and I are home from our annual birthday getaway, which is one of the longest birthday trips we’ve been able to take since we worked at WillowBridge. We so desperately needed rest and time away from our routine. I will be sharing the tales of our adventures in posts to come, but here is a first look at our fun.

                Last Sunday we spent the day exploring downtown Charleston, South Carolina. It was so, so hot and humid, and because it was a holiday weekend, the place was absolutely packed to the gills. We weren’t able to utterly savor every step because most of the time we were just trying not to be trampled, but we still had a lot of fun! We saw most of the places on our itinerary list, including the famous Pineapple Fountain!

                We spent the entire day Monday at the stunning Magnolia Plantation. We could not get over the amazing live oak trees with all the Spanish moss, the swamplands, and beautiful flowers. It was ridiculously hot and humid, but we had the best time. What a treat to be able to explore together!

                Tuesday provided one of the coolest adventures I think we’ve ever done. I will tell you much more about it later, but we were able to take a boat ride through a stunning swamp. (I realize that sounds weird. Keep reading.) It was the same area used for filming the rowboat scene in The Notebook. You can actually redo the Noah/Allie boat ride! (Sans the swans, which don’t actually live there because the waters are infested by alligators. I tried not to think about that part.)

                Ryan had been lamenting that our trip did not include a waiver signing adventure, so he managed to find one, last minute. And that is how we found ourselves on a boat ride through a creek (think the size of a river…) to a lighthouse off the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. It was so much fun!!

                Thursday was our last day of true, non-travel-including vacation, and we spent part of the day touring a proper tea plantation on the outskirts of Charleston! It was a lot of fun to learn something new. (Yes, coffee people can be intrigued by tea, too.) We enjoyed some samples, too!

                We planned on a two-day trip home but decided to power through and drive allllllllllll the way back on Friday. It was such a long day, but we had some great talks along the way – and I read Ryan 75 pages of a book he needed to catch up on for work! Had to get my preaching voice back in shape, so hopefully that did it!

                Yesterday was a good day at home. We did mounds of laundry, headed out for a huge grocery haul, and caught up on all the reentry kinds of things. AND we were reunited with our sweet Lexi Grae. Goodness we missed her! I had been super sad that we cut our vacation short a whole day, but I confess when we had an entire day to get reacclimate, I was no longer super sad.