Lucky Beach Weekend

We'd been planning a trip to Hilton Head Island this last weekend for months. It had been four years since we'd been, even though we'd always planned for it to be an annual occurrence, but having a Peanut who screamed in the car, interfering family trips, and a last minute funeral has meant that for the last three years, it just hasn't happened.

 

And then, this year, the weather forecast leading up to the weekend was TERRIBLE. At one point on Wednesday, weather.com was predicting 80% chance of Thunderstorms all three days we were going to be there. I was having serious regrets that we'd bought our hotel through Priceline and couldn't make a change to our destination.

But we packed up Thursday and prayed the storms would blow over. The forecast was already looking better by the time we left and it ended up being better than we could have hoped for. No rain, no lightening, and temps in the 70's which made for nice enough beach weather. Granted, I grew up in northern California where a beach day in the 70's was a miracle and the water was always freezing. But it really was pleasant for both walking on the beach and splashing around in the water. We felt very lucky.

Love this reenactment of the kids from our first visit. They've grown a lot in 5 years.

We took a long walk the first morning and found a ton of these tiny shells. I love the spiral ones.

 

 

We spent the second day in Savannah. I can't decide if I like Savannah or Charleston better. They are both such beautiful old cities.

Of course, Savannah does have more Spanish Moss. It's everywhere (except in this picture of the Spanish Moss Inn, hahaha.)

I love how everywhere you turn, there are reminders of just how old this city is--crumbling old steps, cobblestone streets, original buildings and underground passageways.

Of course, a trip to Savannah requires a stop at the Pirate's House for lunch. They have a pretty decent southern lunch buffet, and even better atmosphere.

And the pirate costumes are always a hit.

Love us some pirates.

We also toured the Owens-Thomas House, which was beautiful.

No pictures allowed inside, but it was truly amazing.

And with that admission, we also were able to visit the Jepson Center, which had some really fun hands-on art exhibits for the kids, as well as a pretty amazing exhibit by Whitfield Lovell called Deep River. I love art that you can feel a part of and this really allowed for that.

The kids could have spent hours building

(and the hands-on was great after spending an hour in a house they weren't allowed to touch.)

Check out the pirate ship he came up with.

A stop in one of the many squares to watch the fountain.

Peanut was getting excited about the water. He wasn't brave enough to try running through it, though. Only the other two did that.

I cannot get enough of this cute little boy and his "observation" stance.

Another square. There are still 21 of the original 24 squares that this historic section of Savannah. They make it such a walkable city. A new park every couple blocks.

City Hall

The architecture in Savannah is so beautiful. So many different styles and time periods represented.

I'd live here. In fact, we picked out the square we want to live on if we ever move to Savannah. Bean and I kept imagining sitting out on one of the porches, writing our novels. Such an inspiring place.

 

5th Grade Field Trip

Fact: 5th Graders are silly. And very into photo-bombing.

I got to spend the day in Greensboro with Bean's class at the International Civil Rights Center and Museum and the Greensboro Science Center.

 

The Civil Rights Center was fascinating. It's in the Woolworth's where 4 local African-American college students started a sit-in movement in 1960 that then swept the nation. The original lunch counter and stools where they asked to be served are still there and the kids were visibly impressed to actually be standing in a spot where important history occurred.

The science center was also impressive--small zoo, aquarium, and indoor exhibits which kept us busy for the few hours we had.

I love turtle faces--they are beautiful in their own very weird way.

This tiger was beautiful. The kids loved all the signs around warning us of tiger "spray".

Running like the wolves.

This was my group for the day. I love that Bean's class "looped" this year so they are with the same kids and teacher as last year. Really helps the class form a strong community when they don't have to start over every year.

And our final stop--the touch tank. Lots of stingrays to pet.

First Day

And a couple weeks after the other kids started, Peanut got to have his own first day. He's going to Woodland Discovery, an outdoor-based nature preschool, one day a week.

I've been a little nervous about taking him just because our history of clean drop-offs at new places, and even a lot of not-so-new places has not been good. But Peanut has grown up a lot lately and has been pretty happy at the babysitter's house, and going to Nursery at the church, so I was hesitantly optimistic.

When we first walked in, there were already several other kids there and he started to hang back a little. But his teachers showed us where to put his things, and then asked the kids if they wanted to help feed the turtles. Peanut's little neighbor friends were also there, and B took his hand and led him over to the turtles, which I think helped him transition into the class quickly. He was totally okay with me leaving a few minutes later and when I came to pick him up, his teachers told me there were no tears and he'd done a great job following along with the group, even though he's one of the younger kids there (it's a age 3-5 group.)

Peanut then proceeded to yell at me all the way home, cry all through lunch and then crashed and took a 2 hour nap, which he hasn't done all summer. I think preschool successfully wore him out, both physically and emotionally, but I think he's going to like it.

Minimalizing

At the beginning of the summer, I was introduced to Project 333 by a friend (who has been blogging about her closet clean-out and new wardrobe freedoms in much more detail than I will because I don't have the patience to spend that much time on my clothes). Pare down my closet to 33 items for three months (so you can get new items out each season--and there are things that aren't supposed to count, like underwear and workout clothes and jewelry that you wear every day--there's a set of rules on the website if anyone is interested). I'm always trying to purge and clean out my closet, so that idea was filed away as something to try soon.

Then, I read Everything That Remains: A Memoir by the Minimalists last month which has put me in a major purging mode, so I came back to the closet reduction idea and finally decided to bite the bullet. Peanut helped me pull all my clothes out of the closet and then left me to sort through it all while he found something much more entertaining to do (turned out that much more entertaining thing was to pour a bottle of glue all over his sister's bedroom carpet, which we didn't find until bedtime--apparently I've forgotten that you never want to hear silence from a 3 year old.)

What I learned from this sorting session (besides the above about 3 year olds):

I already wear the same clothes all the time, so when I made my pile of must-haves, it was well under the 33 item limit.

I live in t-shirts. I knew that, but seeing the list made it really stand out.

I don't wear jewelry or accessories hardly ever, so that barely made a dent in the list.

I apparently don't have a decent pair of  jeans right now. Better get shopping before it cools off.

Really, this isn't as hard as I thought it might be, and pulling out all of the other clothing makes it so much easier to see what I have to wear. I'm picking the same things anyway, but normally have to dig through all the other clothes to find the right black t-shirt and pair of shorts. I still own a lot of those other things, although I did come up with a pile of items to donate, but now the extras are all boxed up for the next season, or when I want to trade something out.

While the Cat's Away

Daddy-o had his high school reunion this last weekend, so while he was in CA, we had our last big hurrah of the summer. The kids and I managed to get a little "laboring" in, but spent most of Labor Day weekend playing. And we must have been having too much fun because I also took almost no pictures. We also missed half of Daddy-o's phone calls, which meant we barely got to talk to him all weekend, but I guess that means we were all having a good time.

Friday, we sent Daddy-o off for the airport, the big kids off to school, and Peanut and I puttered around the house and ran a few errands so we'd be ready for a weekend of fun. Evening at the pool, and leftover peach pie from the kids' trial run with making a pie the night before made for a good start.

(Notice how I did manage to get a picture of the pie, even if I didn't take photos of anything else. Food is very important.)

 

Saturday, I convinced the kids to help me do some cleaning and then a friend from home, who now lives in Raleigh, came out to play with us for the day. We took her hiking out at Latta Plantation and then stuck around for the Revolutionary War reenactment at the plantation. The kids absolutely loved this friend who happens to be a bug expert, so she was able to teach us about all the things we saw along the way and made Peanut's day by giving him his very own collection jar.

(Only other picture I took--the Yankees getting set up for battle.)

Sunday afternoon was movie time. We made pizzas and watched the original Parent Trap. I love that movie and Bean had given it to me for my birthday, but we hadn't found time to watch it yet. The kids also loved it--some of the humor had Bug rolling on the floor.

Monday was our crazy, spend-all-day-outside day. We started with the annual church 5K and breakfast. Bean ran the whole thing, Bug ran/walked the first half with me and Peanut in a stroller, and then another mom and I convinced the 7 year olds to stay at the playground while we ran the second lap. It was already crazy hot by the time we finished the race at 9 a.m. (I think the high that day was 96), but the kids were having so much fun at the playground that we stayed there for a couple more hours.

Then, it was off to the pool for the final day of swimming. And because it was so hot, a lot of other people had the same idea, so we had lots of friends to swim with for the afternoon. Have I mentioned how hot it was? Usually, Peanut takes awhile to decide to get in the pool, and then he and I go back and forth between the baby pool and the big pool, but this time, I spent 10 min. by the baby pool and then begged him to come back to the big pool so I could get in because it wasn't a sit-by-the-edge kind of day. I had prune feet when I finally got out. I couldn't believe the kids weren't ready to go when I finally dragged them out of there more than 3 hours later.

We spent the evening at our neighbors' who had invited us for a delicious dinner. It was a great way to close out the summer season. I hate the end of summer, but this one really has been fun and I feel like we've enjoyed it to the max. No regrets.

Andt now, we're all together, under one roof again, with lots of stories for one another. Peanut was so excited to wake up and see his dad this morning. And when Peanut started screaming and fussing over breakfast as usual, I was so glad to have someone to commiserate with again.