Christmas in Charleston

This year for Christmas, the family decided that we would rent a house in Charleston, SC and vacation during the Christmas week.  We met my parents, my brother & sister-in-law and my sister-in-laws Mom there on Wednesday the 23rd.  We at out a nice little restaurant near Seabrook Island where we were staying.  The people we rented from were sweet & had the house decorated for the holidays for us, knowing we were bringing 3 young ones with us (mine).

We took a quick jaunt to town on Thursday to buy food for the week.  We do our big celebration on Christmas Eve, so I cooked the ham & all the fixin's, we ate, attended church, came home and opened our gifts.  The next morning the kids were up early rummaging through their stockings and we lounged around most of the day as it was cold & rainy.  My SIL & her Mom cooked us turkey & the fixin's.  We ate well!

Saturday we drove into Charleston and took a tour of the city at the Visitor Center.  It was interesting to see the majority of the city through the tour and hear the history of it.  This helped us narrow down what we wanted to see more of.  We went and grabbed some lunch at this fabulous little Cafe near the Visitor Center that our driver recommended called Rue de Jean.  The food was delicious and our waitress was great, giving us a run down on other places to eat.  After lunch we went and walked the streets near Battery Park just taking in the views and snapping away pics of houses.  This was one of our favorites, they were all amazing from the outside.

Sunday we woke up a little earlier and headed over to Mt. Pleasant and did a double tour of USS Yorktown & Fort Sumter.   The submarine at USS Clamagore (submarine) was very interesting to me.  It's very hard to imagine that many men on such a small submarine.  Definitely makes me much more appreciative of those who serve our country, especially those in those tight, confined spaces!   Here's a picture of the new bridge that I took as we left Patriot's Point.

Monday, hubby took the kids over to the beach on Seabrook Island and they flew a kite & collected shells.  I decided to stay back and take a nice quiet snooze.  After he got back with the kids we headed back into town and walked through the Nathaniel Russell house & then had dinner at Rue de Jean's sister restaurant Coast.  That night my Dad, SIL, hubby & I headed into town to take one of the Bulldog Tours-the Haunted Jail Tour. It was highly recommended by several, but we were pretty disappointed in the tour.  We got a lot of history on the jail, but they only took you in 4 of the rooms in the jail and nothing exciting happened while we were touring.  Not real sure what we were expecting, but the guide lady taking our name was chatting my SIL &  I up before our tour, and she had us peeing our pants before we even went in.  She should have really be a tour guide instead of just collecting names at the door :-)

Our last full day there we ventured back into town to meet an online friend, Keri Sereika from the blog Pink Lemonade along with her 4 gorgeous kids!  We met at Waterfront Park and walked around for a bit there, and then headed into the market area where she suggested a yummy little cafe for us to get some cookies & croissants.  My little one managed to escape nearly giving me a heart attack, I'm seriously considering one of those kid leashes for him he's so quick!  It was great meeting Keri and hearing her take on designing with companies, CHA and blogging.  I love when you can meet a friend IRL, makes chatting online that much more special.  After Keri and her little ones left we just walked around the market spending money on goodies (and more candy). 

We ended our day & our vacation with a little trip to Folly Beach on our way back to Seabrook Island where hubby caught the sun setting, and it was gorgeous!!!  This is definitely a place we would love to go back to some day!

If you are still here, thanks for following me! I don't share a ton of personal stuff, but thought I would share the fun trip we took.  I'll leave you with a photo of Keri & I with our kids (Lilly-hers, Sydney-mine, (I probably got these 2 mixed up but praying I remember them correctly) Cole-hers, Elliott-hers, Finley-mine, Tristan-mine), a picture of my family, Tristan loving that there was a nice restaurant with his name, and the sunset in Folly Beach.