Girls Weekend in Charleston

FUN FUN FUN!!!

So Jess doesn’t so much like the beach right?  We’ve lived here 6 ½ years and haven’t spent much time there (meaning we haven’t taken the kids there to play since 2007…) SO, some of my girlfriends and me got together to play for the weekend.  YAY!  It was sooooooo great!

Also, I’m totally still nursing Max, so he came with us and was a ROCK STAR! For realz!  So so so good.  Turns out when you have 5 moms and 1 baby, plus no set schedule babies are super easy J

Friday morning I got a babysitter-since it’s way cheaper to pay a sitter for 7 hours then for Jess to take an unpaid vacation day—plus the boys love her so that’s nice.

Here are our adventures:

We drove to Charleston, picked up Rachel from the airport, checked into our hotel and took off to the beach.  It was great weather and not very crowded.  

We read a tiny bit and talked a lot.  

Max slept for most of it but woke up at the end to take in the awesome-ness of it all.

Then off we went to dinner by the beach at Banana Cavana’s—We sat outside, I had the Mahi Mahi with a pineapple mango salsa and awesome mashed potatoes; I’m pretty sure they were mostly butter. Mmmmmm.  There was a live musician playing and it was the perfect temperature and was just so nice!

Then back to the hotel for more girl talk, hair, painting our toenails, and falling to sleep with their bajillion pillows.

Saturday morning we drove out to Charleston proper (we were actually staying in Mt. Pleasant). Jessica called to make us reservations which was so great cause turns out Memorial Day Saturday is in there top 5 busiest days of the year.

It was hop-n!  But we got there in perfect time, got 4 hours of free parking, AND got right out on our horse drawn carriage ride. Those homes are beautiful, and the gardens were incredible!!!

We stopped afterwards to do some  souvenir shopping at the market for our AWESOME KIDS AND HUSBANDS back home--great prices and cute cute stuff.

Side note:  (and GENIOUS IDEA that everyone should do!) 

I have a good friend who purchases a piece of jewelry as her trinket from cool places she visits.

Isn’t that the greatest idea EVER!  Who has a place for trinkets?  And I don’t buy jewelry hardly ever, so I think it’s genius—cause then you have this awesome memory every time you wear it—So smart.  (I actually didn’t get it this time..dumb..mostly I just kept looking for the fams stuff first and then we were done shopping-lame—but next time cause I LOVE THAT IDEA!)

We stopped for lunch—at fancy Chick Fil A—which has just changed my life because now I have tasted Chick Fil A sauce—MMMMM so delicious! (thanks to Shalynn for introducing the sauce to me :)  Then back to the hotel to change, and off to the beach again. 

This time the beach was super crowded, and the weather was a little different.  It started to rain…. Ha! Fun! We just waited it out, but the beach became quite a bit roomier after that. :) 

This time Chelsea and I wanted to play in the water! 

Such a highlight of the trip! I haven’t played in the high waves of the ocean since…ak!  Prolly Monterey I guess.  But it was sooooooo fun.  

The water was perfect. You know when it's too cold and you have to hold your breath as you get deeper and deeper?  There was no holding my breath or anything—just the perfect temperature!  Something about the power of the waves, jumping to miss them, being successful sometimes, other times failing miserably and getting a face-full of water J.  Jumping with the waves and being carried up weightlessly to the tip, digging my toes into the sand to no avail because the water is sooo much stronger then me, diving through the waves, coming back to shore and realizing that the waves moved you way past your starting point.

 AHHH! I love it all. I want to do it again right now.

And seriously, Max was sooooo insanely perfect for this trip on account of he still sleeps all the time.  Plus, he doesn’t wake up till like 8:30 so AWESOME!  He slept the entire 3 hours we were at the beach..through the rain and everything.  He’s so cool like that!

This is us trying to catch everyone in the air--Wowza! Turns out we failed...a lot!  (there were like 12 shots...bwaha ha--we had a little audience by the end of the fun.)

Sunday we woke up, drove to church with the Charleston ward—and enjoyed such a great service!  The lesson in Relief Society was from the talk Boyd K Paker gave in general conference.  “And a Little Child Shall Lead Them”.  That was such an amazing talk!  Anyway, the teacher was superb and had us all in tears wanting to be the most incredible moms ever—and making us feel positive about our current state—that’s a hard thing to accomplish!  She was awesome and we all loved it!

 

We made some soup in the crockpot (Chelsea’s delicious Chicken Tortilla Soup—mmm) for dinner, chatted forever, and then played games outside in their courtyard that night.  

I love games so much, they’re one of life’s great joys!—this one I totally failed at…but I’m noticing something about myself.  When I realize I’m not good at something.  All the competitiveness in me disappears.  So that’s nice. J  No hard feelings!  Also—no one should ever want me on their team for any pop culture.  Just a heads up.  I just have NO memory names of actors,  song titles,  musicians, sport stars…other stuff like that. 

Monday morning—after our breakfast (which—seriously, they had the greatest waffles ever that I had each morning…light, fluffy, crispy, and so tasty) we tried to layout by the pool…got rained on a bit, so back inside to get ready for the ride home.   

It was a weekend filled with 

relaxation, 

fun, 

food, 

GREAT conversation and 

fantastic friends.  

I’m soooo thankful for a husband who could and would watch our 3 big boys so I could do this. 

Thanks baby-you’re nice.