Charleston!

We had a great time on our little trip to Charleston, SC last weekend. It was, of course, too short. But that's the way all vacations are, aren't they? While we got to see a couple of really good places, we didn't get to go everywhere we wanted to so we are already making plans to go back. I didn't get to see any of the plantations or anything, and that's something I would really like to do. We were able to visit Charles Towne Landing and Folly Beach on Saturday, and we went to Cypress Gardens on Sunday before we came home.

I don't have pictures of Cypress Gardens yet. Tracy was taking most of the pics that day, and I haven't gotten them from her. I can post those when I get them. We did however, get pictures from our Saturday fun, so at least that's something.

Thanks to a friend's suggestion, we found out that Saturday was Archaeology Day at CTL. It was cool; the boys got to do a little dig for fossils, they got to talk to a group of archaeology students who were actually working on a dig site and they did a little scavenger hunt throughout the park. Lots of fun. The most fun? Seeing their faces when we handed then the scavenger hunt clipboard and pencil. I know I'm evil, but mine should have listened to me when I said we were going to have some learnin' on our trip. :D

We saw and did so much. I really couldn't try and post all of the pictures, it would take all day to look through them.

Gee...whatcha think they're looking for? :)

There was an animal forest where we got to see deer, elk, bison, vultures, turkeys, a black bear, a puma, herons and more. We tried a couple of times to see a river otter, but they were elusive. Little buggars.

There were several really cool monuments and statues. There were cannons and old buildings, like replicas of homes that the settlers would have originally lived in. There was an old merchant ship that we got to walk through.

These were bunks on the ship. So small...can you imagine sleeping in one?!

All in all it was a fabulous experience. We were shocked when we got there and discovered just how expansive this place was. When we got done, we felt like we walked more there than we did when we went to Kennedy Space Center! The boys all had a great time too. Braeden kept saying the whole way out of the park that he was so glad we came to "Charleston Landing." I kept correcting him, but I finally had to stop and show him the map and have a little lesson in the importance of spelling. Yes, Charles Towne looks very similar to Charleston, but you have to process the whole word, not just the first part, lol. Poor guy. He had extra learnin'.

When we left there, we headed to Folly Beach. You can't visit the coast and not see the ocean, right? We brought the swimsuits for the boys, just in case, but I honestly did not think they would want to get in the water because it was so chilly. I was wrong. Duh. ;)

While the adults were sitting on the beach, lamenting the fact that we didn't have our hoodies, OUR HOODIES, the boys played. Kids are so crazy.

Like I said, we went to Cypress Gardens on Sunday, but I don't have those photos yet. I will try and do another post with those once I get them.

The week after our trip was surprisingly uneventful. It rained from Monday to Thursday, so all of the soccer games were cancelled this week. The boys and I had some good, rainy downtime. This week we will, provided the weather cooperates, resume our normal chaotic schedule. Scouts on Monday, soccer games for both boys on Tuesday and Thursday, homeschool group on Tuesday and Masters on Thursday. School does happen in the midst of all of that, just in case you were wondering. ;)

Now I'm off to grocery shop. I hate grocery shopping. Not a little hate. Loathe kinda hate.

Once I get that out of the way, I can work on their plans for this week. Bailey discovered that their spelling website has literature based word lists for the The Hobbit, but we couldn't find any for The Lord of the Rings trilogy. So we are going to make our own. Pretty cool, yeah? Braeden doesn't really work too much on the literature lists, but he found some dinosaur lists, so he's happy with that.

Oh...one more thing...don't forget to stop by my MyMemories Review and Giveaway and put in your entry to win a fabulous digital scrapbooking software program!

Alrighty, that's it for now. Have a great week, errbody! :^)