We're Back!

I cannot even put into words what a wonderful long weekend Hal and I had. It was just the break we both needed. We stayed in a beautiful hotel with a marvelous view, and soaked up the beautiful weather all weekend.

We got to Charleston about 2:00 on Thursday, after stopping in Columbia at our favorite burger spot, Salty Nut, for lunch. When we arrived, we couldn't check into our hotel yet, so we drove out to Sullivan's Island for a walk on the beach. It was a beautiful 75 degrees outside, so we really enjoyed our walk. We finally got to check in around 4:00, and were delighted with our room, and the beautiful view.

Check out the view from our room:

It was the beautiful (and busy) Charleston Harbor

This is our room, with a wrap around balcony. One side faced the ocean, the other faced the harbor. The balcony is where we spent most of our time.

Thursday night, Hal and I decided to get all dressed up and go downtown to celebrate our anniversary the right way. We had 8:45 reservations at Hank's. It was a wonderful seafood restaurant downtown near the market. The food and wine were fabulous, and it made for a romantic celebration of one great year together!

Here we had just left Hank's and we propped the camera on the top of the car. I wanted to get at least one pic of the 2 of us together. The way Hal has his hand, it looks like he's rubbing my pregnant belly, but I'm not pregnant. I think I was just that full...haha.

On Friday morning we got up and went to breakfast at a great little diner in Shem Creek called Alex's. After breakfast we made the hike around the harbor over to Folly Beach and to the Morris Island light house. The weather hit 81 degrees on Friday, so it was a perfect day to spend outside!

I was delighted to find out that they were finishing up the first phase of the restoration project on the light. (I have the lighthouse license plate, so I was glad to see my money was actually going to help it). The Army Corps of Engineers built some kind of dam around it so that it doesn't take a lot of beatings from the water. They also put lots of rocks under the light so that the rocks would absorb most of the shock from the waves and high current waters. Did you know that when the lighthouse was built in the 1800's that it was built 1200 feet from the shore? Because of erosion, it now stands 1800 feet out into the water.

Here's Morris Island Light, and you can see its replacement, the Sullivan's Island Light, in the background.

This one shows the crane and the boat that were doing the work.

On Friday night after a short nap, we went out to Vickery's on Shem Creek for supper. The weather was so beautiful, so we wanted to eat somewhere that had an outdoor patio. After dinner we went to Starbucks for a coffee and back to sit on our balcony. The balcony was so worth the extra money because we got to watch all of the ships come in and out. That might not sound too fascinating to you, but Hal and I really enjoyed it.

Saturday morning we woke up and it was so so beautiful outside. The wind was calm and it was already about 70 degrees at 9:00am. We put on our shorts and headed out to an early lunch. While we were eating lunch the weather turned a little sour. The wind picked up, clouds started rolling in, and it got cool outside. After a little bit of shopping, we decided it was too cool for shorts, so we headed back to the hotel to change. Lucky for us, our hotel was having an oyster roast, so we put on our jeans, and headed downstairs for some fun.

At the oyster roast they were selling buckets of oysters for $7. A whole bucket for only $7!!! Hal and I got a bucket and some "shuckers" and went to town on our oysters. They were SO good, I wanted to go back for a second bucket, but we had to save room for dinner. Between the 2 of us though, I think we probably ate 50 or 60 oysters! After we ate our oysters, we went back up on our balcony and enjoyed the band they had playing. They were called Mystic Vibrations and they were a reggae band. For about 3 hours we just sat on our balcony and enjoyed the day, even though it was a little cold.

Here is a pic of the harbor on Saturday morning when we woke up. The winds were so calm that the sailboats were hardly moving.

During the oyster roast the Coast Guard helicopter was doing drills out on a small island in the harbor. We got to watch them and it was pretty neat. I took a pic just as the helicopter was about to take off.

On Saturday evening Hal and I went to our favorite Japanese restaurant, Yamato. Again, it was great and we ate way too much. We were finished with dinner about 9:00 and didn't really feel up to doing much else, so we headed back to the hotel. I started packing, and we were in the bed by 10:00.

Sunday morning we woke up sad and mad that we had to leave. We laid in our bed until the last minute and walked out the door right at check-out time. After breakfast at IHOP, we headed back up I-26 West towards home.

We had an absolute blast, and neither one of us wanted to leave when we did. This trip only solidified in our minds and hearts how much we want to live in the lowcountry one day.

One more quick note: We ate a slice from the top of our wedding cake on Wednesday night, and to our surprise it was WONDERFUL!! I have to admit, I was pretty skeptical, but it really was great. You would have never known the cake wasn't fresh baked! Seriously, it was just as good as it was on our wedding day!

One year down, many many more to go!