Blig, Blag, Blog.: The Palmetto State

Let me start by telling you about my morning, not my vacation.

I was off in la-la land. I was dreaming that I was looking through a photo album (probably because I've been obsessing about my need to print photos of my children, but immediately giving up because I literally have thousands of pictures and become overwhelmed at the thought of selecting ones to print) with my friend, Emmanuela. Then, all of a sudden, she was gone and I was alone. Then I heard someone calling my name. "Allison. Aaaallisoooon." I wake up, open my eyes, and I swear there is someone standing over me. I can't make out a face or anything, just a shadow. And then I scream and clutch onto my poor, once-sleeping husband, and the figure runs off.

Remember back when one of the boys clawed Doug's eye? You know, he had to go to the doctor for it

and everything. Had to get special eye drops for it. Well, now and again his eye still hurts. This morning was one of those times. Because he had surgery this morning, he was not allowed to drink or eat since midnight. That meant he was a little dehydrated this morning and his eyes were all dried out. When I scared him to death with my screams, he jerked awake and opened his eyes quickly. The dryness made his eye lid pull on that injured eyeball and cause it to hurt like heck. "Good morning, Doug. Not only do you have to get teeth cut out of your mouth in a couple hours, you now get to be woken by your freak of a wife who has seen a shadow person, or is still mostly asleep, and is scared to death. Open your eyes quickly now, Doug, be sure to further your state of misery this morning." Poor Doug. I'm a terrible wife.

Now that I've gotten that off of my guilty conscience, let's talk about our first family vacation to Charleston, South Carolina! What fun we had! You've already heard about our journey down and the sand eater (and let me just say that Maria's comment about how sand comes out, well, she was right...interesting), so let me tell you about a few activities that we did while there.

Jules and his new buddy.

Of course we went to the beach! We found that the best time to head to the beach was in the late afternoon/early evening. You know I'm part vampire and cannot be in direct sunlight without burning (literally). Around 4:30 was the perfect time to hit it. The sun wasn't too hot and the beach wasn't too crowded. We'd head down there, Jonas would have a death grip on me, but would warm up to the fun once he had his big bucket of salt water in front of him to play with. Jules was a little cautious, you know, for about a minute, then he was off running around and making new buddies and chasing seagulls. First, he walked over to a little old lady, his book in hand. He gave it to her and stood there waiting. "Read to me, lady!" Next, he spotted a younger crowd (think a couple 3-5 year olds). He headed over there with a couple of bulldozers and sat down like he owned the beach. He stayed there a while and entertained that family. He ended his social outing with a visit to a little dude hanging off by himself playing with a truck. He had to go meet this guy. He walked over. "Here comes a little cutie." His mother said. "What's your name?" "His name is Julian." I said. "My name is Julian, too!" Said the little blonde playing with the truck. Little dudes are so cool.

The other equally delightful thing to do in Charleston after the beach is to go explore Old Charleston. The streets are lined with wonderful historic homes, beautiful parks, gorgeous flowers, and of course, the harbor. We had several days in the city:

Carol and Jovita went on a carriage ride.

Eat this cake and you will know happiness.

Doogie and I went on a ghost tour. Oh my! Let me tell you. There was the scuzziest couple on that tour. The ghost tour was 1.5 hours long, right? These two had to take about 4 smoke breaks in that time. They didn't even have the decency to smoke their own cig, they shared. Ugh, so disgusting. I wanted to snap a picture and send to KSR; they could post it when the Wildcats play the Gamecocks. This loser dude was decked out from head to toe in South Carolina Gamecocks gear. I gag a little just thinking about them. Anyway, the ghost tour was still pretty cool, despite Smoke Dawg and the lame storyteller. You can't bring down history and cool architecture.

We ate a lot of food. I had many a crabcake and the world's best cake: The Ultimate Coconut Cake from The Peninsula Grill. Before you die, you must eat this cake. It is what heaven tastes like, I'm sure. We visited Poogan's Porch one night. The menu looked fancy so I called ahead to make sure the place was kid friendly. "Of course!" they said. We got there. Man, I was so uncomfortable the whole time. We were those people, or so it felt like. But the ole boys were pretty good. No screaming or crying (they usually only cut a shine when they are exhausted or starved). They just sat there merrily and played with their cars. They hardly even dropped any food on the floor! When we left, you would've never known we'd been there. I'm not sure why I felt so out of place.

Dorking out.

Speaking of the boys and being those people...taking two 14-month old dudes on a 2.5 hour tour (that's including ferry ride) in the Charleston sun before lunch might seem dicey, but, well, you know I was in the birthplace of the Civil War (or "The War of Northern Aggression" or "The War Between the States" as the folks of Charleston referred to it), so I had to "dork out," as Doug said. I drug the family to Fort Sumter on Friday.

It actually wasn't that bad with the boys. In my mind, though, I thought my children were terrorizing everyone. Now that they can walk, they hardly ever want to be held, especially when they are somewhere new. They had to cruise around the ferry and check everything out.

Once we got to Fort Sumter, they did not want to ride in the stroller, and their little faces were

My gentleman.

flushed due to heat. I thought they might be on the verge of a tear, so, we headed to the museum, the only place on the fort with AC. Also on the tour was a group of high schoolers from North Carolina. Guess what high schoolers could not care less about? You guessed it, American history! So, they were all in the museum sitting on the floor in the entrance. Twenty teenage boys lined the walls on one side, and twenty teenage girls lined the walls on the other side. And in the middle was Julian and Jonas. Oh, did they love this stage! They were dancing and talking and clapping their hands. Doing all of their tricks! Julian was flirting with one of the girls. She thought he was coming over to give her a hug, but he snatched her iPhone and took off running! Oh, lawdy!

We got back to Patriot's Point and I just had to run in and check out the giftshop. I was in line paying for, you guessed it, a book, when this random guy said, "Are you the Mother of the twins?" Oh, no. "Yep." "They are so precious! How old are they?" I liked this guy. "They're 14 months." "Gracious! They are so well behaved." I really liked this guy.

And before I end, let me tell you, my boys were such good travelers. You know, over 20 hours of driving, I bet you they didn't cry more than 10 minutes total. We stopped at a few rest stops to let them run around a bit. The best stop was in Tennessee. We were playing cars, when a sweet little old lady approached bringing cookies! She thought the dudes were sweet and would enjoy a treat. She was right; they are cookie eaters.