Girls Weekend

I was blessed to spend last weekend in Charleston, SC with two of my best girlfriends (Megan and Erin) for my b-day! Several people have asked for the details of the trip so here you go...

I drove up on Thursday, which was about a 5 hour drive and didn't go too bad except for all the road construction...yuck! I arrived at the airport with just minutes to spare and picked up the girls. We found our hotel without too much problem, a small detour over a large bridge! :-) We ate lunch downtown and spent the rest of the day relaxing at our hotel and had some awesome pizza for dinner!

Friday morning we headed out to Magnolia Plantation. They told us at the gate it would be around 3 hours to do all the tours we signed up for, well it ended up being more like 5 hours (and we couldn't even do the boat tour). But we would not complain it was a beautiful place and I'm sure when the magnolias are in bloom in June it is truly spectacular. I would've loved to have been a kid growing up on that plantation (but I'm glad not a parent, I would never find Ethan there)! We spent Friday night downtown and ate seafood at the Charleston Crab House...yum! We ended the night with a tour of Charleston's "dark side". It started a little rough as our tour guide wasn't the greatest public speaker, but once we started to understand him we had fun. We even got to walk through a creepy cemetery (for those not aware I love cemetery geocaches)!!

Saturday we went to the Charleston Tea Plantation, the only tea plantation in America. We went on a great tour of the plantation grounds, it was neat to hear and see how tea gets made. I had to bring some delicious tea home with me! We then went to the historic Fort Sumter (site of the beginning of the Civil War) visitor center, we were unable to go to the actual site because of time restraints. However, the visitor center had some cool artifacts from the Civil War and it was fun to stop by and look. We had lunch at a local pasta place and then cupcakes at the cupcake bakery!! (It was the place Jake wanted to have me go to as a surprise, little did he know I saw an ad and requested to go there for my b-day.) We then went on an awesome carriage ride through the historic district of Charleston and saw some gorgeous homes and buildings (thankfully the rain held out). We went back to the hotel to rest and change clothes before heading out for my b-day dinner. We ate at Hyman's Seafood, which had an hour and a 45 minute wait....but was soooo worth it! The best seafood I have ever eaten and service that matched! Do you think Jake will let me go there every year for my b-day dinner?

Sunday morning we awoke to really yucky weather, good thing we were all heading home. Off to the airport we went (again with a little detour that required help from Jake)....then southward for me. I thought I was going to be driving in rain the entire way, but I really lucked out. It was really windy (which wasn't fun going through the narrow construction zones), but no heavy rain!

Thanks girls for a wonderful trip! I love and miss you both!!