July Adventures!

July has been a little subdued because I kept getting sick. I had a cold that turned into bronchitis, then I got an ear infection that spread to my other ear. So with all of this going on the first few weeks were not quite as exciting or eventful as we would have liked. But I am getting better!! Even though I've been sick we have still managed to do some fun things :)

We went to the temple in Columbia and it was beautiful. It's always fun to see different temples and this one was no exception. It is smaller than a lot of the other ones but people come from all over to be here. It was beautiful inside and out and such a blessing to be able to visit it in the short time that we are here. I LOVE going to the temple. It's the best place on this earth.

We also played for the Fourth of July! We went to the ward breakfast, got some groceries for dinner, went to Sullivan's island with some friends, watched a movie and had a delicious dinner that was just perfect for the 4th (Root Beer, hamburgers, BBQ chips, veggies, watermelon). To watch the fireworks we went to the park in North Charleston right on the Cooper River. They sent the fireworks up from a boat out on the water and it was really beautiful! 

 We also went and walked around in Wannamaker County Park which is close by our house. It has a ton of paths that you can walk on that go to different lakes and forest areas. We sat on a swing by a lake for a while and just watched the turtles and talked about if we wanted to live in Charleston or Seattle. (Side note: this has been the hardest decision of my life.)

Something else that we did that was new for us was go to Cinnebarre. It's a movie theatre and restaurant mixed together, which apparently exists in other places (like Boise, go figure!) but we had never heard of this or been to one. Funny enough, we both heard about it at work and were planning it as a surprise for the other one. Great minds think alike, right? It was really cool though! We went and saw Despicable Me 2 and ate a pizza in these very comfy chairs. 

Maybe one of my favorite things that we have gotten to do is go out on the boat with Rusty's boss, Pat. Pat is the nicest guy you'll ever meet; kind of like a teddy bear. And he is from New Jersey so his accent is hilarious and he says things like, "forget about it" which make everything better. He took us out on his boat with some other people from work and showed us Charleston from the water. We left from Watersedge, after eating some of the half off appetizers, and went out into the harbor. It was super choppy that afternoon so we were all over the place. Then we saw a huge cargo ship coming and Pat asked if I wanted to see it closer. I said yes and then got a little nervous about just how close he was going to get us. He took us pretty close and my stomach dropped when I realized how tiny we were next to that thing, and it dropped another fifty feet when I turned around and saw a HUGE wave that would have eaten us. But Pat saw it too and drove away real quick so we all survived. Then we made our way through the Intracoastal Waterway, which is essentially a water highway that goes from the tip of Florida up to New Jersey. And has now been added to my bucket list. Seriously, how cool is that? You just stop at the cities/towns you want to and dock up for the night, a few days, whatever. We stayed out on the boat and watched the sun set over the trees and then decided to go back in. I've never been out on a boat at nighttime, but it was so peaceful and the stars were so bright. After we got back I was starving. All we had eaten for dinner were those appetizers and so I was ready for something else. We decided to go to Andolini's. (Funny story about Andolini's, especially the one in Mt. Pleasant, is that a few weeks ago a guy climbed up on the Ravenel Bridge and was going to jump off to kill himself. That's not funny at all, but the funny part and the part that made national news was that they got him to come down by getting him a large pepperoni pizza from Andolini's.) We decided to get the special and it was sooooo delicious. And huge. I know I say huge all of the time, but this pizza really was extremely large, AKA huge.

Another adventure that we had was going out to Kiawah Island. On our way there we stopped at Angel Oak, which is a tree that is 500 years old. And it is the biggest tree that I have ever seen.

After Angel Oak we went and played at the beach. This is the same beach where a young boy was bitten by a shark three weeks ago, which made me scared. But it also is one of the only places in the world to see dolphins strand feeding. South Carolina is where it's at man. Anyways, we went out there and walked along the beach to Captain Sam's Inlet where dolphins do that. Sadly we didn't see any dolphins, but we did see a lot of cool things! We also got stuck in 3 storms, which can sound really crappy but it actually wasn't. It was kind of fun to be walking on the beach getting kissed your handsome husband in the rain. One storm passed right behind us and so it just sprinkled and building a fort with our towels was enough to save us. The second one followed us on our walk back (the entire way) and we were absolutely soaking wet. The third one we saw coming and literally ran to the car to avoid it and it started pouring the second I touched the door. Good timing or what?

We also did a carriage tour! It was cool to go around the town and listen to our guide's stories. She reminded us of a lot of things that we learned from the walking tour we did, but we also learned some new things. One thing that I learned was that a lot of the houses downtown had separate buildings for the kitchens because of the fire hazards. When slaves would walk the food over from the kitchen to the house sometimes wild dogs would come and attack them to try to get the food. So they would fry some corn meal and then toss it to the dogs to keep them away, and they would yell "hush puppies!" And that, folks, is where hush puppies came from. 

So, sometimes bad things happen but they can turn into great, awesome, super fun things! I even have an example. Like yesterday. Every Tuesday Rusty has a meeting at 6 in the morning. Yesterday, he woke up and starting repeating "Babe, it's 6:45!!" And then I jumped up and we both ran around like crazy people... until he decided to just call in. I had the day off and he hasn't taken any time off yet so he decided to take a "personal day" and then we just played. All day. We started out by going to breakfast.

Peach french toast.

Sorry ladies, this hunk is mine.

Then we went and did Ft. Sumter. It was actually a lot cooler than I thought it would be! The boat ride out was pretty cool and then getting to see the fort was very interesting. Fort Sumter was built after the War of 1812 in between two other forts to add some additional protection, but there was no land there so they had to manually build the island. Pretty crazy.

Fort Sumter!

This shell has been stuck in the wall since the Civil War. 

The flag that flew over the fort when Anderson was in control.

After Ft. Sumter we stopped for a little pit stop at Sonic to get some much needed tots and cherry limeades. Then we headed over to one of the greatest adventures we have done here. Definitely made it on my top 5 list and on my list of what I would recommend to people visiting the area. It's called Cypress Gardens and you pay $10 to get into the park. Once inside, they have all kinds of things set up for you to do. There are walking paths that go past ponds for you to look for alligators or just look at the beautiful flowers. Also there are exhibits that you can do, like a "swamparium" (anacondas, alligators, lizards, frogs), a butterfly house, and an aviary. Although this is all awesome, the best part is that they have these flat bottomed boats that you can take out onto the pond yourselves! We went out and saw alligators swimming around in the water and just played out there. It was so cool! And, come to find out that this is where they filmed The Notebook scene where Noah and Allie go out in the boat and all of the swans fly around. So, I'm pretty much famous.

Our lovely boat.

Close up of our first gator!

How close the gator was to us!

The whole thing was so beautiful.

Turtles!

Baby alligators.

This bird was hilarious. She really only loves men so Rusty had to talk to her and she had a real conversation with him. So great.

Butterfly house.

After Cypress we went home and made dinner and then met up with our friends Caitlin and Brandon who were visiting. We met up for some dessert and walked around the pineapple park downtown. It was great to see them! It definitely has been too long and Rusty and Brandon seemed to enjoy themselves! Even if it was just because they bonded from laughing at us run away from the nasty roaches that were chasing us down the street as we burst through the unsuspecting tour groups.

The last day of July was still great! I got to go down to the beach before heading into work and see the Charleston Aquarium release some sea turtles that were rehabbed. Three were set free today, one was huge and the other two were smaller. The most interesting one to me was the big guy, named Splinter. He got this name because when they found him he had a splinter that was as big as his whole flipper. But here is the crazy thing. When they did the surgery and removed the splinter, they found that it wasn't wood like they thought. It was a piece of a swordfish bill. WHAT THE?! That is absolutely crazy. What I wouldn't give to know the story behind that.

Splinter!

This guy was crazy! He was so ready to go he just kept flapping his little flippers.

Well, that sums up our last full month here in Charleston! The summer has been crazy, fun, and interesting, and has completely flown. We are sad to leave this adventure but are excited to be back to what feels like home.