Three Weeks of Southern Living

Fair warning - this is a long post as it covers 3 weeks of visiting with family.

The last posting covered Kenzie and Kayla horse skills and Kenzie's science statewide science award.  

No trip is complete without a trip to the zoo.  And no family visit is complete without a few flamingos in it! The Columbia Zoo has a new feature.  It is a climbing structure which I promised Kenzie I would go on with her.  

It really, really sounded fun.  This thing is 3 stories high.  They have you harnessed in and clipped on to overhead rails.  So hey, there is no way to fall.  It was a busy day at the zoo so Kenzie and I had a long wait just to get inside.  How brave we were.  Of course, Kenzie had done this before and knew what she was in for.  Me, I was just being the brave grandma with a bunch of little kids.  I made it up the stairs to the first set of ropes and even managed to get over the first set of challenges (the one with rope hand holds).  The next set had no rope hand holds....mmm.  By this time Kenzie was already on the second story and here I was getting cold feet and thinking how stupid I would look if I fell and was left dangling in space.  So I turned around and retraced my way back to the stairs and down.  Kenzie played on this thing for almost an hour.  I came back down to sit with Kayla and Bill.

Don't they look happy and glad that they weren't up there!  

 
You would think Kenzie had enough climbing but had to try the palm tree!

After touring the zoo we headed back home again.  
 
Then the time came to head out to Edisto Island and a few relaxing days of walking the beach, bike riding, shopping, playing  games, boating, and fishing for the guys.  This beach house backed up to the marsh so it was easy to know when the tide was in or out.  Sarah and Joe are really good at finding shark teeth and you could spend hours bent over while walking the sand.

 The house had a wonderful screened in back deck so one evening we watched
a thunder and lightening show as it moved in from the ocean, pass over head, and then move on to the mainland.  We don't get storms like this on the west coast so we were in awe of the show.  

We also tried some of the island's food offerings....


All too soon it was time to pack up and head back home again!

Bill and I rented a car to head over to TN to see Monica and family.  Joe gave us his GPS to use and had programmed in Monica and Barry's business address in Cleveland.  So it should have been a quick (5 1/2 hour trip).  The first part of the trip went fine, we passed the signs to Clinton and were still on the interstate highway.  We were following the GPS voice but somewhere along the way we found ourselves in Georgia!  Having no maps in the car we had no idea where we were but knew nobody had said anything about traveling through Georgia!  We had no choice but to keep following the GPS instructions....we did see a lot of back country roads with little traffic on them!  Then we saw signs that we were in NC which we knew we had to go through and finally TN signs appeared.  

When we hit Cleveland we gave Monica a call and let her know we were at their back door of their business.... we still are wondering how we made it there.

They are the proud owners of the Deardorph Cameras.  (oop's the spelling is off on their business name)  What a lot of history they have collected with this endeavor.  There are very few large format camera makers in the world today but photographers are still using them. 

While in Athens we got to tour the Mayfield Dairy which processes milk (of course) and ice cream!  

Aren't we a happy bunch!  We also got to watch a rugby game that Matt, a family friend, coaches.  The game made no sense to me but the girls (yes a girls team) were having fun.


A jump forward in time brings us to the Happy Valley resort where Monica and Barry rented a cabin for all of us to stay in.  What a wonderful, peaceful setting with the cabin on the river.  

 The girls, Muriel and Bobbi spent hours hiking the trails and Bill and Will went fishing.  One day Monica and I dropped them off at a lake to fish while we did a quick trip back to the business as a large format camera was ready to be mailed out and since Monica had done a lot of work on this one she wanted to see it completed before it was mailed out.  


When we came back to picked up the guys we found them at a different spot on the shore.... both of them were still fishing but with no luck.  

This is Bill and Will still trying to catch something!  What they are really doing is teasing a fish that wouldn't bite.  Monica and I were just taking it easy in chairs watching the river flow by.  


At the end of this visit we took Monica and Barry back with us as far as Black Mountain so they could pick up their car that had been worked on.  After they got the car we drove into Black Mountain for lunch and some shopping at the art galleries and other stores.  What a pretty little town.  I just wished we had more time to explore it but it was probably good we didn't as I left with three shopping bags of purchases.  (We had done carry on while flying and were going to do carry on returning also.  These purchases will become a challenge later on!)


I wish I had taken more pictures of our TN visit.

We came back late on a Friday and missed Kayla Half-Marathon run.  She came in a head of a lot of kids who were older than she was.  She does like to run.

 One proud little girl?

While there Sarah and the girls had scheduled a Mothers/Daughters Day while two other women and their girls.  They were going camping at a State Park in Columbia.  It was Sarah's job to reserve a spot and set up the camp site for the other ladies and girls.  I went with her while she and the girls did this.  Nope, I didn't spend the night!  After the overnighter Sarah and the other ladies packed up and came home.  Aren't independent women wonderful!


Joe and Bill got one last fishing day in before it was time to head home again.  

The girls with Mr. Basil.  There is a whole other story that goes with this picture but we will tell that at another time.


All too soon were had to head back home again.  Where did the three weeks go to...they went by way too fast.


Thank you Sarah, Joe, Kenzie, Kayla, Monica, Barry, Will, and Muriel for making our visit so much fun!  We will be back before you know it!!!


Happy Family Time!