U.S. Ambassador to Libya

I don't want to scandalize my readers by introducing the subject of politics casually.  With that being said, I am a news junky and have been following the stories of Middle East uprisings in several nations closely.  As many know, Chris Stevens was killed in Libya on the anniversary of 9/11.  He was America's ambassador to their country; an appointed representative who ought not be remembered by the inhumanity of his death.  All life has dignity~ it is God-given.  I wanted to share with you a video released by the embassy about Chris Stevens and what he desired to offer to the people of Libya.

More Photos....

... and fewer words.  Since the thunderstorms in the ATL this evening have the baby busy (and me a little jumpy), I thought I'd post some more pictures from Kyle's and my recent trip to Charleston.  We are going no captions tonight since it is late....

Babymoon

Kyle and I love to travel.  I would say it's our favorite thing to do together, but it's really hard to pick one thing when I love everything we do together.  We selected Charleston as our babymoon destination so we could enjoy a little time on the beach, historical sightseeing, and (of course) excellent food.  Silly as it is, I also love staying in hotels where we are guaranteed to have cable (a luxury we don't indulge in at home to save pennies).  Where to start?  Let go with food...

Each place we ate had great seafood.  Kyle let me indulge in some serious fried seafood here at Sullivan's (on Sullivan's Island).  We split crab stuffed mushrooms for an appetizer and a plate full of fried shrimp, scallops, flounder, oysters, and devil crab for the entree.  Kyle loved a heaping side of hushpuppies.

Kyle's boss highly recommended Poe's Tavern for fish tacos.  We loved this place splitting an order of chips & queso, 2 mahi mahi tacos, and a burger.  Vacation eating is not for wimps; good thing Kyle brought a pregnant wife as his date.  We also learned that Edgar Allen Poe had lived briefly on Sullivan's Island; the restaurant website says, "Poe enlisted in the army under the pseudonym Edgar Allan Perry and was stationed at Fort Moultrie at the western end of Sullivan's Island for thirteen months beginning November 18,1827."

We went to Hank's in downtown Charleston on our last evening.  We both enjoyed she crab soup.  For entrees I ordered mussels (a girl really learns to miss moules frites leaving France and all...) while Kyle ordered "Seafood a la Wando".  This dish had 3 kinds of fish, shrimp, scallops, crab, and mushrooms served on a fried grit cake covered in a buttery cream sauce.  Woah it was rich.

 We learned a valuable hotel reservation lesson.  Kyle wanted to take the hassle out of staying somewhere far from the beach.  We stayed for two nights at a hotel right on the beach at the Isle of Palms.  It is beach-goers central.  Our first afternoon there, Kyle and I took a long walk up and down the beach~ a scene which can only be described as a real life Where's Waldo? illustration.  What we hoped would be convenient was kind of frightening.  The biggest motivation to find a calmer & less-populated beach?  Too many smokers along the Isle of Palms.  We happily spent the next two days on the beach at Sullivan's Island where we saw these things:

You may have to enlarge this one to get the full effect.  There was a man who had these huge kite sets and was doing all these impressive tricks with one set in each hand.  It was so fun and entertaining~ how does one get into rhythmic kite flying?

You can hardly see them, but we were visited by some dolphins in our cove one morning.

Bleh~ jellies were everywhere.  I thought I loved the beach, but these creepies have me thinking I only love the Gulf of Mexico...

A sand covered crab in its shell.  I managed to step on at least one crab and maybe two starfish that scared me out of my mind.  Ocean life is good to observe~ not to tread on.

Boldly going where perhaps no pregnant girl should go~ a swimsuit picture!  I unsuccessfully have been trying to tan over my running shorts tan lines for a while...  looks like I'll be rockin' paler thighs until summer '12.

My handsome hubby and all our new beach goods thanks to Target.  We got two beach chairs, two beach towels, and two Nalgene water bottles at great deals compared to the beach shops in the touristy areas.  Our little set up made spending time on the beach so comfortable and perfect for reading.

Happy Hams on our wide open sandscape

We weren't beach bums the whole trip~ we managed to get in a little culture.  We thought it'd be cool to visit Fort Sumter after having watched the Ken Burns Civil War documentary a couple of months ago, but we only ended up visiting Fort Moultrie.  The fort had an impressive victory against the British during the Revolutionary War, but since then had done little to preserve the safety of the homeland.  It has been decommissioned so now it's just a tourist sight where folks like we can pose with cannons.

Fort Moultrie

Kyle posing on the frontline of many a military conflict

We were trying to think of a way we could "Evel Knievel" that baby into this cannon.  We went for a cute pose instead.

We loved the large water mines and did the best explosion faces we could muster.  Kyle's working his explosion look all the way down to his calves~ what a stud!

With a helpful gust of wind that came right as I was posing, I think I look like I'm being blown away more than blown up... Kyle got a kick out of my expression.

Here are some other landmarks you may recognize from the area~

Ah, there's Fort Sumter off in the distance.

It was so sunny and hot at the Battery that we spent most of our time in White Point Gardens.

Pretty place

Every time I see a gazebo, I want to sing "Sixteen Going On Seventeen".

The yellow building is the old Exchange Building and Provost Dungeon.  We wondered if our friends in Metz would find this corner of architecture in Charleston similar to messin buildings.  The pinky-brown building definitely reminded us of Metz's post office.

Every port city has a custom house, but not all port cities have such a handsome fella to present their landmarks.

We meandered through the old City Market and thankfully made it out of there without buying something woven.

Lastly, I know this may sound weird, but we love hotel hopping on vacations.  Kyle found a deal on a very fancy hotel in town for our last night.  We say fancy because they had a wine & cheese hour, cookies and milk at bedtime, and an insane breakfast brought to our room whenever we wanted (I guess we think of food a lot).  It was a beautiful place to stay.  We couldn't afford to be there for the whole trip, but it's nice to go all out for one day.

Our room was the largest at the Harbour View Inn; it's exposed brick wall and tension rod date back to the 1830s.  I wanted to move in.

A basket full of pastries, a carafe of regular coffee for Kyle & decaf for me, cups of fruit, and a small glass of chocolate milk for my husband.  These were the best pastries we've had since we left France.

On the left side of this picture you can see our room's enormous window.  On the right side you can see the pier by the harbor.

We met a lovely man who took our picture on the rooftop terrace.

From the roof we could see the harbor as well as a fountain that children love to play in.  How fun!

It was a wonderful trip.  I loved celebrating two years of marriage with my sweet husband as well as getting in one last big freedom excursion before the baby arrives.  I was worried it wouldn't be very much fun for me because I feel so pregnant, but I definitely recommend traveling and babymooning (we were able to do it at 31 weeks or 7 months easily).  I loved all the quality time we had reading, doing Bible study together, exploring, swimming, walking, eating, watching Food Network and House Hunters for hours, and talking.  It was super restorative and such a blessing.  I have more pictures to share with you, but it'll have to be another post since this one is ridiculous.  A bientot!

My father stormed the beach at Normandy!

Okay, so the title is a bit untrue.  My father wasn't even born until after WWII, but this sentence has been in my head since middle school when I saw (and then read) a great movie, Stand by Me (or The Body in print).  Seeing Saving Private Ryan added to my understanding to why storming the beach at Normandy would be an impressive yet traumatic experience.  It was with great anticipation that I finally got to go to this place on the outset of our Ham fam road trip across France.

Monday afternoon we drove west and arrived in the town of Trouville~home of a large Casino and many-a-crepe restaurant.  We enjoyed a tasty dinner and drank some delicious cidre (or cider for English folks) which is a regional specialty.  Even though we checked into a Best Western, the hotels architects did their best to make it blend with the surroundings.  There was a lovely bar and a room to play pool (for free!).  It was an excellent home base for daily excursions to WWII museums and memorials.

Not your typical American chain hotel~the flowers give it that little something extra.

Downtown Trouville~ did I mention that "trou" in French means "hole"?  We were residing in Holeville... charming.

Tuesday morning our exploration in all things Allies and Axis powers began starting in Arromanches where Rick Steves had recommended a little D-Day museum.  These beaches were invaded by the British on 6 June, 1944 as part of Operation Overlord.  Arromanches was chosen to be the location of one of two Mulberry harbors; these were temporary harbors put together off the coast to deliver cargo to the Allies.  It was an absolutely beautiful place, and it must have been good for the military to arrive in June because this was a chilly place for us in September.

There are still remnants of military things in la Manche (or the English Channel).

Our next visit was a little farther west along the coast to Omaha Beach and the American cemetery.  You may remember our visit to St-Avold right down the road from us in the Lorraine region.  It's hard to believe there are more Americans interred there in the Moselle while taking in how enormous the cemetery is in Normandy.  They have a beautiful and wonderful museum with dozens of films and stories about the men and women who gave their lives here towards the end of the war.  I loved hearing letters read that the soldiers had written home and what they thought about what they missed at home and how they were doing in France. One of my favorite displays featured a dummy parachutist created by the British and dropped on D-Day to deceive the Germans; they call these little burlap fellas "Rupert".  You can read more about them if you search Operation Titanic.

We came out of the museum to the sight of long beaches and a green lawn lined with perfectly spaced headstones shaped as either crosses or the star of David.  It seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see, and it nearly brought me to my knees.  I am so filled with gratitude even as I sit here in Florida and write reflecting on how many of my countrymen fought for freedom and justice against cruel and evil empires.  I know they didn't liberate France for me, but I am so fortunate to enjoy France for what she is today because so many Americans (and British and Canadians) gave their lives for her independence.  Living in Metz in particular makes one keenly aware how easily France was made German through force and the will of a kaiser or dictator.  The Moselle region and Alsace are French thanks to two generations of Americans who left their homes and risked their most precious possessions, their lives, in order to restore France.  I felt no differently in Normandy; I actually felt closer to understanding how significant WWII was because we walked the battlefields and saw the graves of the men who left America never to return.

Omaha Beach

Americans in France

We went a little further down the coast to Ponte du Hoc where American Army Troopers scaled cliffs on rope ladders to take out some German fortifications.  It was here where we first saw war-scarred earth.  The German casements are left open and in ruins for tourists to enter and explore.  This area has been left so much as it was in 1944 that at times there are serious safety issues (for example, one could fall somewhere between 6 and 12 feet through the top of some casements).  You just can't imagine these places or visualize them from pictures as well as you would if you actually visited these battlefields.

We found Ronald Reagan in France!  Well, we found his words from the 40th D-Day anniversary...

Rangers scaled these cliffs from the beaches.

These German casements (or casemates) are huge! 

Kyle lives a little dangerously posing by fort tunnels.

Grass smooths the surface of this jagged earth.

We were struck by how much damage explosives can do.  I ventured into the crater to give you some perspective on its depth.

I was looking forward to sharing some of what we learned and experienced from our trip to Normandy.  I must confess that our war stories aren't quite complete; though these are from other French towns.  After our travels, I did a bit more reading about WWII online.  I found a nice video on youtube on FDR's announcement and public prayer of the D-Day invasion.  You'll have to forgive me for posting FDR; I am not a fan of his, but I found this address to be very interesting and historically significant.  Next on our tour is Reims, France.  That post will be up in a few days!