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!

Holiday Making

Last night Kyle and I had a meeting of the minds; our topic?  Where to go and what to see with our 3 months left in Europe.  3 months~that's no time at all!  On the other hand, we still have a quarter of our French life to live out.  Well, let me tell you~this blog was originally intended to share many a travel story.  To some degree I think we have achieved it (See:  Saarbrucken, Christmas in Strasbourg*Colmar*Heidelberg, Eurotrip with Chandler, Trier with JT, Luxembourg, Back to Strasbourg, and most recently to Hackenberg and Saint Avold).  It seems most of the folks we know around these parts travel more frequently to more exotic locations.  How is it possible?  With my job and Kyle's school work, we always had homework to do.  Plus, being a part-time teacher doesn't bring home the big bucks.  Is there some travel option out there less expensive than Ryan Air and Easy Jet or do all our friends have secret rich uncles.

Well, with all these curiosities aside, we have made a list of places we'd like to see before all is said and done.  We have been saving for a European honeymoon, and it's going to be a blow out.  Thankfully when we got married, my parents let us stay in their Florida home for a week of fun in the sun and seafood consumption to our hearts' content.  They even stocked the fridge before we arrived.  That meant that all the money set aside for our newlywed getaway could be stashed for an opportune time while in France.

An excellent location for our first honeymoon.

So far here is the game plan~
* In two weeks I'll meet Audrey and her mom Sheri in Frankfurt to jet off to London for a few days.  No Kyle included in this globetrotting... it's a ladies trip.
*Lyon, France to revisit my former home in Place Bellecour as well as our good friend Jonathan!

 28 Place Bellecour~home in 2004

View from above~out one of my windows

My neighborhood

 Jonathan! He's the nice fella sporting the brown t-shirt.

*Reims, France to take in a city with huge history (Roman city, location for French kings' coronations, palaces, forts, location where Germans surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, etc).  It's also in the champagne region~Imma be poppin' that bubbly...
*Moselle Moto-tour~Kyle and I are going to rent a scooter for a day to visit castles in the region (Chateau de Malbrouck and Chateau des Ducs de Lorraine)
*Nancy, France~I've never been and it's so close to not go.  It's another big town in the Lorraine region.
*Paris with the Hamiltons~Kyle's family was delayed in coming to France in the spring due to all the unsightly ash clogging international air travel.  Hopefully Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull (how can that even be a word?) will have calmed down by the fall.  Of course we'll take in the Champs Elysees, Eiffel Tower, etc.  Hopefully we can visit some sites off the beaten path...
*Normandy with the Hamiltons~It's been a lifelong dream to go here ever since I saw/read Stand By Me/The Body in which Teddy Duchamp defends his father's honor to a junk yard owner by proclaiming he stormed the beach at Normandy.  I'm excited about learning more of the history as we did in Hackenberg a couple of weeks ago.

La Piece de Resistance~Our Euro Lune de Miel goes a little something like this~
*Kyle and I will fly to Rome where I will live out my own Roman Holiday (minus the whole princess having a magical day with a journalist, a barber, and a scooter....).  I've got to start making the list of all the things we want to see...
*Next we puddle hop to Sardinia (thanks to hours of enjoying Molto Mario on Hulu) and continue our Italian adventure.
*A ferry ride later and we'll be in Corsica thus returning to France.  There we'll tour the island by car hitting the beaches and mountains and bed and breakfasts.
*Back to Sardinia for one night before we return to Metz, complete the moving out process, and return to the glorious motherland.  Talk about a dream come true.

There you have it.  We've got 92 days to do it.  Can it be done?  Only time will tell....