Charleston

Anyone who has talked to me in the last month knows that planning this 28 day trip has left me a little frazzled.  The thought of visiting three countries and eight plus cities in a month with a house reno being completed in my absence was enough to make me take a double take.  The one part of the vacation that I was not worried about was our initial trip to Charleston.  

Carl made lifelong friends during his time at Creighton.  We started doing trips together every other year.  Joe and Nicole have Charlie (3) and Sam (1).  Molly and Josh have Elle (2.5) and Vivi (5 mos).  Although Charlie is a little younger than Sophia, he is just as tall as Jack and is very mature.  Jack and Charlie were inseparable.  Elle and Sophia had a wonderful time together playing baby dolls.  Carl, Molly and Joe shared lots of great college stories and I even got to hear some of the stories from Joe about Carl 'prepping' for the first phone call after we met on the cruise.  I was smitten to hear that he had Joe come over to help him coach him through the call.  Thirteen years later, I owe a lot to Joe for that day:)

The vacation was a blast! It was very relaxing EXCEPT for our time trying to prepare for our space-A flights for the rest of the trip (more on that later).  We spent most of our time beach side.  On our past trips to Charleston, we have stayed in houses.  This time we stayed at Wild Dunes resorts.  It was set back from the rest of the island but offered an awesome condo on the beach with multiple pools and cool beach side restaurants and bars.  

Sophia and her Ariel.  She loves her princesses so much.  Recently, she has refused to wear anything other than princess attire.  She almost lost it when she opened the suitcases to find only one princess dress.  

These little purple flip flops have a story all of their own.  Since Sophia only wants to wear three items in her closet, I took her shopping to pick out her own clothes.  She found these purple flip flops and in the shuffle of trying them on LOST her nice shoe.  I looked everywhere to no avail:(  She ended up walking out with these.  

The beach was absolutely gorgeous.  There were sand bars everywhere.  The kids had a blast looking for all sorts of sea life.

Molly and Elle on a search for sea creatures

Carl loves to pick up creatures and bring them to the kids. It's pretty often at our house that the kids will be in bed and Carl comes running in with a frog or lizard to show them.  He loved helping them find star fish and hermit crabs.  I was really surprised at how willing Sophia was to pick up the starfish.  They were super cool and different colors.

My team on a hunt for star fish!

It was really nice just spending some one on one time with the kids.  We really enjoy our friends back home and already miss them but sometimes it's nice to just have some time with me and my babies.  At home, they are always running off to play on the playground or with their friends in their room.  It's been nice to play baby with Sophia and in the sand with Jack.

At lunch.  Sophia trying her first pina colada

A typical Sophia face.  She skipped her way through the whole vacation.  She loves to do this skip-gallop

Trying on Mommy's hat

Me and my little girl

As you can see, there are a ton of pics of Sophia but few of Jack.  He was so busy on the vacation.  He was constantly racing with Charlie or running to find a hermit crab.  It was hard to get him to sit still!  Leading up to this vacation, he had a hard week preparing to say good bye to his friends.  OPS has been an amazing school and I have never seen him get so close to a group of kids.  With the exception of his dear friend Allen, all of Jack's friends are moving on to Kindergarten next year.  I went with Jack to watch them prepare for the graduation show.  He's still a little confused about next year.  After a lot of discussion though, we have all decided he will stay at OPS.  His friends are going to all different schools but I have assured him that we will do our best to see them all.

I am so happy to have one more year with this little guy

Carl has been working like a crazy man the past two weeks. We have barely seen him:(  On the day before we left, Jack turned to Carl and told him that he was really excited to go on the vacation because Daddy would come and couldn't work.  We have loved having so much time with him.  

Although Jack and Charlie were the best of friends, Sophia wiggled her way into playing with the boys.  She also had some very sweet moments with Charlie.

Sophia and Charlie at Poe's tavern.  We had a great dinner of fish tacos, burgers and cheese fries!

You think she had fun?!?!

The Creighton Crew eating ice cream in downtown Charleston

Josh introduced us to all sorts of new craft beers.  Elle was so sweet the whole vacation.  You couldn't tell the difference between Sophia and Elle from the back because they have the exact same color hair:)  Elle loves to cheers (I think it runs in the family).

Sophia and a star fish and another snail coming out of the shell.  They wrapped themselves around her hand!

On the sand bar showing off their sea life!

As the trip grew to a close, we tried to find a flight out of the U.S.  With Space-A travel you don't where you are flying out of or where you are going until right before the trip. A schedule comes out 72 hrs in advance of flights so I thought we would know then our schedule.  We quickly found that seats and flights change constantly (like up until the flight leaves).  This kept us guessing. In the end, we found a flight out of Charleston to Spangdahlem, Germany.  In a last minute decision, we changed our plans and decided to stay in Heidelberg Germany for a  few days instead of going to Porto, Portugal.  Travel books out the window on this vaca..this really is becoming an adventure!