Drayton Hall

This year we chose to go to Drayton Hall for our plantation house visit. We had read about Drayton while doing our study on South Carolina and the kids were very interested in seeing a house that was preserved rather than restored. Built in 1738 it is a beautiful Georgian architecture style home built on a rice plantation. We did the house tour which all the kids really liked. There was then a special 45 minute presentation on the African Slave connection to the South. Since we are going to be studying the Civil War after Christmas and studying slavery and the Underground Railroad I was very excited! We had a great tour guide and I knew the kids would get great information. They learned so much about slaves lives on the plantation and about rice cultivating. 

The view from the front of the house where visitors by carriage arrived. Below is the view from the other side of the house overlooking the Ashley River.

The front door.

Original paint is still on the walls.

There is a room in the house that has a growth chart of the Drayton family. Every year over Thanksgiving the house is opened to the family decendents to come to visit and they remove the plexiglass covering and allow them to add their measurements.

Lindy, Ethan, and Erin are standing in a fire place that was in the basement of the house.

The resident spider.

Ethan by one of the huge oak trees.

Erin holding the rice box.

We learned about growing rice and how it was gathered and sifted. We also got to see artifacts like this pot and a Gullah New Testament Bible.

More house pictures! We all had a great time visiting!

A Few of My Favorite Things

So for my final and last Charleston post (I promise!) I have some of my favorite things to share. I hate to go on and on but there is so much to show and tell! On Saturday mornings there is a farmers market/art show held in the park across from the Francis Marion Hotel. We wandered around and looked at everything before choosing what to have for breakfast. The fresh fruits and vegetables looked so good, if only we had access to a kitchen, Bill would have been cooking up a storm. It was fun to look anyway and there were plenty of non food items as well. We found great soaps that we brought home to everyone and a couple of other little treats.

Again, I felt like a food critic! We settled on crepes and found a spot on the lawn of the park under a tree - it was a very hot day.

The kids would have been all over these berries. This is about how much we go through in a week. But the best treat of all were these doughnuts. The little doughnut machine was so cute. You could watch the batter being poured, dipped in the fryer, and then travel along and flip over into the little bin. It is obviously popular as there was a line all the time, but for good reason. They were fabulous. I almost went back for more but restrained myself and at least tried to get something else. Which led me to the crepes where even though I got strawberries I still needed a little chocolate, yum!

A fun place to shop was what is known as the Slave Mart. We learned on our tour that it is named this because this is where the slaves would shop for food and goods for their owners homes. Now it is an open air market that has about four buildings you can spend hours wandering though looking for gifts and fun little things to bring home to your kids.

Our last night was definitely one of the best of our trip. We had pretty much hit all the great spots to eat as confirmed by the concierge. Our last dinner we headed to Charleston Grill via rickshaw. The concierge called to make sure we could get a table and let them know that we were celebrating our anniversary. We were truly spoiled. We had a great cozy little table and were treated to all kinds of samples the chef was working on. We were also treated to a special dessert bottle of wine and this adorable Happy Anniversary sign. The best part was the dark chocolate easel that it sat on and I promptly ate!

If that wasn't enough of a great romantic night it got even better. Our friend the concierge (again - he was a great guy!) recommended that we go the the Wentworth Mansion which has a restaurant and have an after dinner drink. The Mansion is now a full service hotel and you can take your drink to the top of the Mansion and enjoy it out on the cupola. Talk about romantic. We could see all of Charleston lit up under a clear starry night and we had the cupola to ourselves.

I had to take a picture of the Rickshaw drivers tattoo.

This was such a cozy little booth at Charleston Grill tucked into an alcove. I'm telling you we were seriously spoiled.

These are from the cupola. Sorry for the blur but I wanted to show the view.

Our last morning after we went to the Calhoun Mansion tour, we went to Fleet Landing for lunch. It was just what I needed before heading home. Fleet is a 1940 Navy building on the harbor. It has been refurbished into a restaurant. I needed one last dose of sea air so we sat outside and enjoyed a great lunch and our last uninterrupted meal for quite awhile! All could think about here was how we need to bring Kyle back to eat here when we go to Folly next summer.

And my last favorite thing was my company. I took this goofy little picture of us sitting in one of the gardens. It is probably my favorite. We are always running as most parents are. Every evening is filled with kid activities and Bill has a very demanding job often working 70 hours a week. Having a week alone together no matter where we went would be the most treasured gift I could ever have.

Thank you to all of our family and friends for helping us get away together. We deeply appreciate all of your time in staying with the kids, doing laundry, and driving everyone everywhere. I didn't have a care in the world because I knew everyone was in good hands.

To the best husband a bride could wish for. Thank you for great conversation filled with lots of laughter. I loved every minute we were together. Thank you for the best 15 years and to many, many more.

Gardens & Houses

I took tons of pictures on our trip, not that unusual for me. Having a new camera really made it fun. I am still learning how to use all the features and this was a great opportunity to try them all out. God love Bill who never once said "come on, let's go" or "you've taken a picture of every house down here". And I love my camera! Over 400 pictures on this trip with no kids was a lot of pictures. But I am having so much fun playing with them in Photoshop and learning about that whole world. So here are a few that I have not done anything with in Photoshop yet otherwise it would be Christmas before I posted them.


Ethan is really into architecture right now so I took plenty of the houses and the detail on them. We walked the Battery three times. It is so beautiful to have these houses on one side and walk along the water. I love the ocean, the smell of the water and the feel of it in the air. I love old houses like these so it was the best of both worlds for both of us.

Our walking tour ended at the Battery during low tide. There were dolphins swimming right by the shore. I have never seen them that close it was so neat. That I don't have pictures of, I was too busy just standing there in awe. So here are a few of my favorites from our walks and the gardens of the historic homes. Enjoy!










Rainbow Row (below)



Rainbow Row

Cobblestone streets...

with iron work everywhere

Favorite garden pictures....

Love these palms below.

I believe this is Crepe Myrtle (?). It was all over the trees. Our tour guide said it flowers for about 4 months and you will see it in different colors.

Help, what is this? Some sort of fig? I saw these in a couple of the yards of the homes we toured.

And my favorite picture from all the gardens is this little pink flower. Not so much because of the actual flower but how the picture turned out.

This is a lily from the fresh flowers in the hotel lobby. They smelled so good.

Can't remember the name of these but I love the color. Blue in a garden is one of my favorites.

Another lily, we had these Rubrum Lily's in our wedding.

Thought these were neat. I've never seen them before and have no idea what they are!