Edisto Island

So last week was G's Spring Break aka my favorite week of the year. We have several big events coming up--Joal's returning to Africa, replacing the atrocious carpet in our house with beautiful wood floors, and a trip to Texas when school's out, so in an effort to conserve dollars, we decided to forego the usual spring break vacation trip.

That is, until I realized that Joal was going to be working in Augusta, Georgia for three days of Spring Break. Now granted, Augusta, GA isn't known for being a hot vacation spot. Frankly, there's not much to do there, at all, but, it was someplace to go that didn't cost much (Joal was already planning to drive down and his hotel was a work expense)...basically we just had to eat...and we can do that pretty cheaply. And we got to be with Joal, instead of miss him.

Deciding to go with him on this little trip is probably the most sporadic thing we've done in a while. It was a very short conversation...and there was absolutely no planning...which is very much unlike me.

My boys have grown up traveling, staying in hotels and riding for long distances...their basic requirements are met if there's a pool at the hotel. :)

So on the drive down, I was looking at the map on my phone and discovered that we were going to be about 135 miles from the beach! The beach!! And not just any beach...Edisto Island, South Carolina...which has been on my list of beaches I want to visit for years, thanks to an old scrapbooking friend (Mel) who took some amazing pictures there many years ago.

If Augusta, GA, has anything working for it, it's that it's relatively close to a fabulous beach! Granted, 135 miles is not exactly a quick trip, but when you live in land-locked Tennessee where there is *no* salty water, 135 miles seems like a mere jaunt.

So we settled into a nice Hampton Inn and Suites in Augusta on Monday evening and the boys and I made our plan for going to Edisto Island, South Carolina on Tuesday. Tuesday morning, we got up a little later than I had planned, but we ended up arriving at Edisto Island in about three hours. One hundred and thirty five miles takes a bit longer forever to travel when it's 2-lane highways all the way and when there are about 645 turns along the way. Do you know how hard it is to obey the 45-mile-per-hour speed limit when you are headed to the beach? I did pretty good but it was a challenge on those back roads of South Carolina, I must admit. Still, we were getting a beach trip...so no one in my car really cared that it took us three hours. :)

Edisto Island is beyond words. Sometimes only photos will do.

The weather was wonderful...it was breezy and 75...the sun was shining! It's not "the season" in Edisto, so there were a total of 6 people on the beach...including the three of us. It was too cool to swim but we had a blast playing in the sun and the sand.

Edisto Island has a hundred or so privately-held beach houses along the coast, but in between the houses are public access points to the beach. Parking was a breeze at Point 38 and we enjoyed about 3 hours playing in the sand, wading into the ocean and hunting for shells, which were numerous. I'm grateful that the boys like the beach as much as their mother...Not that I wouldn't drag them along even if they didn't. :)

Edisto is very "un-commercial". There's a Piggly Wiggly for groceries, a gas station and a few restaurants. There's a state park. And the houses/rentals.

Tuesday also happened to be Greyson's 8th birthday! In previous years he's been a little bummed that his birthday usually falls during Spring Break as it means most of his friends are unavailable for a party. This year however, he declared that spending his birthday on the beach was "the best ever". :)

I concur.

--Sarah



A little bit of stamping...Stampin' Up!

So not too long ago I signed up to become a Stampin' Up! Independent Demonstrator. To keep the Stampin' Up! gig separate from my regular blog stuff, I have a new blog...

http://stampyourstory.blogspot.com/

You know what to do! :)

--Sarah

It's just what I do...

I've been a scrapbooking crazy-woman lately. The cruise scrapbook is well under way and I am so excited about it. The idea for this page from the 2008 cruise to Grand Cayman came to me as I was browsing the Crate & Barrel site and saw these plates! Inspiration comes from many places, yes! And then right after I started it, this weekly challenge was put out by one of the Garden Girls at Two Peas--and guess what? I won the challenge! Nifty.

I know, I know...that page kinda goes against everything I am as a scrapbooker/storyteller, because it has no story on the page, but sometimes the photo is enough. Not often. Just sometimes. And there's a ton of journaling and story-telling in the rest of the album.

Citronella by K&Co (one of my favorites right now) and a touch of Scenic Route go together like ice cream and cake, right!

The crop at Two Peas this weekend and the Weekly Sketch at Let's Scrap really got my attention...I was up way past my normal bedtime this morning but this came together sometime just before midnight...completing two challenges at Two Peas and the Let's Scrap Sketch for the week.

I am loving the cloud punch (Fiskars)! The Mix and Match Challenge at Two Peas was all about using products from 5 or more companies on one project. My companies were: Scenic Route, Fiskars, Sizzix, EK Success, American Crafts, 3M, and Doodlebug Designs. That doesn't even count the plate from Publix that I used as a template to cut the big orange circle. :)

Clouds are everywhere in my papercrafting world right now and I am so glad. Remember Bob Ross--the painting teacher who used to paint "happy little trees"? Well, I call these "happy little clouds"! This layout also fit into the requirements for the *Spot a Trend* challenge...I'm calling clouds a trend. :)

Some other cloud-y projects I've been admiring are listed below:

Kelli Crowe's Cloudy Awesomeness at Two Peas

Kraft Card by Joscie at Peas

Today You also at Peas for clouds of pink and other deliciousness...

A blog entry with cloudy goodness at Scrapbook Patty's

A sweet layout by Liz from Eclectica
Our visit to Chihuly almost didn't happen. We happen to live just a few miles from the awesome Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art in Belle Meade. This place is certainly one of the things I love most about this city. The Chihuly exhibit was amazing...it was an outdoor installation as well as an indoor exhibit. Unfortunately, a round with the flu kept me from getting there when it first opened and suddenly, it was the week before it was set to close and I still hadn't been. That just was't acceptable so one day I just decided to go pick G up from school early so we could all go. It was well worth the experience! It was very cloudy outside so the photos are a little dark...but the part we got to see before it got dark was brilliant. I want to see more...maybe a trip to Tacoma (for more Chihuly) is in order.

So now you know...Happy Sunday!

--Sarah

Listography: Movies I Could Watch Over and Over

Listography Assignment #2 -- Movies I Could (and Do) Watch Over and Over

Ahh this is an easy one. I'm very selective about the movies I watch and for me to watch something more than once...well, if I do you can bet I really like it.

We are fortunate to live very close to a great place called McKay's Used Music and Books. It's a magical place for buying and occasionally selling used media of all sorts. At fantastic prices. So when a movie makes the cut, my sweet husband, who loves going to McKay's for any or no reason, is very likely to come home bearing said movie to add to my collection.

So, on with it...here's my list.

The American President

Bull Durham

City of Angels

The Replacements

For the Love of the Game

Field of Dreams

That Thing You Do

Sahara

The West Wing (the series, not a movie)

Mad About You (the series, not a movie)

Funny story. When I was pregnant with G, I spent an inordinant amount of time in the hospital. It seemed like 6 months but it was only 4 weeks. The last miserable four weeks. I'm convinced that magnesium sulfate (a drug that prevents seizures and induces a special kind of crazy) should be used to extract secrets from terror suspects...and yet I spent four weeks on that drip from the pit. To combat the crazy, Joal and I watched a crazy amount of movies and videos. One of his friends loaned us the entire series of Mad About You discs...it was a ray of laughter and light in an otherwise very trying time. I will forever love that show.

So now you know.

--Sarah