Charleston, Charleston... Made in Carolina!

Michael called me the week before the 4th and said, "plan us a vacation! We are going to Charleston!". It is a place we have both wanted to go for a long time. We have heard wonderful things about it and we love Southern residential architecture and we were told THIS was the place to explore!

We did a lot... a LOT ...of walking for our short time there and it was quite hot but the kids were wonderful troopers!

 

People were right- the homes did not disappoint. We loved walking through the streets of homes. I was surprised by how small the main historic Charleston was. We ended up leaving a day early because we felt like we had seen what we wanted to see (and there was the bigger thing that after them falling asleep for the last 15 minutes of the 5+ hour trip down- it was better to drive home during a more promising sleeping hour).

 Despite the MANY pictures of the kids strapped into strollers, we did let them loose every once in a while- and they loved it and felt free when we did. But the heat was so much that they were usually pretty easily convinced it was time to take another sitting break (Houston more than Hadley- apparently she doesn't mind the heat so much).

 It was funny to see Houst on the verge of exhaustion and then he would get one whiff of Air Conditioning and be ready to go for hours again. He was so tired but its like his body didn't know what to do it was so excited to have the energy of Air conditioning. Thank goodness for the wonderful corner hotel room (THANK YOU COURTNEY!) that was long and skinny and a great race track for Houston who ran back and forth back and forth hundreds of times.

In addition to walking the streets of homes, we went to Ft. Sumter,

(doesn't my boy look so big in that picture in front of the cannon!!!)

Middleton Place Plantation,

 and Michael was able to do a couple house tours while I took the kids for hotel Air Conditioning breaks. 

Although there were times that I thought, "goodness, I'm ready for a date night! Where is the local ward to find a babysitter?" or we even thought "should we have brought the kids?"... there were so many more times that made it totally worth it to have it as a family vacation.

 Maybe someday soon we will go on a romantic getaway- but then we would have missed out on having 2 entertainers at our dinner dates :)

At the very end of the trip we were talking about our favorite parts of the trip- we thought for sure Houston's was going to be the 45 minutes that daddy took him to the hotel swimming pool on the roof while mommy tried to get Hadley to nap... but no... instead "yeah... and remember that tiny Houston (sized) fridge!?!?!" oh I love that kid! I think he also liked playing in the fountains at waterfront park while daddy went to go tour one of the houses. (trying to get pictures sent from my phone).

We had a wonderful 3 days together. We had a blast. Here are some of my favorite pictures of the vacation...

(top left: My wonderful husband pushed our ghetto stroller almost the whole time. It did make us decide it was time to splurge for a new stroller before #3 comes in September.
top middle: Hadley assumed every time we got the camera out to take a picture of a house- it was actually to take a picture of her, 
top right- a perfect example of Houst being exhausted and Hadley ready to see the next site- I think she has a little Grammy Gates in her, 
middle: look at my two big kids! When we took it- for a second I felt like I could feel myself looking at it in 20 years and longing to be hot and sweaty just so I could be with my babies again for a flash of a camera second. 
Bottom left- I noticed this in a picture of me and the kids and beautiful scenery and couldn't help find it hilarious and crop it to make it its own picture! They really were such troopers for such a hot trip.)

Thank you to my sweet husband for insisting and declaring it was time for a family vacation. We had a wonderful weekend.