Old Sheldon Church Ruins

 On Sunday, we went and saw this old beautiful place.  Its the Old Sheldon Church Ruins.  I actually saw this picture on a calendar out here and wondered where it was and it ended up being not very far from us, so we decided to pay it a visit.  There was actually a bride getting her bridal pictures done while we were here.  Its a pretty popular picture spot, which doesn't surprise me!

 This church was built back in 1751 and is the original structure.  It was burned during a raid by General Augustine Prevost during the last  parts of the Civil War.

 These little frogs hop EVERYWHERE underneath your feet.  I just had to not look down because I wouldn't be able to walk in the grass without stepping on one! :(  Yuck!

 Kade being a monkey.....

 Both of us being monkeys........

 Such a pretty place!  I think new family pics here would be awesome!

 You can see the bride off to the left of my pic. 

 Love these in black and white. 

If only walls could talk.....We could learn so much! There would be many stories told about this place I'm sure!  I love history!

Cypress Gardens

 Well, I can now check the Cypress Gardens off my list, however, that doesn't mean I won't go back.  This was the number one place that I wanted to visit!   I loved this place so much!  It was gorgeous!  I couldn't stop taking pictures.  I wanted to go here last week but it was raining and I knew the whole experience wouldn't be as good, and I'm glad I waited!  Its about 25 minutes from our house so not too far, and I've been reading about it.  Its a big park area, that has the swamps, and other cool stuff to see like hundreds of butterflies, crocodiles, exotic turtles and lots of other stuff. 

 It was so nice because we got there and they told us that we could just go jump on a boat and row ourselves around or we could pay a tour guide $5.00 to row us, and I definitely wanted to TAKE MY TIME so we did the self tour.  It was just the two of us in a little old wooden boat!  Super cool!  We were out on the water for probably an hour.  You didn't have to rush, you could take as long as you want.  There were bridges that we went underneath as we went through the gardens. 

 This was actually after our boat ride....I'm not really going in order.

 We saw alligators, 6 of them to be exact.  3 adults and 3 babies, this was in the wild out in the swamps with us. This was definitely the highlight! We were hoping that we'd see some.  They are so camouflage in all of the lily pads.  Yikes! 

 Baby alligator!  They make these scream sort of noises and we wondered why, someone told us that it means they are kinda nervous and that their moms would not be far away from them! Oh boy!  Its pretty weird walking around a big swamp area where alligators roam. 

 I've ALWAYS loved nature and flowers.  I feel like I take so many pics of them, but I just love how beautiful they are!  In fact, I was taking this photo right before we saw the first alligator, so I'm surprised that it turned out.

 This was at the dock in our boat together before we took off.  The park worker was nice enough to take a quick pic of both of us!

 It was one of the best Mother's Day's ever for me!  Kade was so awesome to take me out and have fun!  He did a good job rowing us!  We only hit like 3 trees! haha!  ......and we didn't sink, so it was a success!

 So here's the story of us seeing our first alligator:  We are rowing along, very slowly.  I am taking pictures, of course.  We are headed towards an old bridge.  I'm in the middle of taking a picture of a lily blossom, and Kade says, "CIARA, ALLIGATOR, ALLIGATOR!!"  I say, "Shut up! Where!??"  my heart about came out of my chest!  I whirled around and saw the alligator cross the trail that heads over the bridge, and down into the water by our boat.  He starts to swim towards our boat......by this time, I say, "UUMMMM, Kade? I don't know how I feel about this......"  We are both just starring at this thing swimming towards us.  Then, the alligator turned away from our boat and started going behind us! FEW!!!!  I never thought I would have an encounter like that!  They are so sneaky too!

 Mr. Alligator swimming by our boat.  It was really cool to see out in the wild like that! 

 The are so long!  This one was about 5-6 feet long.  Plenty long for me! 

 It seemed like there were endless lily pads!  They were so pretty!

 My cute boat rower!  He did an awesome job!  He knows me too well.  We didn't go too fast cause he knew that I wanted to see EVERYTHING and take my time.

FUN DAY!

 I had to throw these last two in here.  Scenes from the notebook of course.  A lot of the show was filmed here in South Carolina and these scenes were filmed here in the Cypress Gardens. There is a place in the movie called Sea Brook, and it is also not far from here.  I want to go see that too!  And I was talking to a lady in church and she said that the big fancy plantation homes that where in the movie are also here...a must see as well.    There are actually a lot of movies that have been filmed here in the Cypress Gardens, another one being "The Patriot" with Mel Gibson. 

 

The Old Angel Oak Tree

 Well, we're at it again!  In the pouring rain!  On Sunday, we went to church.....I LOVED CHURCH! All Sundays are good, but we all know that we have our favorite Sundays when the lessons are ALL so good and we get that yummy spiritual feeding that we need :)  That was how Sunday was for me, just loved it. After church, we checked the weather and it said, 2:00  80% chance of rain, 3:00  90% chance of rain, 4:00 and later 100% chance of rain......hmm.  I really wanted to go exploring but Kade thought we would for sure get drenched, but he was a sport and took me out anyway :) 

 Its been really rainy and cloudy here pretty much ever since we got here, with a few good days in between but all the locals keep reassuring us that it DOESN'T LAST.....but I'm beginning to wonder.  We decided to venture out to the old Angel Oak tree, believed to be 3-400 years old.   It was SO cool!  The branches are so big and long that some of them decided it would be easier to just grow on top of the ground like roots instead of up into the air.  It was a really cool tree.  The rain was just sprinkling when we left and even when we got to the tree it wasn't TOO bad, but as we were there longer and longer, the rain started to get heavier and heavier.....

 Kade has become very prepared with good "knocking equipment" out here in this weather, so he has his rain coat always in the car and an umbrella, which worked out nicely for both of us and my camera.

 View of all the tree

 Its hard to explain how big it is until you just see it.  I just grows everywhere.

 Since the rain started getting so bad we decided that we would just go hang out at the apartment and have a nap and watch a movie (Robin Hood-cartoon version).  (Pic of apartment NOT taken on our rainy day hehe)  On our drive home, we had to go about 50mph on the freeway because of the rain.  I saw the rain a lot worse in Arkansas when we lived there but it was pretty bad, and it didn't let up ALL DAY.  Guess the weather man was right yesterday:)  When we got home, Kade made me sour dough pancakes with fresh fruit, and we took a long nap, and then we watched our movie and invited friends over.  It ended up being a really fun "indoor" day!  And I thought I would include pics of our apt inside and out, since I take them every year just to remember where we lived.  We were lucky enough to get our apartments from day 1 and it sounds like we will pretty much be saying here until the end of July which will be nice, cause I'm not a huge fan of moving, and since I'm on the 3rd floor.....I have to hike up and down stairs A LOT anyway.  I decided to figure out how many stairs I climbed one day just running back and forth from my apartment to the office and it was over 300 stairs, and that's only counting going UP the stairs!Maybe I'll be ready for hunting season when we go home!!!!!

 I'm so grateful that Vivint doesn't scrimp on our furniture, it makes the stay so much nicer.  We've always been really happy with our furniture-Thankyou VIVINT :) 

 

 This is the view from our deck.  At least since we have to hike all the stairs, we get to have a view.....its worth it.   There are a few geese that hang around here and they just had gooselings?  Is that what you call them?  hehe Anyways, they are so cute, little yellow and black ones.  Sometimes I watch them from the deck. 

Downtown Charleston

 Well we went out and visited downtown Charleston and it was super pretty.  Its a very old city, lots and lots of old cool buildings and cobblestone/brick streets.  I loved it.  I'll keep everything brief since I have so many pics!

 This was at the harbor, by Fort Sumter

 There was a park next to the harbor so it all kinda led together I guess you could say. 

 I loved the walk-way along the ocean front, very cool.

 Pineapple water fountain, this one is for you Psych lovers out there :)

 Part of Rainbow Row downtown.

 Water fountain in the middle of the park/harbor/city

 Jared ran through the water fountains so I thought I would give it a try! It started kinda sprikling rain on us anyways :)

 Pink Mansion

 Another mansion, I LOVE these houses so much!  I think they are so cool, and I love how all of them have decks on the roof.  They are on the ocean front so that would be a fun little BBQ with a view up there on the roof top if that were my house!

 There were lots of horse carriages all over the city.  They do carriage rides every 20 minutes to take people around town and tell them all about the history of Charleston.  Kinda gives you that old origianl feel of the town.  The horse shoes were cool.  That was one of the first things I noticed about the horses, because I know how "slippery" asphalt and metal are together, well these shoes have a big layer of rubber on the bottom to keep the horses from slipping....genius!

 Civil war cannon balls.  Jared kept making me laugh..........

 Along the Battery road front.  There were so many people running with their dogs along here and it made me miss Shilo.  She would have loved seeing all the other dogs!

 This was a little bed and breakfast place that I would love to go inside sometime!  I love the yard!

 This was the main statue in the park, it was a monument to pay tribute to the "Confederate Defenders" of Charleston.

And this was in the park by the Battery.  Fun trip downtown.  I can't wait to go back and see all the little booths to shop in on the famous Market Street.  The vendors come in and set up all their fun stuff for the tourists that come in from the cruise ships, but we didn't have time to go see any of it..... guess we'll have to go back!