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!

First Sunday Adventure (continued)

 So I know your probably wondering why on earth we have pictures of graves!  Well....We have always wanted to go to a Civil War cemetery, and we know there is a lot of history out here and since the wind put a nice damper on our beach day, I mean, I guess we could've stayed and ate the sand that was blowing in our mouths as we talked but we opted to NOT do that!  So we decided to visit this place....

 I know its a cemetery...but it was THEEE prettiest cemetery I've seen!!!  The cemetery was so neat, there were different little sections all over with differnent kinds of people in each section.  They had a place for the Greeks, Chinese, Civil War, Catholic, etc.  Very interesting.  They had sepulchre tombs that you'll see as you scroll down more. 

 This was the civil war part.  Lots and lots of headstones dating back to the early 1800's.

 I loved this tree!

 This was a view from the cemetery of the bridge here in North Charlston.

 We got to peek inside....I was kinda hesitant but....I was ok! :)

 This one was so cool.  A pyramid????!

 It even had a stained glass window in it that you can see through the doorway. 

There was so many beautiful trees, so much greenery, ponds all over, bridges that crossed the ponds from one place to the other.  Never seen a cemetery like it in my LIFE!

First Sunday Adventure!

 Well now that I have one tiny second.....I'll post these from Sunday.  I feel like time is flying so fast, I can't even remember what day it is, but that is a good thing.  We are just so busy all the time with city licensing here in the office, but that will settle down as time goes on.  But we always love our Sundays!  They are so nice and we get to go see the sights!  We drove to Kiawah Island, home of the 2012 PGA championships.  The drive was BEAUTIFUL! We loved it. The trees are amazing. 

 

 This was at the parking lot before you walk to the beach.

 I wish we could stay on one of those little huts to the right in the trees!  They are so neat!

 Well, when we got to the beach we found some major WIND going on!  I could not even believe how NOT windy it was in the trees and then when we rounded the corner to the beach, it just hit us!  I felt like I could blow away! 

 At one point there was a huge wind gust that picked up some sand and hit both of us right in the face....OUCH!  We both looked at each other and said just that, "OOOUUUCH!"  LOL  But the wind made the sea shells easy to find because all the wind blew the sand off of them!

 

Crazy hair in the wind!

Guardian Angel Pins

Kade came home last night and told me a story that made my whole week! It's about a lady he met while he was out working. I'll tell it in Kade's words. 'We were talking about the alarm system and she said she wasn't interested but she was really nice. I noticed she was wearing a pin. As I went to leave, she said, "Oh, wait a minute!" She ran back into her house and brought back two of these angel pins, one for Me and one for You:). She then told me the story behind the pin. She had a daughter who passed away, and when her daughter passed away, she had gotten this angel pin to remind her that her daughter was always watching over her and woukd always be with her, she wore it everyday. Years later she was with a close friend who was going through a very difficult time in her life. Her friend had a daughter with cancer who would likely die. She had the impression to giver her, her pin, so she did. The friend, knowing what a treasure the pin was to this lady, was very overwhelmed and appreciative to receive such a gift. The lady realized how good she felt, making someone else so happy so she went and bought two more pins, one for herself and one to give away again. She now orders these pins regularly and gives 300 pins a MONTH away to people she meets, all in remembrance of her daughter!!! And Kade and I are lucky recipients of two of her guardian angel pins! There are some great people in the world!!!!