Virginia Beach - Brady in a Hole

Monday, we decided it was time to dig a hole and put Brady into it. This is something that stems back to when my youngest brother, Chris, was 1 and he hated walking in the sand, so my dad would build a huge hole and Chris would contentedly stand in it.

Alex started digging the hole, and unfortunately, the shovel broke with the effort he put into digging.




A family affair.


Brady in the hole.





All filled in.





Trying to get out

Virginia Beach - First Beach Day

We arrived at Virginia Beach on Saturday morning. We stay in the southern part of the city where it is just houses on the beach, called Sandbridge. We've been staying in this area for the past 15 years. This year my youngest brother, Chris, couldn't join us, but my brother, Alex, and his girlfriend met us there, along with my parents. Sunday was our first day on the beach. Brady ran to the water like he did in Charleston He was excited to put on his flotation device, so we did and went out into deeper water. He was unusually crabby out there. Andy took him back up to the beach and when we joined them, Brady was playing with his sand toys. We noticed after a while that he was drinking salt water out of his small bucket. We'll have to work on that. After another half an hour of playing, he put all his toys in his basket, grabbed his shoes, and brought them to us, letting us know he was ready to leave. Andy took him back to the house for lunch and a nap, while the rest of us stayed. It wasn't until after our showers that we realized how burned we all were. We kept getting darker (or rather pinker) throughout the night. That's very typical of the first beach day and we will spend the rest of the week recovering.

Charleston Harbor Tour & Boone Hall Plantation

Tuesday was the last day of our long weekend and we decided it would be nice to tour the Charleston Harbor. The tour lasted 90 minutes and gave a nice little history about all the things we passed. We learned about the new cruise ship terminal they're building and that Charleston is one of the largest ports in the US (which we knew already because Bosch has two plants in SC for that reason). We got to see some of the coveted houses that were built by plantation owners who wished to escape the hot in the summer.



The main attraction of the harbor tour was going by Fort Sumter. It was the site of the beginning of the Civil War, when South Carolina was the first state to succeed from the union. We were told that when they did that, they never expected that it would lead all of the other states to follow suit and lead to bloody conflict. It is assumed that the first shots of the Civil War were shot from Fort Sumter, but they were actually fired from nearby Fort Jackson. Fort Sumter changed hands several times during the Civil War.


After our harbor tour, we headed outside the city to Boone Hall Plantation, which was the inspiration for the house used in Gone with the Wind. Its distinctive feature is the double row of live oaks that lead up to the house. It's very authentic because the drive is still unpaved and very bumpy from the roots from trees on either side. The first trees were planted in 1743.


Since we had to schedule our house tour, we had time to first explore the row of slave houses. Each house had artifacts from different aspects of slave life. It's not enough to see how small they are, but to learn that more than one family lived in each one. My joke was that for slaves, they had really nice flat screen TVs, since there was at least one in each slave house ;)



When it was time for the house tour, we were told that since the plantation house is a personal residence as well as a historical site, that we wouldn't be allowed to take pictures inside the house. That was a bummer. The guide was very knowledgeable about the history of the plantation and told us the current house was built in the early 1930s. It's still a working plantation today. We learned that the original owners grew indigo, cotton, and produced bricks. All of the bricks used in building Fort Sumter were made on this plantation. The second owners, who were German brothers, were not hurt by slavery being abolished because they'd started growing pecan trees and they then began selling them to Europe as a delicacy. At that point they were the largest pecan growers in the entire world. They sold the property in the 1930s to a Canadian politician who tore down the house and built the current one. Plantation houses were not like the one that currently stands there because plantation owners had several houses and it was all about functionality at the plantation. The current owners reside in North Carolina most of the year and bought it in 1955.

Happy 4th of July! - Charleston Style

We arrived in Charleston on Sunday night and on Monday morning it was the 4th of July! We got up early, got our suits and sunscreen on and headed for the beach. We had heard of several beaches in the Charleston area and chose the most family friendly one - Folly Beach. It was 15 south of where we were staying and we got there before things got really busy. We laughed later because we noticed the parking prices in our lot got higher as the day went on and parking became scarce.


There is a joke in our family that the person who carries all the gear is the "mule." My dad has been our mule for years and now that we have Brady, Andy has become our mule. Fortunately for Andy, I'm not too keep on carrying the gear myself when he reaches his limit, so I got us a nice beach cart that can carry everything in one trip and is specifically made for sand. We staked out a nice spot on the beach and set up our umbrella. When I put Brady down, he was intrigued by the sand and kept leaning down to touch it. The last time he was at the beach, he was 4 months old and of course doesn't remember. As soon as things were set up, we let him loose and he headed for the ocean. Fortunately, South Carolina beaches have a very gradual slope that stays shallow for a long time, so there wasn't much fear of him getting in over his head before we could get to him. He's very used to the pool where he enters on a slope, so I'm sure he thought this was the same. He was very surprised when a wave came up and knocked him down. He looked around and got back up to head back in. The water was 85 degrees and felt wonderful. I could have laid in that water all day.


We got Brady his beach toys and started to show him the molds. In typical toddler fashion, he took his shovel and knocked them all down. When the tide started to go out, shells became very visible and Brady started to pick them up and collect them. The first one he picked up, he did try to eat, but we caught him and showed him that we pick them up and hold onto them. We found some really nice ones that we kept to put in a little jar for Brady.



After a couple of hours, Andy and I were starting to feel the effects of the sun and felt like it was time for lunch and a little souvenir shopping. There was a pier not far from our car, so we put all of our gear into the car, changed, and headed up to the pier to have lunch. After lunch, we walked up and down the main drag and checked out all the little shops. Andy and I got T-shirts, but they didn't have anything that I liked for Brady. Andy got himself a new pair of sunglasses since his were breaking and all scratched from years of use.



We headed back to the hotel for showers so we could get ready to head out for fireworks. We went to Patriots point which is across the river from downtown Charleston and houses the USS Yorktown, which is an aircraft carrier used in WWII. They were going to shoot the fireworks off of the carrier and we had heard from other people that it was a great show. We got there at 5:30 and the fireworks weren't set to start until after 9. Brady's routine had been so disrupted the past couple of days and he would always been good until it was time to do something, and then he'd want a nap. He went on several walks with Andy to entertain himself and when it started to get dark, I brought out the secret weapon: a flag glow stick. He amused himself with that for a while, but was getting really tired. He kept walking up to a minivan parked next to our spot and trying to pull the handle to get in. He was trying to tell us he wanted to go. As soon as the show started, he calmed down and watched. We had a great spot and the grand finale was incredible. Probably the best I've ever seen. We saw about 30-40 fireworks shoot up and knew it was going to be awesome when they went off and it was. We had a great 4th even away from family and friends. This time next year, we'll be in Germany where the 4th of July is the same as any other day. It will be weird.

Lunch on Tybee Island - Savannah

Sunday afternoon, we were looking for a place to get lunch before heading north for two hours to Charleston. Andy was looking though the Savannah guide we'd picked up at the Visitor's Center and saw a couple of seafood places out on Tybee Island. It's 15 minutes east of Savannah and on the ocean. Savannah is located on the river and I compare the terrain to New Orleans because it's marshy and located on a delta. All was good until we hit about 9 miles from the island where we hit wall-to-wall traffic. We instantly realized our error. It was the day before a holiday and everyone was trying to get to the beach. Two lane roads kept becoming one lane as we went over several bridges on the way to the island. It took us an hour to go those remaining 9 miles, and by the time we got there, we were starving.


We ate a little place off the side of the road that was simply named The Crab Shack. They had a little alligator exhibit outside the restaurant and of course Brady was laughing and smiling at them. They were way lower than that walkway, so there was no danger (they were babies) when Brady decided he wanted to reach his arm in. I got deviled crab served in the shell and Andy got the sampler platter. It was huge! He amused himself by taking the crawfish and pretending to have them crawl at Brady. Brady even played with a mussel shell when Andy had finished eating it.

Maritime Museum & River Walk - Savannah

Sunday, we headed back to downtown Savannah to check out the Maritime Museum. It was in an old historical building that had three floors, each one dedicated to a different exhibit. The main floor had scale models of ships throughout Savannah's history. There were ones that were from the 1700s, all the way up to the 1900s. The scale was 3/8" to every 1 foot. It was amazing looking at old ships.



The upper level was dedicated to maritime memorabilia. There were rooms with artifacts for navigation, sailor's life at sea, and much more. The basement contained a replica of the bridge of a ship. Brady got to spin the "ship's" wheel. There were also tons of ships in a bottle. It's awesome to look at some of them that are really intricate and realize that someone did that with two sticks with hooks on the end. I certainly wouldn't have the patience for that.



After our visit to the Maritime Museum, we walked to the River Walk to check out the shops and stroll along the riverside. It's all old brick roads that are gorgeous. It's so nice to have that old time feel and Andy said it reminded him of Boston. There were tents set up along the river of little vendors and this where we bought a box of chocolate pralines at the sweet shop. There were lots of little shops where you could get souvenirs and I got a Christmas ornament and shirts for all of us to remember our trip.

Ellis Square - Savannah

Saturday, after our carriage ride, we spent some time in that area around the Savannah City Market, and right next to that is Ellis Square. We noticed there were some dancing fountains in the square and there were kids running around in it. We didn't have a bathing suit or swim diaper with us, so Andy immediately started to say that it was too bad Brady couldn't go in because he was starting to get really excited looking at it. I told Andy that when we were kids, there weren't swim diapers, so we wore our bathing suits with plastic pants and just regular diapers, even though they balloon up with water. I stripped Brady down and set him loose. Andy went down with him while I took video and pictures. Brady loved it and got sprayed in the face several times. He was certainly in his element.