Vacation Update

Wow! Vacation was amazing!! Getting to South Carolina from Memphis is a bit of a drive but we split it up.
We left Friday morning around 6am and drove to Locust Grove, GA which is about 45 minutes southeast of Atlanta. We stayed in a nice little hotel right across from the outlet mall. FUN! We got up Saturday morning and left about 10 and drove over to Fripp Island. We stopped at Walmart on the way to the house and stocked up on groceries that we'd need for the week. We got to the house around 3 on Saturday. It was fabulous! The island is full of deer, around 600+ and they are so friendly. They come up to you and eat out of the palm of your hand. We all had a great time feeding them. They ate apples, carrots, potatoes, corn on the cob, watermelon, giant marshmallows, etc...
Sunday we went to the ocean and had a lot of fun there. The water was perfect and the beach was gorgeous.
Monday was declared Peyton's day (like this is any different from every other day) so we took him to Parris Island. There is a museum on the Island and it was very neat. They had a video going that showed what it's like to go through boot camp. I think it's safe to say I could NEVER do it. The Marines were marching around and we had the windows down so we could hear their cadence which was pretty cool. They all looked so young. After that, we drove over to Beaufort and hung out there for a while. We went in the little shops, ate lunch and took Peyton to play on a playground by the river that Graham played on when he was a kid. (It's been updated since then of course.) After that, we went to Hunting Island to the lighthouse. My parents were brave enough to climb it. Graham, Peyton and I went to the beach and looked for shells until they came back down.

Tuesday was probably my favorite day of vacation. We drove to Savannah, GA for the day to go sightseeing and to eat at Paula Deen's Lady & Son's Restaurant. I love her and I love watching her cook on the Food Network. First though, we drove over to see the Mercer House from the movie/book Midnight In the Garden of Good And Evil. The house is gorgeous. Every house in that area is gorgeous. Then we went over to Forsythe Park and took some pictures of the beautiful fountain. After our stroll through that area, we drove over to the restaurant (about 10:30am) and put our names on the list for lunch. They told us to come back at 2:15pm. Yes, you read that right. We went in the Paula Deen gift shop next door to browse and while my mom, Peyton and I were in there, I spotted Jamie Deen (Paula's oldest and cutest son). I went over and chatted with him and had a picture made of us. He's just as cute in person as he is on TV and so sweet! Then we walked around, shopped, sat, shopped some more and finally about 1:30 we were starving and exhausted, not to mention HOT. So I sent Graham over there to the hostess booth again to see if they could take us early. And of course, they did. Everyone got the buffet except me. I had to be the oddball and get the chicken pot pie. If you watch Paula Deen's cooking shows like I do, you have seen her make this before and it looks like Heaven. She take pastry dough and makes a lattice work out of it. She bakes that and then puts it on top of the bowl of chicken pot pie ingredients and she bakes it all together. It's one of the best things I've ever eaten! I could taste all of the butter in it too. The buffet was amazing and her fried chicken is to die for. You must get the recipe off foodnetwork.com and try it. She puts a cup of hot sauce in the egg mixture to dredge the chicken in. After eating there, we were pretty much worthless so we drove around a bit more and headed on back to Fripp.

Wednesday Graham, Peyton and I went to the Cabana Pool. This pool was fantastic. There are actually 3 pools and a cave for the kids to swim through. There is also a wonderful bar outside where I had a yummy pina colada at 10:30am. (We dont keep track of the date or time on vacation). After this pool, we went to another pool on the island and swam there. We ate lunch and just stayed around the house.

Thursday we sent Peyton to Camp Fripp for the Dolphin Cruise. They take the kids out on the Fripper Boat and look for dolphins and go to another island looking for seashells. During this, Graham and I were going to go swimming at the adult's only pool until we had to go pick him up. Unfortunately, this is the one day it rained. They took the boat out and only stayed out about 15 minutes and had to go back in. I had sent Peyton with a disposable camera to take pictures too. (I had those developed last night and let me tell you, there are no dolphins but a lot of cute girls). After we picked him up, we went back to the house and then drove over to Hilton Head. This was about an hour and 20 minute drive. I dont know what we were missing, but we all had a miserable time over there. We went to the Salty Dog restaurant just to use it as a point of reference for the GPS in our car and ate some appetizers there and shopped at the only two shops we could find. We drove around and looked at the huge houses, drove to the beach for 1 minute, took a picture and headed back. Note to self....don't do that again.

Friday we went to Charleston for the day. It also took about an hour and a half to get there. We went on the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier which was very neat. Then we drove over to a street market type deal where they had vendors out the wazoo selling anything you needed or wanted. We walked around for a while and headed back to Fripp after that.

Saturday morning we left around 9 and headed to Calhoun, GA which is about 45 minutes northwest of Atlanta. I've never been to Atlanta but driving on their interstate system is very hectic. It was 7 lanes in each direction (9 in some places) and the people are flying past you. Crazy! I see why they call it Hotlanta too. Ouch it's steamy there! We got to the hotel finally around 4:15 and stayed there for the night. For our big dinner, we went to Krystals. They were so good too.

Sunday morning we left at 7am (eastern time) and drove home. We drove through Chattanooga and Huntsville and got home at 12:15 our time. Peyton and I immediately changed clothes and went to his baseball end of the year swim party that started at 12. God forbid he would miss a second of play time right?

I will post some pictures this weekend but I wanted to get my updates on here for you all to read. I loved vacation. Fripp Island is amazing! There is so much nature to see there and it is just gorgeous. Savannah is the most gorgeous city I've ever visited and I could see myself living there one day. I'm sure they need an experienced police officer on the force.