CHARLESTON

We are in Charleston. 

We left Raleigh Wednesday and will be here through Sunday.

It is just over a four hour drive from our house to the middle of historic Charleston, where we are staying.

The Man of the House is here on business and we were lucky enough to be able to come along.

I have one thing to say....... 

It is HOT and HUMID!

We are braving the weather and are having fun spending some time together before school starts. 

We are staying on Church Street, right beside the market. I don't think we could be staying at a better location. It is so nice to be able to walk right out of our hotel door and be in  the middle of everything. Our hotel is right beside all of the stables where they keep the mules and donkeys that pull the carriages for the tours  and with the heat and humidity, you can certainly smell them.

We always know where our hotel is..... we just follow the smell!!

Our first day, while the MOTH was working, we walked around and browsed the many shops.

After he was finished with his meeting, he was able to come and join us as we walked around. 

We love Rainbow Row.... the area where all of the neat houses are. 

We really like being nosy and looking at all of the gardens and porches through the iron gates.

This sign was on a gate and it took us a while to figure it out.

We stumbled upon a playground and the girls had to give some of the things a try.

There wasn't anything like this when they were "little".

By this time, we were really hot. 

We wanted to cool off in the fountain like this little boy was doing.

We thought this sign was funny.

We cooled off with some gelato........

and found a grate out on the street that had cool air coming out of it.

(Look at the sweat stains showing on #3's back and my old lady shoes!  Hey, I have some serious foot issues and I went running earlier in the week and they were really hurting. My girls were not letting me live it down that I was clunking around in my big ol'shoes! )

For lunch we ate at:

We sat at the table that Jodie Foster, Patrick Ewing, and David Brenner sat at when they ate at Hyman's. There were plaques on all of the tables in the restaurant naming all of the celebrities that had been there.

Apparently it is the place to be!

We were sooo hungry and the food was sooo good!

#2 and #3 shared. 

This is before...

...during...

and  after.

The girls tried to work off some of the calories on the joggling board that was out in front of the restaurant. If only it were that easy! 

I really do want one of these for our yard at home. 

I am going to have to look into it.

Well, there will be many more pictures to post tomorrow. 

Our hotel internet connection is running very slow so I will wait until tomorrow to finish up.

#3 won at blackjack and I took the pictures to prove it!

BOOK WORM

Sweet little #3 is a book worm!

She always has a book in her hands. She takes a book with her everywhere she goes.

Today I asked her to go and get all of the books that she has read just this summer and this is what she brought downstairs. 

There are four books missing from the pile. She couldn't get them in her sister's room because the painter was blocking the doorway.

 I also bought her two books today and she is already half way finished with the first one, so by the time she goes back to school, she will be adding several more books to the stack. 

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Tomorrow all five of us are going to Charleston. 

The Man of the House has to go for business and we are all tagging along. I thought it would be nice for all of us to spend some time together before the older ones head off to school.  I have been to Charleston many times, but I have never been unless it has been for a soccer tournament. It is going to be really nice not having to go sit on the side of a soccer field this trip. I bet it is going to be really humid though!

 So much for the hair!

#2's DORM ROOM

Planning a dorm room tends to be mostly about storage and a cozy bed. 

We've shopped and looked at every place we can think of just trying to find some unique and creative things that wouldn't make #2's room look like a Rubbermaid store. 

It is amazing just how much stuff a girl can get into that little tiny space and then on top of that share the space with another girl that has just as much. 

#2 is so excited about her dorm room. 

She and her roommate are coordinating their bedding.

They found their comforters at Crate and Barrel earlier during the summer. 

They are mostly using the colors lime green, purple and orange with a few other colors thrown in on throw pillows.

We found her pillows at Crate and Barrel too.

We found the perfect set of  dishes for her to use in the room. 

She will probably end up eating breakfast in her room instead of trying to get up early enough to go to the cafeteria. 

I hate that I cut off the cups in the picture because they are so cute.

We need to go to Michael's and find some silk flowers for  the little vase. She thinks she wants Gerber Daisies. There is a glass lamp that you cannot see well. We are going to get some trim for the lampshade.

(All of these repairmen in our house 24/7 have really messed our decorating plans up!)

She has purple towels and a purple rug for beside her bed. 

It is hard to believe that in less than two weeks we will helping her get things set up in a college dorm room.

 I think she would go tomorrow if they'd let her! 

IT'S RAINING MEN

When it rains...... it pours!

We have been without AC upstairs for over a week. 

Our AC unit needed to replaced, as well as some of the duct work in the attic.

We had to do upgrade our duct work to get some kind of government credit so it is a big messy and expensive job. 

Thank you Big Government!

We had to move things from our attic to the second floor and stack them up in all of the bedrooms. The house has never been such a wreck! 

The installers have been at our house for the past four days. 

I have been at our house for the past four days.

This was the week I was going to finish up all of our back to school shopping so that we could enjoy the last two weeks of summer doing some fun things.

Yesterday, one of the installers decided to drop in unexpectedly.

These are pictures from the first floor looking up at the second floor ceiling. 

Have no fear....

someone will be here all next week to repair and paint the ceiling.

So glad that our ceiling is going to be nice and crisp and freshly painted, while the hallway walls and woodwork are going to look scuffed and grimy. 

Like I said,

when it rains, it pours.

#1's Room

We've been dorm/apartment shopping.

 #1 is living in an apartment this year when she goes back to school.

 I am amazed at how fast the summer has gone by. It is that time again. Time to pack all of those plastic containers and cart them up the road to Chapel Hill. I have been busy trying to get things together for both of my college girls. It has been very time consuming (and expensive). 

#1's apartment is going to be really cute. There will three other girls living with her. She will have her own bedroom and will share a bathroom with one other girl. The apartment is in an old converted warehouse and has high open ceilings with exposed beams and duct work. The floors are stained concrete and there are brick walls in all of the rooms. It is trendy. It is nothing like the places I  lived in when I was in college. 

We've found the some really neat things for her bedroom. We laid everything out in #3's bedroom so that we could see what it was going to look like. I love all of the colors. I think it is going to look great.  

She is using a white quilt over her bed and is using the colorful one folded and at the foot. She is going to use a lot of pillows. The pink pillow and the larger green one is #3's so they will stay here, but the rest of them she will be using. We propped the picture up just to make sure it all goes together and it looks like it was made to go with the little white pillow in the front. We found everything at Crate and Barrel, HomeGoods and World Market. 

#1 has a big job to do this weekend. She is going to be painting bedroom furniture and some tables for the living area. She is taking some older things that we have in the attic and painting them all black.  (I knew we kept those things for a reason!)

I'll take pictures of #2's things next and get them on here. We have a little more shopping to do. Finding Twin XL egg plant colored sheets has proven to be a difficult job.