Myrtle Beach

We went to Myrtle Beach last week with Gran, Pop, Jenny, our friends Brad and Shana and their kids, and Shana's mom and dad. It was a very eventful trip! We had 4 flat tires on the way down, it rained some every day, we had a leak in our camper and Eric lost his glasses in the ocean. BUT, we had a great time anyway! It was so fun to hang out with our family and friends, and anyday at the beach is a good day! Here are some of my favorite pictures.

We all wish we had Ella's hair...ours looked all pitiful and hers looked great the whole time.

Disney World

Well, finally, here are some pictures from our trip to Disney World. We had so much fun. The girls have said several times that they miss Disney. This was Eric, and Maddie, and Ella's first trip to Disney. It was so funny to see their reactions to everything. Maddie and Ella somehow changed personalities while we were there. Maddie was "chatty Cathy". She couldn't stop smiling or talking. And the amazing thing was that she ran to all the characters and talked to everyone! Ella on the other hand was so in awe that she couldn't say anything to anybody. She walked around with her eyes as big as saucers the whole time. These are just a few of our favorite pictures. Here we are just before we left the house.This was Maddie and Ella's first plane trip. They were sooo excited!

Pop never looks at the camera. :)

watching the Festival of the Lion King...in awe

Princess dinner

Ariel loved that Maddie and Ella had the same color hair as her.

Epcot, or apecot as Maddie first called it

Maddie took this picture. I thought it was too funny not to include!

Maddie and Ella loved the teacups, but I had to include the picture of the 2 big kids!

Fresh off Space Mountain...yes I said Space Mountain. Ella is a thrill seeker, but Maddie surprised me again. She rode lots of rides that I never thought she would get on.

We got to be in the Family Fun Day parade in the Magic Kingdom. Maddie and Ella thought they had won the lottery!Ella's favorite ride. She's a little partial to elephants.I wasn't kidding when I said Ella's eyes were as big as saucers!

Blessings in Savannah

Alright, I am going to make up for my lack of posts the last couple of weeks with one really long one! Like I said in my last post, we finally took our trip to Savannah this past week. I say that because we planned it a year ago and had to postpone it twice. It turned out that it was perfect timing. Eric's business has been kind of slow lately, so had this not been paid for a year ago, we wouldn't have gotten to go. God blessed us tremendously on this trip. We are learning to bring God into the details of our lives. He loves us and wants us to involve Him in every aspect. It is easy to leave on vacation and leave "prayer time" and "bible time" at home. Through a couple of circumstances that I won't go into, Eric and I spent much of this vacation in prayer, not just between the two of us but also with our children. I think God was pleased because He sent us several blessings along the way. I'll share a few as I go through the pics



The picture above is the townhouse that we stayed in. We stayed on the first floor. The people who own it, live on the 2nd floor half of the year. But, they weren't in town this week. When we got there, the house had not been cleaned from the previous guests. Eric called the owner, who very much apologized. He was ready to put us up in a hotel, but we had already unpacked, so Eric told him it wouldn't be a big deal for us to clean it ourselves. The owner was incredibly thankful and told us that he would send us a refund for one night. (we were to stay 4) As you can see, there was a mail slot in the front door. This fascinated the kids. They were constantly peeking through it.

This is just a pic of the living room. The townhouse is located on Washington Square and is just a block from River Street. It was a fabulous location!

Maddie and Ella are huge Paula Deen fans, so we took a "Paula Deen" tour. Let me back up a bit and say that one of the reasons we chose to go to Savannah was that the girls do love Paula and wanted to eat at The Lady and Sons. But, of all weeks in the year, they were closed Jan. 2-6; the exact days that we would be there! What do you do? Back to the tour, this is Polk's Produce. They helped her get her start by letting her have groceries on credit when she was just starting The Bag Lady

This is the chapel where Paula and Michael were married. I talk as if I know them don't I?

Sorry for the glare, I took this from the bus.

This is in Uncle Bubba's, which is her brother's restaurant. If you look to the left, you can see the prep station that she stands behind in Paula's party(which is filmed here)

Outside of Uncle Bubba's

When we started the tour, the guide told us that we would not be able to drive by Paula's house. She said that neighbors do not like it. So, when we got off at one of the stops along the way, Eric stayed on the bus to talk to the guide. And, in only a way that Eric can, he got her to give him directions to her house. I will say that her directions were terrible and if we had to go by them, we would never have made it. We even called my dad to get him to mapquest the name of the street she had given him. It did not come up. But, we rode around anyway. We turned on this little side street that looked like it headed nowhere. The houses were very small and very plain. We saw a little old woman checking her mail, so Eric rolled down his window to ask her if she knew where this road was. She had never heard of it, so then Eric said, "Do you know where the Paula Deen residence is?" She pointed to the end of the street and said, "Right there." Now this may not seem like much, but for us it was a sweet little blessing from above. Maddie was thrilled that she got to see Paula's house. And, I love how God just led us there!

This is taken from River Street. The kids loved watching the huge boats go by.

We ate some really good seafood while we were there. I am sure that I gained five pounds while we were there, but I am not checking the scale! This is Maddie eating a raw oyster. Now, she is like me in almost every way. But, she does not get this from me. That is all Eric! He was really excited to have someone to eat oysters with.

This was taken in Washington Square which was right out our front door. Maddie took this picture. She has discovered photography. If she asked me once, she asked me a thousand times if she could take a picture. I just may hand this job over to her soon. It looks like she might be pretty good at it!

We did a carriage ride one night. The kids LOVED riding on the carriage, and Eric and I really enjoyed hearing some of the history of the city.

Maddie practicing her princess wave

There was a "bar" inside the townhouse, and Maddie and Ella loved sitting there to drink their "coffee".

They thought they were quite the pair.

Sunday morning, we got up and packed up the car. We were going to eat a late breakfast and head to Tybee Island to see Ft. Pulaski before we headed home. We just couldn't find anywhere in Savannah that peeked our interest for breakfast, so we decided to head on over to Tybee. We saw several places before we noticed this "hole in the wall" place called The Breakfast Club with a line out the door. We figured if there was a line, it must be worth a try. We sat down and ordered. Then I looked up at the window. I punched Eric's arm and asked him who that was, just to make sure I wasn't seeing things. Sure enough, in walks Jamie Deen with his wife and son to have some breakfast too! They sat one table away from us. Eric discreetly took this picture. I was too afraid to. When we walked out Eric looked at him and said, "Now are y'all gonna be open tomorrow?" His response was, "Yes, thank goodness, it has been a long week!" Eric and I had already been discussing that it would be great to stay one more night so that we could eat at The Lady and Sons, so Eric called the owner of the town home and asked him if that would be ok. He said he would love for us to. Now, remember he was going to refund one night anyway, so now we were getting to stay an extra night for free! Another sweet blessing.

We did still go to Ft. Pulaski before we headed back to unload enough stuff to get us through the night. :)

Because we had done the Paula Deen tour, we had a pass to be able to call and get a reservation without standing in line. So, we were able to get in at 11:00 which is when they open. When they open, this lady comes out and rings the dinner bell and yells, "come and get it!" How cute is that? Had we not had reservations right when they opened we would have missed that!

Our waitress took our picture.

I had to take a picture of the food. It's making you hungry right?! It really was delicious and a perfect ending to a wonderful vacation. I think I will invite God to go along every time!