The Holy City: Fort Sumter

Did you know that Charleston, South Carolina is this year's World's Best City (according to Travel + Leisure)? My home town of Mount Pleasant is adjacent to Charleston. This July my parents rented a beach house and we all went down for a visit.

View from the beach house balcony

I was craving humidity (yes, you read that correctly) and the beautiful views of palm trees, beach and marsh. This trip satisfied all those cravings and more.

On our first full day, we visited Fort Sumter. Even though I grew up in the area I had never visited this historic site. The boat ride out to the Fort was lovely and educational.

View while waiting to board the boat

The first thing we saw after stepping foot inside for the tour was a rifle musket demonstration. I really enjoyed this. I had just read a book that took place during the Civil War and talked a lot about firing rifle muskets. (The book is called I Shall Be Near You and I HIGHLY recommend reading it).

The USS Yorktown. We didn't visit it on this trip, but maybe next time

Charleston skyline

The rifle musket demo. I'm glad I don't have to wear that uniform on a hot summer day in Charleston

 

After the tour and boat ride back, we visited Jack's Cosmic Dogs for lunch. This is a Mount Pleasant/Charleston institution and, again, another place I've never patronized. My chili dog was yum, yum, yum! And the atmosphere is fun with a vintage flair.

Easy Scrapbooking: Columbus Marathon

Charles' second marathon was the Columbus Marathon. I had completed the page a while ago, but after looking back over it I knew it needed a little something extra. I decided to recreate his racing bib for the "title." It was a really easy bib to recreate because it was not too detailed. I found the logo on Google and the rest was a snap to do in Publisher.

Easy Scrapbooking: Gilmore Girls Birthday

As you all know, my 30th birthday party was a Gilmore Girls theme.

For the scrapbook spread I used a yellow patterned paper that reminded me of Luke's Diner. The umbrella paper was another one that I have been holding on to for years. I bought it because it was very cute, but I did not have an intended purpose for it. It works great for a Gilmore Girls theme. One of the most iconic or popular episodes of Gilmore Girls is when Rory discovers the Life & Death Brigade and jumps off a tower while holding an umbrella (also harnessed, by the way).

In keeping with the Life & Death Brigade, I used their motto and a quote from that episode in lieu of a title.

The Reveal!

As you know, we are an Air Force family. That means we move often. We have been awaiting notification of where we will be heading to next and it finally came. Charles found out and decided to make a little game out of it to share the news with me. He created a scavenger hunt with some pretty awesome clues.

Each clue had some letters highlighted. I had to convert the letters into numbers and input them into Google maps to reveal the location.

We're moving back to South Carolina!!! By the way... it is not easy to get kitties to cooperate with a family photo.

Easy Scrapbooking: Apple picking

Charles and I visited Apple Hill and picked a bunch of apples. It was so much fun to decide what apples to pick. We left with a big box full of apples and lots of ideas of what to make with them.

The page is simple, of course. It took me some time to decide what to do for the "title." I finally ended up with the list of types of apples. It is appropriate for our apple picking excursion because we came across many of these varieties. You wouldn't believe how many different types there are! During apple season we always find a new variety when we visit the grocery store.

Lavender and Blueberries

Not too far from us is a place called Apple Hill. During apple season it is a happenin' place where you can pick your own apples and enjoy lots of fall favorites. Throughout the year they have other events and festivals. I saw they were having a lavender festival at Bluestone Meadow, so we decided to drive over for the afternoon.

After waiting around awhile for a pair of sheers and a basket, we picked our own lavender. It was a lot of fun seeing all the different varieties up close. They smell similar, but when you have them bunched together you can find the small subtleties between them. The lavender farm also had llamas and alpacas. I can never remember how you tell the difference between the two, but they are both really cute!

After lavender picking, we drove down the road a bit to a blueberry farm called Pine O'Mine where they had pick-your-own blueberries. I hadn't picked blueberries since I was a little kid visiting my grandparents in Maine. Picking blueberries was so relaxing! We came away with a bag full.

It is always fun to support local companies and farms and enjoying locally grown fruits. I encourage you to find places like this where you live!

Easy Scrapbooking: Europe

Several years ago, Charles and I took a trip to Europe. We flew into Belgium and visited Brugge, Amsterdam, Dublin, Cologne and Stuttgart. For my scrapbook spread of the trip I was trying to think of something to tie all the pages together. I found a cute cut out on Silhouette of train tracks. They had several different ones and they were perfect! European travel often includes the train.

When we first arrived in Belgium, we had to get on a train to Brugge. We boarded the train and rode. It eventually stopped, but not at our final destination. It stopped and just stayed there for what felt like forever. We had no idea what city we were stopped at except that it wasn't Brugge. We weren't sure what to do and there were absolutely no other people around. Eventually the train started back up and headed back the way we had come from. We realized we had to get off at the stop in-between to change trains to get to Brugge. 


This is just the Amsterdam two-page spread, but it gives you an idea of what I did. Each city had a coordinating color scheme and each utilized a train track.

Whenever I scrapbook trips that use up more than two pages I like to have something that ties them together. I will either use the exact same patterned or colored paper for all the pages or do a similar accent.