Anniversary Weekend
Hal and I had a fantastic mini-vacation. We headed out on Friday after lunch to Charleston to celebrate our 3rd wedding anniversary. It was a much needed break for the both of us. With Hal entering his last couple of days with his students and with me gearing up for a busy summer with CFA, we’ve both been ready for a vacation!!!
After checking into our hotel, we embraced our lazy selves and decided to just relax. Vacations, for us, aren’t really about staying busy DOING stuff, we want to RELAX. So we spent the afternoon being lazy. We hit the market and just wandered around. Downtown Charleston is so pretty this time of year and the weather was phenomenal. We went to Gilligans for dinner…I love seafood and Hal dislikes anything except fried shrimp, so we always have to pick somewhere that he can get chicken or something else. After dinner, we headed back to the hotel to put on some comfy clothes and went back out for ice cream. Definitely my kind of night.
Saturday was another pretty day. We got up, after sleeping late, and decided to go down to Folly Beach. We walked down to the Morris Island Lighthouse…took some pictures (on Hal’s phone since we failed to bring the Rebel). Then off to the Kickin Chicken for some quick and yummy food and headed back to the hotel so we could get ready for James and Amelia’s wedding. We met up with our good friends, Will and Diana Thompson, at the wedding and spent the evening laughing, chatting and eating. 
We skipped out of the reception early so we could go downtown to Kaminsky’s…by far the best coffee and dessert place that I know of! After some coffee and sinfully wonderful dessert, we parted ways and headed back to the hotel. Here’s some pics from the wedding…we failed to take any of James and Amelia.
This is Will & Diana….if you’re ever in Surfside Beach, go eat at the Surfside Chick-fil-A..they’re the owners.
Doesn’t Hal look fantastic in a suit?!
Cheesin for the camera…anticipating coffee and dessert.
Sunday was another morning of sleeping in, but because of the rain we decided to head back to Myrtle Beach earlier than we had planned. To round out our vacation we went to see Angels & Demons. If you’ve read the book, don’t go see the movie….you’ll be sorely disappointed at all the “creative liberties” they took. They, essentially, rewrote the entire book. I really hate when they do that! The movie itself would have been great had I not read the book. But I did enjoy the night out with Hal and am so glad we had the opportunity to get away for a couple of days to relax and reconnect.
Anniversary Part 2 – Pearls
Hal and I are the practical sort… We like to keep things simple and are pretty content with the life we have and the things we have. Whenever it comes to birthdays, anniversaries, and Christmas gifts, we simply have to laugh because we often give each other practical gifts. For example: my anniverary gift to Hal being Rainbow Sandals.
So it’s especially surprising when one of us decides to give a gift that is totally unpractical. After Hal surprised me with the car stereo system, he surprised me today with…….saltwater pearls! They are gorgeous! I love being able to see the slight imperfections that were created by the hand of God in a clam shell. Reminds me of how very big he is and how creative he is as well. Who would have thought that sand in a clam shell could create something as beautiful as a pearl. I’m so blessed to have a husband who likes to give gifts that are both practical and not!
Anniversary Part 1
I LOVE my husband. I am so blessed to be his wife. While I will save the mushy stuff for Hal’s ears alone, we’re celebrating our 3rd Married Anniversary this week. Our anniversary is technically tomorrow (Wednesday), however, we went out to celebrate tonight and will take an anniversary vacation this weekend. So to kick off part 1, we headed to one of my favorite restaurants…P.F. Changs!
After dinner we wandered around the Market Common because, quite simply, it was a beautiful evening. Fantastic weather, fun people watching, and just enjoying being together. We stopped in Barnes and Noble to grab some books…yes, we’re geeky like that. After spending some time just enjoying each other’s company, we headed back to the house to open some anniversary gifts.
Ladies, you are going to understand what I am about to say….husbands are impossible to shop for, especially MY husband. He never wants anything, rarely needs anything, and even when I ask him about some things he may like to have he can never come up with anything. I suppose I should be thankful that I have a husband who embraces contentment, but it makes him a pain to shop for! Hal loves Rainbow Flip-Flops and has had the same pairs since we met 6.5 years ago. His newest pair was purchased as a gift on the night before we got married 3 years ago tomorrow. So, I decided to buy him some new hemp flip-flops. He’s had all the other colors so I got him the brown ones. If you can’t tell by the dopey picture, he likes them! And of course, I am big on cards….
Hal truly surprised me with my gift. He’s been squandering his blow money (we each get $20 each paycheck to use on whatever we want to….we’re on a strict budget) so that he could buy me a new car stereo that my iPod can plug in to. He bought me an iPod for Christmas, but the car adapter we had didn’t work, so he’s been saving up to get me one that will connect my iPod in the car. He’s so thoughtful and sweet.
Part 1 of our anniversary week was wonderful…simply a night to relax and rest after some long days and weeks of late. Part 2 to come…
Gardening by a Novice
For the last couple of weekends, Hal and I have been prepping our yard for installing a new garden. Some of you may recall that when we purchased our home last fall, the builders installed the typical shrubs that I loathe…. See picture
The house BEFORE
As you can see, we have the standard low-lying shrubs….the sad thing is that the bulk of them were simply sitting in a hole because their roots never took. That’s why you may notice that some of them are quite dead.
So last weekend we ripped out all but a 4 of the shrubs surrounding our house. We also got rid of all that nasty pine straw…have I mentioned that I hate pine straw? We literally had over 26 bags of pine straw. Once we got all of that stuff up, we added garden soil and tilled it all together to prepare it for this weekend.
While we are far from done, we are so pleased with what we were able to accomplish today. We added: perennials, annuals, irises, lilies, and a plant I cannot remember. We’ll be adding some leafy shrubs and some ornamental grasses to fill in or use as edging. But we’re maxed out on our budget for this project so we’ll add to it a little bit at a time.
The yard AFTER. The leafy bushes in the rear will flower in the summer with cascading purple flowers. The next line is the irises which will flower shortly in a light lemon color. The small flowers in front are hard to see but they have stalks of purple bells. And in front is a combination of perennials and annuals.
Please ignore the condition of our sod, the builder installed crappy sod so we are having to overseed in the hopes that new grass will fill in and grow where it’s currently dead. We’ve watered, fertilized and nothing has helped…so we’re hoping that seeding helps. I would really hate to have to re-sod. Anyway, please enjoy a couple more close ups of our first foray into gardening.
The random tree in our front yard, which we hope to replace with a palm tree (a small one) at some point.
Side view of our front garden area, they haven’t flowered yet so it’ll look fantastic once it does. We also chose some plants that would also spread out a bit.
Another view of the yard….the side yard (far left of this picture) will have two white trellises and we’ll be planting climbing roses. This part of the yard faces the street so it needs a little something, but for now it also has black mulch.
Here’s a close up of most of the plants we purchased and planted. Far right is the one that will have cascading purple flowers, the one on the far left is the lily, the one mid-right is a perennial, the two in front are annuals. The one in the far right will spread as it flowers, as does the one in the middle-right. We’ll be filling in as we have extra money. I love the colors and textures and can’t wait for all of them to flower.
So as we’ve reflected: 44 bags of black mulch, 8 bags of gardening soil, dozens of new plants and flowers, dirty nails, and lots of watering later….we’re really pleased with the outcome. Hope you’ve enjoyed this post of gardening by a novice.
