Quick trip to Charleston.

I hope everyone had a great Easter.  We started with a quick trip to Charleston, S.C.

We left on Wednesday morning and spent the next three days and two nights touring the city with the kids.  Dan and I have been there many times before but this was the first time we took the kids.

After we arrived, we checked in to our hotel and then took the kids to lunch at Poogan's Porch.  This is where Dan proposed to me in 1999!

So we took a picture in front of the restaurant.

Here's a picture Dan snapped of it in the evening.

After lunch we did what we always do when we first arrive in Charleston and that's to take a carriage ride.  Our ride took us down to the battery.  I always love a good carriage ride. 

After the carriage ride, we took a quick walk through the market and then headed back through the town to the battery. We also stopped in at the graveyard of the Circular Church.  We always stop in at old graveyards!

We had a late dinner at Tommy Condon's and then took an evening walk through the city and headed to bed.

We were up early on Thursday morning and headed to The Charleston Tea Plantation.  But first, we stopped off at the Angel Tree.  It's a 400 year old Live Oak tree.  And it is magnificent.  These pictures do not do it justice.

 Then it was off to the Charleston Tea Plantation.  This was a wonderful tour.  We got to see a working tea plantation (the only one in mainland North America) and learn all about how tea was made. And there were lots of samples of tea!  

 This machine in the background is the only one like it in the world.  It is used to harvest the tea leaves and was created piecing together different parts of different pieces of equipment. 

 After the tea plantation, we headed to Magnolia Plantation and Gardens.  The gardens at this plantation were beautiful and there was so much wildlife around! We saw lots of heron and ibis and alligators!

We then headed back to town for dinner and when it got dark, we took a ghost tour.  We love ghost tours but this one was very disappointing.  Typically on these ghost tours, you hear lots of stories about former residents, how they died and the fact that they've come back to haunt their old homes.  And it's all very kitschy and fun and silly.  This tour guide though, actually believed in ghosts and spent a lot of time encouraging us to take pictures thorughout the town at night and look for orbs of light and energy rods in the pictures.  And unfortunately did not spend much time telling us the goofy ghost stories. 

After breakfast on Friday morning, Dan and Peter headed to Ft. Moultrie and Sarah and I did some shopping in the market - she wanted a new ring.  We also enjoyed some lattes.

And then we headed home!

And the nice part about it all?  Is that now it's Monday morning and the kids still have this whole week off from school!  Unfortunately, Dan is back and work.  It was a nice little vacation and I'm glad the kids got to experience Charleston!