Going to Spartanburg

We woke up this morning and decided to drive up to Spartanburg for part of the day. A tradition for our famiy has been to place a flag on my grandfather's grave for Veteran's Day. With it being tomorrow, that was our main motivation for the trip.

We met my parents for lunch at Wade's, headed to Chesnee to place the flags, drove the long way back to our old home of Boiling Springs so we could see the leaves chaning colors (don't see much of that down here in the land of evergreens!), checked out the really low level of Lake Bowen,

stopped by Clay's friend Ryan's house and Wal-Mart before heading back home. It was a really quick, but enjoyable trip.

We Went to the Beach!

Yesterday morning we decided to take a road trip down to Myrtle Beach. We got there in time to have lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe and walk around Broadway at the Beach for a while. AFter walking through a few shops and having a snack at KISS Coffehouse (see previous post!), we headed towards the ocean. We parked and walked out on Pier 14 and then out to the beach itself. The water was cool, but the weather was gorgeous! It wasn't too warm or too cool and it is one of the only times I have ever worn jeans on the beach...during the day.

After leaving the beach we drove down the strip which was depressing as the Pavillion is completely gone....nothing left......just a big open field. So sad. But we recouped with a trip to the Polo Outlet on the way out of town and then a stop by Coastal Carolina University (see previous post).

It was a wonderful, quick family trip! We had a great time, with lots of family time to talk in the car and enjoy each other's company. And, we really haven't been out of Columbia since we moved here so it was nice to just get out of town for a day. We have learned one of the benefits of being here is, in fact, the close proximity to the coast!
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First Saturday of November

We woke up to a fairly cool morning today and it was such a nice indicator that fall is here, even though the temps don't always show it in the afternoons.

Clay was asked to sit on an OA council meeting for the region today and so after Ron dropped him off, we took Ben to his first soccer game in several weeks. (He's been out because of us being sick and when we went to practice last night it was cancelled --- the field was being used to detonate a Civil War cannonball found in a neighborhood down the street from where we live!) The game was fun, he won and made a couple of really good passes.

After the game we went to lunch at a terrible, horrible new restaurant out near our house called Qdoba's. I'll suffice it to say that it was so bad, I can't even describe it. And we decided to head towards the Harbison area after eating. This turned out to be a whole lot more fun than we had anticipated.

Our first stop was Columbiana Mall where we checked out what stores the mall has and stopped at Build-A-Bear for Ben to add a new "baby" to his collection. Ths time a sweet, soft puppy that Ben named "Cocky Spur". From the mall we headed over to Toys R Us because Ben spotted Darth Vader outside the door. As it turned out DV was there with Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, a slew of Stormtroopers, R2D2, a wookie (?) and Geoffrey the Giraffe. After all this the boys humored me by stopping at High Cotton's Christmas Open House before we headed to Cayce to pick up Clay.

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Halloween Saturday

After sleeping in the morning we headed downtown for lunch and some Halloween activities.

First stop, the State Museum. We've seen the ads for their "Trick or Treat" event....and Ben was excited. For nothing. The museum itself was great as always, they've changed around and added some exhibits, but as for Halloween, it stunk! No candy. A few decorations. Few activities. We made the most of it, though, and checked out the 2nd floor exhibits pretty thoroughly. And we learned that a "dobby" is a house spirit or ghost. So, now we know what our Dobby's name means!

After the museum, we ran by home to pick up our "Boo in the Zoo" tickets and then headed to the zoo for this, much better and really fun event. Ben got lots of candy and a ton of compliments! There were a lot of USC students there and they loved it! We had a great time as Ben "trick or treated", we all rode the carousel and saw a few animals (most were already up for the night).
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The Fair

We ordered our tickets last week and headed to the fair this afternoon when Clay got home from his climbing trip.

It wasn't the most fun we've ever had, but it wasn't a total terrible time either. The fair was packed (with some most interesting people), it was hot and extremely bright. But, we made the most of it --- taking in all the exhibits, the rides and the fun. We did learn that next year we'll go at night....much more excitement and the lights.

We did thoroughly enjoy the animal exhibits....until the birds made me, Ron and Ben start sneezing like crazy! I wanted to see the swine races, but we missed those. We did get to see the piglets and the swine anyway.

The fun thing was running into people that we knew -- first we saw a guy (and his daughter) that we used to go to church with in Boiling Springs, a guy Ron works with and a teacher that I taught with last year (who was also Ben's art teacher).

Until next year's fair!



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Soccer Stud #2

Today was Ben's second soccer game. Once again he looked all professional, was a great sport and played really, really hard. Funny, Ben thinks football kicks (maybe he'll be a kicker one day..hmmm) and stops, lines up his kicks and then usually kicks pretty good. We're working on the "soccer kick"....no line-up, just kick! Here he lost his shoe in the kick, too.

The teams tied today and most importantly, Ben is having a blast!

Fun Sunday

Ron had to work today and Clay wanted to get in a few hours at EdVenture so we headed downtown this afternoon. The boys and I wanted lunch somewhere different and so, as we pulled onto Bull St. we remembered the Greek Festival was going on. Clay knew where the church was located and we, fortunately, found a parking space.

After gyros and Greek fries (chicken fingers for Ben) we wandered around a bit before heading on to EdVenture for the rest of the afternoon.

Ben loved playing at EdVenture. We spent some time at Bubbloosa.......and Timbuktu, since they will be closing soon,

...and attended a concert by Osrisi, an African drumming group.

Ben even got the opportunity to play with them. (I'm hoping to upload a video when I figure out how.) It was such a wonderful way to spend the afternoon together.

Ben does a little shopping at the "Pig Market".

Pretending to be a fireman ready to go.