back from the beach...

Mauri and I got back from Charleston on Sunday. We were there for my cousin, Tim's, wedding. My folks rented a house on the beach Wednesday-Sunday which was really nice since my Aunt, Uncle, and cousins were a couple doors down. It was a great time for everyone to catch up and see our expanding families.

I rode with my folks on Wednesday and Mauri flew in Thursday night after work. Although we were very busy with wedding stuff and beach time was limited quite a bit thanks for mother nature a good time was had by all. Here is a little beach video from Thursday. Not the best of beach days...



The storm that caused the yucky weather never achieved tropical status, but still produced a big mess along the eastern U.S. coastline. Charleston only saw gusty off-shore winds and a lot of rain... especially Thursday night. It made for an interesting landing for Mauri on her flight in from Atlanta. It took two passes before she landed... safely. Luckily, I had the nice pullover that Grandma gave me for Christmas to keep me warm since the temperature never got out of the 60s on Thursday. Thanks Grandma!!! ;-)

The rehearsal dinner was on Wednesday evening shortly after we arrived at our house on the Isle of Palms. The dinner was quite good and thanks to Uncle Bill... free. :-)

The wedding was on Friday at the I'on Creek Club. The setting was quite beautiful and the weather cleared (as predicted) just in time for the outdoor ceremony. A good time was had by all at the reception.



Finally, we ate a brunch on Saturday at Poogan's Porch in downtown Charleston. The brunch was also quite good. My bacon, eggs, and biscuit were perfect! Although we were already scheduled to go there it also came highly recommended by several friends as a 'must-do' when in Charleston and after having gone... I concur.

The rest of our Saturday was spent walking down King Street where all the shops are located. It was quite nice although most of the stores were your typical mall chains. Although Charleston is quite nice, I would have to go with Savannah as being a little nicer, but less shopping (just my opinion!).

Unfortunately, for everyone I was with, we had to leave Charleston and the great weather and head back to the house so I could watch the FSU game at 3:30. The nice thing is that the house we stayed at had Hi-Def TV's! The Noles prevailed over Colorado (39-21) and bounced back from the game the week before. This week we head to Miami to play the Canes.

On Sunday Mauri and I rode with mom and dad back to Atlanta. Thanks to dad and 'navi' for getting us home safely. 'Navi' is Mauri's GPS we used to get us around Charleston and it was dad's first time using such technology. While it was very useful we decided it was not for dad and he tended to try and improve our eta to our destination without regard to local traffic laws. He also tended to have some rage when the eta did not drop as fast as he thought it should. :-) All in all, dad and 'navi' managed to co-exist and get us where we needed to go.

(updated: thanks Aunt Maggie for the pictures!!!)
Sorry for the lack of wedding/family pics. As is usually the case, we left our camera at the house and let others take the pictures. Hopefully we can track some of those down. I know G-ma took some pictures, but she is still rocking the 35mm so I doubt we get to see those digital files... ever. :-)

We are off to PA in a few weeks for Grandma's 90th and Mauri's folks are in town next weekend.



--Chris