A Happy Birthday in Charleston

The Friday of our trip was my birthday.  We had breakfast at the hotel and then headed to the beach.  Sullivan Beach this time.

Me (Sherie), Kayli, and Derek
Birthday at the beach.

First we spent time jumping waves -- slowly easing ourselves into the ocean.  The weather was perfect and the ocean was only chilly as you got in.  Eventually I had to get out and take a break because my lower back was aching from all of the vigorous wave jumping?  Perhaps my body isn't 100 percent recovered from all of the medical stuff I was dealing with this year.  After a while I got back in and Kayli and I headed into deeper water.  It turns out that being out there was more relaxing and less taxing. 

Best of all, we saw some fins.  Triangle fins.  Thankfully not attached to sharks.  There were a few porpoises swimming and jumping nearby!  I decided that seeing porpoises on my birthday must mean this is going to be a good year.  We'll just run with that idea.  There were also what I called "flippin' fish"  They would swim along the shore line in big schools and when the waves receded they would, in unison, flip their way down the sand into the water.  We also saw a large bird -- I think it might have been a pelican.  It flew by not very far from us and was fun to watch.

After the beach it was time for lunch and I chose the fancy restaurant of Wendy's.  I was really in the mood for a frosty and fries and so that is what I had (along with a bacon cheeseburger of the small variety).

Next we headed to a plantation.  Middleton Place.  All of the plantations around there seem to close at 5 and I don't think we got there until 3.  Plantations are huge!  Apparently this one was originally 7000 acres!  Now it's "only" 150.  I don't think they'd be able to find us to kick us out if we weren't done by 5.  It was really hot and muggy as we walked around the extensive grounds.  My glasses kept sliding down my nose.  That was annoying, but I enjoyed our time there anyway.  There were a LOT of Alligators.  They were over where slaves used to work in the rice fields.  We wondered how they dealt with alligators.  We assume they were there back then too.

The Alligators were well behaved and stayed in the water.
There were fish in this same pond / lake that would jump really high and splash back into the water.
I was waiting for an alligator to eat one of those fish for a snack.  But they didn't.

Here are some of the other things we saw:

This is Kayli and Derek by a brick wall near where we entered.

Derek and I on one of the pathways.

Derek giving Kayli the rock.

The big live oak tree in this picture is the one Kayli and I are hugging in the next picture.

This tree is thought to be between 900 and 1000 year old!  We loved the tree.

Derek and I and a whole bunch of live oaks.

This was the house on the property.  The original house was burned down by Union soldiers, and an earthquake finished it off.  This was built from salvaged brick.

The pig knows to take a nap in the hot of the day.  Lying in some mud in the shade must have been comfortable.

We pet this horse.  He was shedding.  I know one of the horses was Joe, but I don't think it was this one.
One of the people taking care of horses was giving us a suggestion of where to go eat.
Naturally, he suggested a sea food place, but Kayli and I don't like seafood and so that is not where we went.

There were big spiders here and there.  We probably sent a picture of this to Tia.
She does not like spiders at all.  I'm sure she was glad she was with Mike instead :-)

I just took a picture of this because I liked it.  There were a few here and there.

I liked the giant grasses.  I love Derek and Kayli!

Isn't this a pretty spot?

Derek with some bamboo.

This made us think of the bayou.  It sure was not tempting to jump in!

Kayli and I.  We look like we got a bit of sun that morning!

I was trying to capture a good picture of the suspension bridge we were crossing.  This was the best I got.
This was after Folly beach and before the store.

After the plantation we dropped Kayli off at Folly beach.  The third beach of the trip.  She wanted as much time on the beach as possible.  Derek and I also went to Folly beach, just down the road a ways by the pier.  We walked around some and then went and got Kayli -- about an hour after dropping her off.

I took a picture of this grocery store and sent it to Travis (my son-in-law).
I'd never heard of this store before.  I got macaroni and cheese for my birthday dinner.
It wasn't nearly as good as the homemade macaroni and cheese I used to have my Mom make for my birthday!
I also had pumpkin pie.  It was better than the Mac and Cheese!

Once dinner was over I read my book and went to sleep happy.  It was a happy birthday in Charleston!

Columbia to Charleston

On the morning of Mike's graduation from basic training, Tia's parents-in-law picked her up at 8 a.m.. Derek and Kayli and I got up, had breakfast, packed our belongings and headed out for an adventure.  We started the day by exploring some things in Columbia, SC and then drove to Charleston and ended our day there.

Our first stop was the Columbia South Carolina temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
It was only 5 minutes from our hotel!

Kayli looking at the plants and NOT at me :-)

After that we drove around until we found the Columbia Canal Park.  It was a really beautiful place.  This day I had a headache all day and didn't feel very energetic, but I still enjoyed the things we got to see!  I foolishly left my phone in the car, forgetting it was also my camera!  These pictures were taken by Kayli and graciously shared with me.

Behind me to the left was an exercise area that I liked.  You could get a real workout using that equipment!

I'd tell you what this stuff does, but for all I know it just sits there in the building so we can look at it.
Maybe it's the pump that moves the water through the spillway?
Very surely I have no idea what I'm talking about!

Derek on the crooked dock.

This is a picture of the river that ran alongside the canal, on the other side of the path.

I don't think I knew Kayli was taking this picture.  That saved me from being self conscious.

Had we been inclined to jump in the canal, this would have given us a reason not to.

After the canal walk, we headed towards Charleston.  I think this is the day we ate at McDonalds because I was hungry and that was what was available.  My Big Mac was good, and Derek liked his fish sandwich.  Kayli wasn't hungry.  After that we made a slight detour to see a lake and ended up in a place specifically for military people with passes -- and so we got back on our way.

I think this was taken from the car when we were going over a bridge on our way in to Charleston.

Our second hotel was the nicest -- by far.  It also had alligators, though we never saw any there.
We took this picture for Tia who had been talking about alligators the day before.

You can tell this was Thursday because we didn't wear swimsuits to the beach that day.
This was the beach on the Aisle of Palms, and this is my beautiful Kayli who has wanted to go to a beach for a very long time.

I love this one.

I sat for a while.  I was tired.  I drew these for the boys at home.

All of the beaches we went to during our trip were beautiful, and not busy.

I was thankful every day that Derek was with us and that he was driving and I didn't have to.  It can be tricky to navigate in locations you've never been before, and it's a little harder to see the scenery when you are trying to stay between the lines!

Mike Graduates From Basic Training

Mike joined the army reserves while he was dating Tia, but didn't go to basic training until they had been married for two months.  Basic training was 10 weeks long and was in South Carolina.  He is still doing training, but it is Advanced Infantry Training in North Carolina and is less miserable.  They might even treat him like a human now!

Mike Graduated on September 27, and Tia and his parents were able to attend that.  The day before that was Family Day.  Derek, Kayli and I went to that along with Tia and Mike's parents.  We got up ridiculously early on the 25th to catch our flight.  My nice Mom came and stayed with Jake and Dan while we were gone.

We got the cheapest tickets we could find, and ended up having seats that were not together a lot of the time.  We laughed about being zone 9 -- the last zone to load into the plane.  One guy we talked to was in zone 8 and when we told him we were in zone 9 he laughed and said we had to respect him now because he was a zone ahead of us :-)

Tuesday night we made a plan of when to get up and eat and head to the base.  Wednesday morning we were still in our room when Mike's Mom texted me to say they were in the long, slow line to get into Fort Jackson.  I felt a bit panicked, but later I just felt grateful for Pat and Dan who went at 7 and got seats while we left our hotel at 8:15 and got there a few minutes before the program started to find them waving enthusiastically with big smiles on their faces for us.  They're great!

The program was short and mostly consisted of soldiers throwing smoke bombs, marching dramatically through the smoke, and then us going down to find our soldier.  Here are the pictures.

They were impressive smoke making "bombs"

Mike said that they were standing in the woods behind the field at 7 a.m.
The program did not start until 9!

I believe there were 1117 graduates.

Kayli correctly identified Mike's face in the crowd first, but Tia got to him first, followed quickly by his mother (though we beat her to the field -- we just didn't find him as fast!).  Mike was really glad to see us all.  We had to stay on the base all day and so we planned to meet at a park first.  Unfortunately, because Mike's parents got there so early they were trapped by all of the cars behind them trying to get out and so we beat them to the park by quite a bit.

Mike and Tia on the field where the soldiers had all been lined up.

This is a good one of Mike.  Mike's Mom took both of these pictures.

Mike's parents drove from Michigan and they did a great job of taking care of us all!  They packed chairs, a picnic basket full of treats, and a cooler of drinks.  At lunch time they went and got food for us all and brought a frisbee and a badminton set.  They got us tickets for a buffet dinner with Mike's company and they paid for our miniature golf game that was fun despite the heat and humidity.

Mike's Mom took this at the park.  I thought it captured the fact that, though Tia was happy to see Mike, she was very aware that she was going to have to go home without him because he had more training ahead.

Mike's Mom Pat, Mike and Tia.  This was a gathering at Mike's church building in South Carolina.
They made us lots of treats.  I took this picture to send to my sister Jenny because this all took place on her birthday!

Me, Derek, Kayli, Tia and Mike outside the church building.

Mike's Parents Dan and Pat with Mike after we played miniature golf.

The Stankeys (Dan, Tia, Mike, and Pat)

Derek at the same table.  We were going to get ice cream, but the place closed too soon.

We took Mike to his barracks after this.  I felt sad that they couldn't see each other more during his short break.
Thanks to Mike's parents they did get to see each other a lot more than they would have otherwise.  They drove Mike to North Carolina Thursday and dropped him off on Friday.

The Mountains on Fire

Recently there were two very large fires that in spots merged into one.  These were wildfires.  The Bald Mountain Fire, and the Pole Canyon Fire. According to Heraldextra.com "The two fires burned a combined 120,851 acres, and at their peak caused more than 6,000 people to evacuate their homes from the cities of Woodland Hills and Elk Ridge and several smaller communities including Covered Bridge at the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon."

Many of these homes are close by.  We knew several people who were evacuated, and there were many, many more that we didn't know.  We had relatives, church friends, and basketball friends who had to leave their homes for over a week.  Jake's high school was a Red Cross Relief station, and for a good week or more there were people staying in campers in the high school parking lot.

It was an interesting and sad time.  We do not like to have our beautiful mountains burn!  At the same time, it was a good time to watch people help one another.  The Red Cross didn't have a lot to do, and we heard that a request had gone out for 200 plates and they ended up with closer to 10,000.  Everyone wanted to help in some way.  We couldn't go up into the mountains to fight the fire, but we tried to help those who were displaced by it.  Here are some pictures and a little commentary on them.

This was taken at Dan's soccer game.  It was during this soccer game that we heard about Elk Ridge being evacuated.
This is when the fire started coming over the top of the mountain onto our side.

 One thing I appreciated at this game was to hear a friend of mine talking to one of the soccer Moms on the phone who had just found out she was being evacuated and was upset.  Her house is new!  My friend was very kind and sympathetic and took care of making sure the daughter of the person being evacuated got home -- before they had to leave.

This girl whose family was being evacuated started to cry when she found out.  I loved that her friends hugged her and told her that it was okay to cry because it was scary, but they kindly reminded her that her family was fine and that probably their house would be okay too.

This helicopter landed in the adjoining soccer field twice during the game, making it a little hard to concentrate on what was happening in Dan's game!  Supplies were loaded into the helicopter and flown off toward the burning mountains.

I would occasionally step outside into the smoky air to take a picture from my porch.  I would send these to sisters-in-law that were on different sides of the mountain and they would send me pictures in return.

Another picture from my porch.  What I never captured was how in the morning you could see smoke drifting down the road at street level.  Occasionally ash would fall from the sky, but not as much as I thought there might be!

Derek was in Indianapolis.  I went briefly to a church activity and took this picture and the next one on my way home.  I had a friend beside me taking pictures too.  It really was a lot more dramatic looking in person, and so we all constantly tried to capture just how awful, and magnificent it was.

The mountain in the foreground is "P" Mountain (For Payson).  Kayli hikes it frequently.
We figured there isn't a lot of vegetation on P mountain and so if it got that far it would be easier to put out.
The fire was farther away than it looked though.

The night the mountains were burning so badly on our side I walked down the block to take pictures.
This was taken close to the top of our road.

This was taken from a road over.  When I was fairly close to the corner I could see that there were a lot of people gathered there taking pictures and looking through binoculars.  I found some friends who let me look through their binoculars and enjoyed visiting in between snapping pictures of the mountains.  I sent pictures to Derek in Indianapolis, and found that he had already received some from friends.

The good news is that there are still pretty fall colors in the mountains.  There are big black sides too, but not everything is gone, and there is beauty to be found.  The last few days we've received so much rain that mud slides and flooding were a problem.  The community got together and made sandbags, and most damage was averted.  Our mountains are beautiful, and the people here are really good people who love the mountains, but love each other more.

With no rain in the forecast, a small storm came through giving people hope that the firemen would have some help.
The rainbow seemed to bring hope for good things to come.

This picture was taken by a friend.  It is the Payson Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
with the mountain burning behind it.  Our Savior is present in our sorrows and our joys!

Glimpses of Gumption

I was complaining to a friend about my lack of gumption.  I really feel like I only get glimpses of gumption.  It is really hard sometimes to have enough energy to do things -- or enough energy to even make myself try to do things.  The picture below is the result of forced gumption.  I did not want to bottle these tomatoes, but I didn't want to feel guilty when the tomatoes went bad either!

Jake Plays Volleyball ....

In some sprinklers!  He got all wet, but seems to have had a pretty good time.  Jake is in 11th grade this year, but I somehow managed to forget to get a first day picture (or second or ....). 

Jake in my room after the activity.