Happy birthday Ian!

Last week Friday was Ian's 11th birthday.  Nancy and Chauncey drove up from Miami(!) to visit, which helped make Ian's birthday more special.  He received loads of gifts, and even a treat he shared with everyone else - sparklers!

I had a trip to Little Rock which had me fly out last Sunday, and I got back late Friday night.  It was good training, but a long time away from Catherine and the kids.  Have a great day everyone!

Cheers,

Marc

Savannah - Charleston - Virginia

I left the story of our trip from the previous blog, with the Skinners hanging out in Miami. We had a nice week with Nancy and Chauncey, but it was time to start headed to our final destination - Virginia.

We stopped in The Villages for a night to pick up my car, and the next morning we had an early start to Savannah.  We had just the one night, so we spent the afternoon walking down on the riverfront.

We went to a candy shop and a haunted (so we hear, no ghosts while we were there) brewpub, and checked out a couple of museums.

The next morning we had a bus tour around the various parks and homes of Savannah.  The tour took us past the home of the Girl Scouts founder, which Leah thought was pretty neat, but we didn't have the time to take the tour (it was spendy and overrun with girl scouts).

Our tour took us near a sandwich shop which recently had won some awards.  It was basically a dive, but oh so delicious!  It would probably do well on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.

After our tour, we loaded up and drove to Charleston for two nights.  We walked around the downtown a good bit, took a horse-drawn carriage tour, and walked around some more.  Catherine found a great little restaurant not too far from our hotel. 

On the morning we headed north again, I took a little detour to the south to check out the boneyard beach at the Botany Bay Plantation (a state park) on Edisto Island.  I took a couple of photos I am happy with there.  It was close to high tide, which ensured the trees would be submerged by the wave action, but it did make things a bit dicey at times.

From there we drove north to spend a night in Raleigh, and had a nice dinner with my uncle Mike and aunt Ann.  My cousin Emily came over for a quick stop, too, which was nice.

From Raleigh we made the drive to the DC area, where I have started to work at my new job.  So far things are interesting, which is good.  I had a fun run at work a week or so ago that started at the Lincoln Memorial, and then ran to the Capitol building and back, which made for an interesting introduction to the District.  I can't wait to see it at a more leisurely pace.

That has you all up to date on the goings-on of the Skinners-formerly-from-Texas-currently-from-Virginia.  Cheers!

Marc