Little Drummer Boy

A Day at the Beach

Today we drove a couple of hours to Charleston to go to Folly Beach. Folly Beach is a barrier island. Early settlers, first approaching the island by sea, were welcomed by a pristine, tree lined coast. For many, it was their first sight of land and trees in months -- hence they named their paradise "Folly," from an Old English Word meaning clump of trees or thicket.

It was Jalen's first time in the ocean, or as Baylie called it, the 'lotion.' Baylie couldn't remember swimming in the ocean last summer while we were in Italy, so this was like the first time for her as well.

Baylie had a great time. She played all day with her daddy.

She really embraced the beach.

Jalen loved it as well.

He found it very tasty.

Other than the fact that David and I neglected to put enough sunscreen on ourselves, it was a great day at the beach.

Imelda

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

My mom got us a membership to the local zoo - The Riverbanks Zoo and Garden - and it is flipping awesome!! Sometimes I have a hard time at the zoo because the habitats just don't seem like they're the best for the animals. This zoo doesn't have an enormous number of habitats (there are plenty), but the habitats they have are really nice and all the animals seem really healthy.

For those of you in Utah, the zoo is like a combination of Hogle Zoo (with better habitats), Tracy Aviary, Living Planet Aquarium and Thanksgiving Point. There is truly a lot to do. Plus, it's conveniently located between our apartment and the university. I think we'll be going about once a week.

The zoo is connected to a botanical garden that you can reach either by walking or riding a tram. We didn't even make it over to the garden this trip.

Lions

Tigers

Bears

I was a little nervous because most of the enclosures are open without high fences. There is a moat, but it seems like an eager animal could jump it. It is sure great to see the animals without the high fences though.

Elephants

The best part of our membership is that we get to do all kinds of fun things for free.

Ride the carousel. I think we went three or four times.

Ride the train.

Ride the ponies. Baylie went twice. It was great because you don't just go in a circle, you ride on a little path.

Feed the birds. It was kind of freaky because they sort of attack you to get nectar from a cup. I guess I'm lucky they didn't eat the crumbs of Jalen's shirt.

Baylie didn't like them.
Feed the giraffes. Baylie was afraid, but later she did demos for her daddy on how long the giraffe's tongue was.

I think Jalen's favorite part of the zoo was eating crackers.

All Baylie talked about all day and into the night was the fact that the gorilla picked his nose and ate his boogers. Sorry, no photo of that.

And for those of you who have always wondered how tortuses mate, here's a visual for you. (This is actually a three-some.)

Cute Kid Videos

If you chance to meet a frown...

Baby's crawling! (sort of)

Room With a View

Here is an outside view of our apartment. We're the bottom deck.

And this is what we saw off the deck this afternoon. Our apartment complex has tons of ducks. This is only half of the ducklings following this mama duck. I don't know if they were all hers because there were a lot of them.

This is the pond on the property. Supposedly it's stocked with fish. It's definitely full of ducks and turtles.

Walking around the pond on the property takes forever because Baylie gets so excited every time she sees a duck.

Here is a turtle on a log. One day David and Baylie found four turtles sitting on this same log. When we walked by, this one slid back into the water.

Jalen is having a hard time adjusting to the local cuisine. He has resorted to self-cannibalism.

So far it has rained every day, but just for short periods of time. The rain here is like Texas rain - very hard and heavy. The humidity is like Houston, but it's not nearly as hot. Definitely warmer and wetter than Utah.

THE USC

Today we decided to take a family trip to the university to see where David will be studying. It is a beautiful and historic campus. One of the first things we learned is that the University of South Carolina is THE USC, not the one in California. After all, it's been here a lot longer. We also learned that the Gamecocks are big news in town, everything bears their name. Oh, and Clemson is the enemy.

Note "the" on the smokestack.

Our first stop was at the LDS Institute of Religion. What a refreshing place (literally, the humidity was awful and the air conditioning was awesome). But more than that, it was just great to see friendly faces and feel right at home. David got a pass to park for free at the Institute, which saves us the $100 it costs for a campus parking pass. Plus, the Institute is just two blocks from the School of Music.

The School of Music reminded me a lot of where David studied at the University of Houston. It seems like a nice facility.

Baylie and Jalen were very impressed with it.

The primary spot at USC is called The Horseshoe. It features the original buildings from the campus, which date back to or before the Civil War. They've been restored and the entire square is very beautiful. Actually, everything I saw on campus was attractive. I was impressed.

The Strom Thurmond Wellness and Fitness Center is amazing. It is humongous and contains numerous basketball courts, an enormous weight room, a track, an indoor climbing wall, huge swimming pools (one with lanes and one just for recreation), raquetball courts and more. I've never seen anything like it and apparently other schools come to check it out to get ideas because it's so state of the art.

Jalen and Baylie liked hanging out by the reflection pool outside of the library.

And even though my dad isn't a Steve Spurrier fan, I had to get a picture of the stadium. It is humongous. It seats 80,250, but they've had attendance up to 85,000, so maybe some people just stand. (BYU seats 64,045.) Too bad Lou Holtz isn't here anymore. I think he's awesome.

I didn't take this one.

So far, South Carolina has been great. Our apartment complex has a pond with ducks and turtles, there are also lizards and tons of squirrels. Baylie goes crazy over all of them. Our ward (church congregation) is the friendliest I have ever attended.

Settling In

We are finally mostly moved in.

LIVING ROOM/DINING ROOM

WET BAR/BOTTLE PREP AREA

BAYLIE'S SIDE OF THE KID'S ROOM

JALEN'S SIDE OF THE KID'S ROOM

AND...OUR BEDROOM

I did say "mostly." There's still a little work to do.

We're All Together Again, We're Here, We're Here!

Yesterday was a long day. We got up at 5:00 a.m. (again) and headed back to the airport. (Thanks, Dad, for driving us two days in a row.) We got seats all together on the plane and boarded. Then we were advised there was a mechanical problem. I was worried they'd have to cancel the flight, but we did finally take off about an hour late, causing us to miss our connection. The next flight wasn't until the evening, leaving us with about six hours to kill in Houston.

After close to an hour, David realized he'd left his wallet on the plane. We were panicked. We decided to retrace our steps and when we got back to the gate, we found that due to another mechanical problem, the plane was still there. They were able to find his wallet after looking for it a second time.

We were doubly lucky and got to sit together on the flight to South Carolina as well. Since David got bumped on his way to Provo, he had to drive from Columbia to Greenville, SC to catch his flight - so we had to fly back to Greenville and get the car. We arrived in Greenville at 11:30 p.m. and then had to drive the hour and a half to Columbia. I think we got to bed at about 2 a.m.

Now we're just trying to settle in and unpack - hard to do with two kids who won't nap at the same time - plus Jalen is cutting two teeth and is pretty fussy. David is used to me unpacking everything in one day, so this is a change for all of us. We have the kids' room mostly finished, which helps them feel a little more settled.

We're happy to be in the same place and hope that before long it feels like home.

P.S. 99.5% of my stand-by trips go without a hitch. This one will go down in my personal record book.

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's a Bird on a Plane!

When traveling standby, occasionally the unexpected happens. For example, after getting bumped off two flights, we finally got seat assignments to fly to Houston when another airline - two minutes before the cutoff time - sent some customers to Continental and our seats were taken away.

We still had hope and were waiting to see what would happen when we learned that our aircraft had hit a pelican during landing in Salt Lake City. Our plane would not be going anywhere. Seriously?!

This is how Baylie spent her time at the airport.

David and Jalen were able to catch a few z's.

So, we'll be getting up at 5:00 a.m. tomorrow to try again.