Halloween, Dave's Birthday, and Other Fall Happenings

This whole post is completely out of order but I couldn't fix it easily so here we are! We had a relatively eventful fall. Dave turned 11, we were quarantined twice (still haven't had Covid though, just exposed), and we celebrated a nontraditional Halloween and Thanksgiving!

Up first is Dave's birthday. He turned 11 on Thanksgiving this year which he was pretty excited about. Unfortunately Dave was exposed to Covid at school so he was home for the two weeks including his birthday/Thanksgiving. We made the most of it and I think he still had a pretty good birthday! He asked for pasta carbonara for his meal pick and then we had the traditional fixins for Thanksgiving on his actual birthday.

Posing with presents.

More presents.

Finished product of Hagrid's Hut.

Birthday boy!

Dave continues to amaze me with his intelligence and wit! He is definitely on the cusp of being a teenager...lots of sighs and eye rolls right now but we are working on it. He has been enjoying playing basketball for his school and participating on the robotics team at school as well. Extremely busy time for him and he's tired a lot but he loves it all. He's looking forward to Christmas Break though! 

Augie came by to celebrate.

Taking a chilly walk around campus.

Had to grab $1 hot chocolate.

Taking advantage of the gym on campus.

Ballin.

Dave and Josh made homemade mac and cheese that was so good.

Gamma came to visit and played lots of chess with Ike!

The boys are really into it right now.

Christmas lights for 2020!

Rare warm day, went to Asherwood with Josh's parents to hike around.

Back from the end of October, my last summer flowers.

Ike destroying the flowers I cut off for the fall.

Dave riding the electric scooter to practice basketball by himself.

Harry Potter and Almanzo Wilder for Halloween.

 

Folly Continued

On Wednesday we got up and around and then headed down to surf lessons for the kids. They had so much fun!

The boys really enjoyed their wetsuits for surfing.

Here are a bunch of pictures of the boys surfing, along with a couple of Josh and Gamma. Mom didn't take to the sea like the kids did, but I think she was still glad she did it! Josh got up a couple of times, but of course I didn't get any videos of him actually surfing. The weather was not in our favor, but no one seemed to mind much (except me, my camera kept getting wet!) since they were already in the water anyway.

Ready to hit some waves!

Ike was the first one up.

Gamma the surfing goddess.

Only picture I took of Josh. But he looks good in this one :)

Looking like real surfers. Although they aren't carrying their boards!

Here's a video compilation of all the surfing. Enjoy!

That was the last of exciting things we did on the trip. We went out to eat several times since there were so many restaurants with outdoor seating. But other than that we just hung out on the beach, took. morning and evening walks and played euchre (or any other game the kids were playing at the time!).

Uncle Tony buried the kids a couple times of course.

Sunrise with momma.

Kids searching for buried treasure with their new metal detector.

We did go visit the Angel Oak, no trip to Charleston is complete without doing that!

I cannot get my blog to work properly, so I'll just caption the last pictures down here! On our last night we went for a walk on the end of Folly to watch the sunset. It was gorgeous and the perfect ending to our trip! We had so much fun and are anxious to get back again once the new pier is built!

First Days on Folly

For fall break this year, our family and my mom and Tony and Ben all went back to our favorite place-Folly Beach! I was really nervous our trip wouldn't happen, but I think we timed it just right and we were really careful (also the people in South Carolina seemed to take masking up a lot more seriously than people here!). It was a different trip than normal but we still had a blast! There is lots of outdoor eating on Folly and we had great weather so we pretty much just enjoyed the beach and ate some great food.

On our way there our family stopped at a national park we hadn't been to before...Congaree National Park in South Carolina. It's basically a swamp with a board walk you can hike on and it had lots of kayaking paths. We stopped for about 2 hours to hike. I'd say it is worth a stop if you're nearby but I wouldn't go out of my way for this one!

Walking along the trail.

It was chilly out that morning!

We had about a two hour drive to get to Folly from there. We couldn't check in to our condo quite yet so we visited the beach then grabbed some lunch. 

Had to get the pier picture first thing!

Lunch at Chico Feo.

We are so sad that the old pier is currently being replaced with a new one. We were able to go out on the old one on Sunday but after that it was under construction. 

Morning walks with Gamma.

Huge pizza slices at Woody's.

Dave tried to learn skim boarding. 

It didn't really work out so he read some instead. 

Mornings are my favorite on Folly!

Mom and the boys found a really cool park on the island.

Since we bummed around on Sunday, we headed into Charleston to walk along Battery Park and see the pretty houses on Monday morning. 

Gotta get the picture with the cannon.

We just walked around (and saw the show Outer Banks being shot!) and ended up at the market. Mom and I got ourselves an ornament and then we went wandering through a couple of cemeteries. 

After we got back that day we went to the beach again. I forced Ike to recreate a picture I took of him when he was a baby. Ugh so cute!

Playing Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza. It is not a quiet game.