Obviously my kids modeling careers would end once we moved back to the US. When my friend came to visit the US this summer she mailed me a few of James last catalogs. Most of these were taken anywhere from Nov 2009 to January 2010. It is hard to believe it was almost a year ago and he was so small!
These are a few of my favorite shots:
The rest can be seen here:
In July, my sister Laurie came to visit or as Lizzy called her, Aunt Lau-Rie with a heavy emphasis on the rie. Lizzy also has an aunt Laura so distinguishing them was very tough so she had to specify with a bold pronunciation on the rie. It was so fun to have Laurie with us for a week. We would have kept her longer if we could have. The kids of course fell instantly in love especially since she came bearing presents. She brought James a car and as soon as she gave it to him he was convinced that her suitcase was full of cars and that she was holding back. It was pretty funny.
We did some touristy stuff with Laurie that we hadn’t done yet. The Touristy stuff here is kind of pricey so we thought we would save it when company comes to visit. The new things that we did were to eat breakfast at a local, Southern Restaurant. Adam and Laurie got the “Big Nasty” which consisted of a piece on fried chicken topped with sausage gravy inside a homemade biscuit. I couldn’t bear to order that. Adam and Laurie loved it. I took a bite and it was OK. We also had grits—again, OK.
Next we took the ferry out to Fort Sumter where the civil war began. It was a fun ride through the harbor and history surrounded us. We only had an hour at the fort which went by really fast. We listened to a ranger tell the history for the first 20 minutes or so and then explored the rest of the fort. We never did make it inside to the museum, but I bet the outside was way more fun anyways. We even saw some dolphins in the water on our way back to shore. Dolphins are abundant in the water here which is pretty cool.
Laurie, the kids and I also went to the Middleton Place Plantation. The grounds were beautiful and so picturesque. It was really cool to because near the barn and stable yards, they had a bunch of stuff set-up like in the plantation time and you could participate or watch a few of the old craftsmen. We got to help milk a cow, watch a potter, a cooper and see a blacksmith shop and a weaving shop. We also got to grind some corn which was cool and of course pet all the animals.
Lastly, we checked out the Caw Caw Interpretive Center. This was a nature park where you could walk through a pretty cool swamp, see a lot of birds and rent canoes or kayaks. It was pretty, but it was so hot we were excited to go into the air-conditioned visitors center. That made Lizzy’s day since they had “animals” inside (some live fish and some stuffer otters, beavers, etc)
We had a great time with Laurie doing new things and the regular stuff like the beach and history walk, etc. Can’t wait to see you again!
