We're Home!

Well, it's now Monday morning. The girls last day of spring break. We made it home about 6:00 p.m. Saturday night. I left with 2 girls and 2 pups, and came home with the same numbers. That's all I cared about!

Somehow, coming home, we wound up in Gary, Indiana and had to get through the stop and go traffic in Chicago. We didn't go through Chicago on the way out, so I'm still puzzled how we ended up there...

I just read Sophi's comments from the last blog post. First of all, I'd just like to say that I never scream at my children, I just assertively coax them along! And I don't think I was in the pottery store quite that long.

Wow, after watching the news on Sunday, I am so thankful that we didn't have any accidents going through Tennessee. My sympathies go out to all the people there who suffered loss. I would say we were about 10-15 minutes behind the tornadoes. I've always said, "Timing is everything in life."

Yesterday we celebrated Easter with our traditonal lamb dinner. Accompanying the dinner was: mint jelly from the Boone Hall Plantation, SC; peach cider from Abbott Farms, SC; peach bread from Abbott Farms, SC; fresh pecans from NC; and, of course, a homemade key lime pie brought all the way home from Edisto Island, SC. Needless to say, it was a delicious easter dinner.

We are happy to be home with daddy/Hugh and Digger. The puppies are back to their old routines. We hope our neighbors enjoyed the reprieve we gave them!

So, in signing off, thank you for following us on our trip. We had a fabulous time and would definitely do it again. Traveling with no plans or deadlines is possible and has many advantages.

To my girls: you are my love, you are my life, I had a great time with you. I hope you always have good memories of our time together. Love from your mamma.

Bye y'all...

We're Home!

We're alive!

OMG, what a ride. We finally left the hotel yesterday morning around 10:17 a.m. 5.3 miles down the road the girls annouced that they were ravenously starving from lack of nutrtion and begged the "Mom dictator" for food.** So, I'm not sure if I can really cal 10:17 a.m. our departure time or not. Anyway, things were going well, it was 76 degrees, sunny, beautiful weather. As soon as we hit North Carolina, all h___ broke loose. It started raining, thundering, lightening. By the time we were in Tennessee, tornado warnings were all over the radio. They were in six counties all around us. The only problem was, we never knew which county we were in. So, I did the only thing I could, I instructed the girls to keep an eye out for funnel clouds and tell me if they heard a train coming. Meanwhile, I was looking for ditches to duck into. This went on through all of North Carolina, all of Tennessee, and into Kentucky, a total of about 5 hours. At one point the rain came down so hard and fast, you couldn't see anything in front of you. I wanted to pull off the road, but I couldn't see where it was, and I didn't want to get rear-ended. So I kept hitting the brakes in a SOS fashion, just so the cars behind me would hopefully see me. My hands were gripped on the wheel soooooo tight, they are still curled up today! Anyway, we finally made it to Louisville where we stopped for the night, and got one of the last rooms, a smoking room.... We didn't care.

Now, we're still trying to get out of our hotel. Millie has continued to turn a deeper shade of crimson. She's broken out in some sun blistering now. And, she refuses to get out of bed. I keep reminding them we have at least 7 hours left to drive today, and it's already 10:52 a.m. Of course, Sophi is all ready and packed up.

And now, Sophi would like to share a few thoughts:

Okay so heres what REALLY happend! we woke up at about 9:43 a.m and we spent a while gettting ready, of course I was ready to go in like 15 minutes and meanwhile mom is screaming at millie to hurry up and start packing! Once mom figured out that I was just standing there she asigned me to the hard working labor of carrying our lugage to the jeep-thingy mabobber...
EVENTUALLY, millie was ready and we were headed out the door. after about 10 minutes of driving me and millum relized somthing, we were ranevously starving from lack of nutrition and begged the "mom dictator" for food. We drove to McDonalds and of COURSE breakfast time there was over... Mills and I had McNuggest for breakfast...

Ho hum... drivin' down the highway, when... DUH NUH NUH Nuh.... mother spots a pottery store... *5 gajillon hours later* mother returns with lots of large unidenifiable objects wraped in white tisue paper, evetually mother relized the pain she had put us through, leaving us in an 80 degree car to roast. So we drove to a SONIC drive though and got slushies!!! YAY

rain, rain go away come again another day... *BOOM CRASH BOOM* lightning thunder, and eek! tornados. I braced myself to hold onto foofoo if the going got bad... during this time to keep myself entertained I looked up some of our names in Cherokee.
Amy-Eimi
Millie-Mili
Sophi-Sowi
Foofoo-Wuwu
Pippy-Wiwi.
(I also looked up foofoo's name in japenese it's *FU FU* hee hee)

after milions of miles of endless driving we FINALLY arrived at our hotel at about 11:23... only to be stuck in a smokers room.. Blech!
Everything is okay now moving slowly, and millie continues to turn red like a rotten tomatoe.



**That input was from Sophi

Departure Day

Morn'n,

Well, it's already HOT here. It's 9:22 a.m. and I'm hoping for a 9 a.m. departure.... The girls say they're packed, but their is still so much strewn about the room.... hmmmm......

Love to all...

73 degrees

Hi y'all,

Well, today was the absolute most gorgeous day. Warm, breezy, and sunny. First we took the dogs to the James Island dog park. Of course, we had to leave dominant yappy Foo-Foo in the car. We took Pippy in on the leash to check out the atmosphere. There were all sorts and sizes. After a while we took her off leash and she ran right to the only black standard poodle in the park. She looked so happy until she smelled him and realized it wasn't her Digger. Then her tail dropped between her legs. The park has really changed since the last time I was there. Now they even have a water park.

After that, we drove 45 minutes further south to Edisto Island. There is a gorgeous state park beach there. We must have walked two miles with the pups. Edisto Beach is the shelling beach. If you walk down toward the peninsilla, you find the good shells. We found lots of oyster, clam, and scallop shells. Our motherlode was finding 3 complete conch shells. We found lots of broken ones, but whole ones are da bomb. The loggerhead turtles nest on this island.

Needless to say, after four hours on the beach, we are all red. But, as Millie says, "At least now people will know we went somewhere!" We had to give the pups showers when we got back to get all the salt and sand out of their hair. I think we finally exhausted them.

Tonight we finally met up with our friend, Broxanne. She has 3 great danes, 3 maltese and 1 yorkie. We watched her at a training class where she was training 3 of her dogs for dog competition. We left ours in the car for fear of embarassment. As soon as we came back to our room the girls started training them, or vice versa. We'll see if the enthusiasm continues.

We are sad that this is our last day here, but it sure was a good one. Tomorrow we head for home, we're hoping to make it back to Louisville by tomorrow night, and then home on Saturday in time for Easter. We're all missing Papa, Digger and our friends. There's supposed to be bad thunderstorms for our travels tomorrow. Yippee!

Here are todays pics of Edisto State Park Beach:

Love to all...

Wednesday evening

Folley Beach, South Carolina

Hi y'all,

Today was a beautiful day. Sunny and sixties. We spent most of it outside, first at a riverside park down near the boat yards and then the rest of the day on Folley Island, frollicking at the beach. We had calamari (yummy) and fish wraps for lunch. Tonight we ate at the Boone plantation deli and then went shopping for spring/summer clothes. The girls are shaving their legs in anticipation of wearing shorts for the first time tomorrow after a long winter. We are a busy bunch!

Here are today's pics:

Wednesday Morning

Morning y'all,

Well, yesterday morning's picture is still good for this morning, not much changed. Both girls and dogs still sleeping! I took the pups out for their morning walk. Another beautiful day. It's starting to warm up, today should be 65 degrees. That's much better than yesterday. We booked another night here. I take it day by day to see how quiet we can keep the puppies so we don't get asked to leave!

I think today's adventures will take place on Folley Island. We actually have a friend who lives there with her three great danes. She is a child psychiatrist who trained with Hugh and in her spare time she trains and shows the dogs. Maybe I'll recognize her house and leave a note.

We were shocked to see it was 1:15 a.m. when I started mentioning it was time for bed last night. Sophie was sure it was only 11. She was giving me makeovers and picking out our outfits for today. You can be sure we'll be looking good today!

Well, that's all the news generated since last night.

Love to all....

Foo-Foo hanging from a bag in a tree!

Boone Hall Plantation

This is Boone Hall Plantation that we also visited today. It's one of the only plantations not harmed during the civil war because it was so hard to get to. When visitors came to visit, they stayed anywhere from six weeks to a year because there were no bridges, they had to rely on boats and the tidal systems. They started out making bricks out of the dirt, but after that stopped making them money, they switched to pecans!

One of the houses where the slaves lived, sometimes 3 families in one cabin. This plantation had over 300 slaves.

These are 300 year old oak trees complete with hanging spanish moss. They would make great tree houses.

This is only one of the small azalea bushes around the grounds. They're HUGE!

Dogs were not allowed into the plantation, however, if you look closely at what's inside the girls backpacks, you might be surprised!

The above are just a few of the other flowers we saw on the grounds. Very lovely.

Well, that's really it for the postings today. Hope you're all well,

Love to you all....

Tuesday evening

Beach combing
Sophie digging for clams
Sand sweeping across the sand bar
One of the many jelly fish
Hi y'all,

Today we went exploring. We went to Fort Sumter, Sullivan's Island and Isle of Palms. We went beach combing but it was so windy and the sand was hitting us so sharply, we had to retreat. The beach was covered with really big jelly fish. It was low tide and the sand bars went out forever. The sand was etched with ripples, if you look closely at the pictures you can see all the designs.

There are some awesome homes here, we love the paint colors they chose. Our favorite one is the lime green. Can you imagine looking out your window at that one?

We've decided that we like Charleston even better than Kentucky. We're already talking about coming back next spring break.

Love to all...

Tuesday morning in Charleston

Good morning all,

It's a beautiful morning here in Charleston. The sun is shining and its breezy. The puppies and I just came in from a 45 minute walk (pull). There are nice neighborhoods here to walk in, I chose all the ones with the "private" signs! We all had a much better nights rest last night and the girls are still sleeping. Because of all these plusses, I signed us up for another night here. Hopefully, when they get up, we'll head out to see a plantation or two and explore downtown. Of course it all comes down to where puppies are allowed! I must say it's been interesting coursing a trip with no plans all around puppies! Hope y'all have a good day. Will post more later as we see more things.

Love to all....

Pics of Kentucky architecture

Pics of Smokey Mountains

Pics of Bates Motel and Gatlinburg