Myrtle Beach with Calvin

A few weeks ago Paul and I decided that it would be a good idea to go to the Tanger Outlet Mall in Myrtle beach to buy me some postpartum clothes since I was no longer able to keep my maternity pants up and my old jeans were still too tight.  I love outlet malls and the beach so it sounded awesome.  It wasn't.

Calvin hates the car for some reason and cried almost the whole day.  We got some dirty looks in Banana Republic as I hurriedly carried his screaming head out of the dressing room, followed by Paul and our humungous stroller.  Calvin also gets really scared at loud noises and screamed his head off when I was changing his diaper in the mall bathroom and someone dared to dry their hands with an electric drier.  Poor baby.

When we got down to the beach after shopping Calvin managed to fall asleep in the stroller so we did get to enjoy the boardwalk a little.  It was pretty cloudy.

The drive home took us more than 3 hours because we had to stop and soothe him practically every 5 minutes. 

On the bright side, I now have jeans that fit me and a pretty cute top to wear with them.  And I think (3 weeks later) that we might be figuring out how to keep Calvin from freaking out in the car.  Maybe.

San Angelo in Numbers

During our 7 weeks in San Angelo we . . .

upped our bird count to 41 birds
used up 1.9 punch cards at our favorite frozen yogurt place
ate at our favorite tex mex restaurant Armenta's 4 times
consumed 12 blizzards
went to 2 San Angelo Colts baseball games (and got 1 free ticket!)
stayed in 5 hotels
bought 10 skeins of yarn and learned to crochet
sat through 1 hail storm
went to the pool 3 times
watched 3 seasons of The Big Bang Theory
celebrated 27 years of Paul's life
read 7 books
watched over 5 inches of rain fall (that's a ton compared to last year!)
saw 1 lunar eclipse
spent 10 dollars on a trip to the Abilene zoo
checked out 9 DVDs from the library and never watched them

Also . . .
our car thermometer registered a temperature of 122 degrees
I went from my 23rd to my 30th week of pregnancy

It wasn't a bad 7 weeks but we are definitely glad to be home!  When we got home our lawn was overgrown, but all of our stuff was here and there was only 1 cockroach in our house . . .

well, only 1 living cockroach . . . yuck!

The Great Smoky Mountains Day 3

Our last day in the park started out rainy and stormy, so we went to breakfast at a diner in town and waited out the rain a little bit.  Then we went out to try our luck on some more hikes.

It was still a little rainy when we drove up Lakeview Drive past this view of Fontana Lake.  I was glad that we had the umbrella.

Then we went to hike the Tunnel Bypass Trail and it was really fun.  First we walked through this long tunnel.  It was so dark in the middle that we couldn't see our feet.  Can you see the opening way at the other end?

The rest of the hike was so beautiful.  I kept hoping that we would see another bear, but the only wildlife we saw were some birds that were taunting us with their chirps.  At least it stopped raining!

After hiking, we went for another picnic and by the time we were finished we were surrounded by at least 6 crows.  It was a little eerie, like they were about to attack us or something.  Luckily they waited until we got in the car to swoop down on our table and scrounge for leftovers.

We went back to the Oconaluftee Visitor Center to finish out the day.  We walked around the historic farm and then found an awesome spot to skip rocks into the river.  This also reminded me very much of Waterton.

Paul was really good at skipping rocks and throwing rocks across the river.  Here he is playing a game I think my uncle Tom taught me in Waterton.  You try to throw as many rocks as possible out of one hand before your first one hits the water.  (sorry the video is sideways).

I was okay too but hit myself on the chest.

We hiked the rest of the Oconaluftee River Trail, saw some birds, and then went back to Bryson City for more ice cream and to rest from another long day.

These last pictures are for my dad.  The NC entrance to the park is on the Cherokee Indian Reservation so most of the signs have English and Cherokee on them.  Neat eh?  This and the fact that there are juncos should be enough to convince him to come for a visit!

We had such a great time exploring the Great Smoky Mountains, and it turned out to be one of our favorite vacations of all time.  Mountains really have so much to offer and Paul and I are dreaming of owning a mountain cabin someday so we can hike and bird to our heart's content.

And for those of you who are curious . . . we ended up identifying 15 birds (but hearing and spotting, like, a billion more!): Carolina Chickadee, Dark-eyed Junco, American Crow, American Robin, Morning Dove, Northern Cardinal, Tufted Titmouse, Mallard Duck, Eastern Pheobe, Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Red-tailed Hawk, Carolina Wren, Pigeon, Goose, and I swear there was a 15th.

The Great Smoky Mountains Day 2

We started out day 2 in the Deep Creek area of the park.  This area is known for its lovely babbling creek and for 3 even lovelier waterfalls, and we decided to hike to all of them.

The first was Juney Whank Falls.  We hiked up about half a mile to see this 90 foot waterfall.  We sat for a while and eventually spotted an Eastern Pheobe living under the bridge (that's a bird). 

Me hiking back down from the falls.  Do I look 23 weeks pregnant?

The next waterfall was called Tom Branch Falls, followed by Indian Creek Falls.  Both waterfalls were about 25 feet tall.

By this time my need for a bathroom was excruciatingly urgent, so we only wandered a little farther along the trail and then headed out to have a picnic.

Afterwards, we drove to the Cherokee Indian Reservation to see Mingo Falls.  I read somewhere that at 120 feet tall, Mingo Falls is one of the tallest and most spectacular waterfalls in the southern Appalachians.  Neat!  It was beautiful!

Mingo Falls was probably the best waterfall that we saw.  We had to climb approximately 160 stairs to get to it, but it was worth it.

Next we went to Mingus Mill, an historic gristmill on the other side of the park.  We watched a little demonstration of how the mill works and then took a short up-and-back hike along Mingus Creek.  On the way, we tried to find birds but all we could do was look towards their chirping for movement.  We decided that we need binoculars if we are ever going to be anything but amateurs.  

Then we decided to drive back up into the mountains to see the view at Newfound Gap.  It was once again gorgeous.

While we were up there we saw some Dark-eyed Juncos!  These made me think of home because my parents are always telling me about the juncos they see in their backyard.  They are pretty fun to watch.

My hiking buddy!  and me.

Then we headed back to Bryson City after some dinner.  Paul posed in front of the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad train for me right before we went for ice cream.  I got a chocolate-dipped waffle cone with two scoops of ice cream and for a minute I thought I was in Waterton.  I can't wait to take Paul to Waterton someday, because I just know he would love it.

That night we sat out on the porch in an attempt to improve our birding skills.  We saw a cardinal that pooped on our car and we named him Pete.

The Great Smoky Mountains Day 1

We thought that we would NEVER see San Angelo again, but Paul has been sent here on a TDY (temporary assignment) and now we're here.  For 7 weeks.  But, like we always do, we took advantage of the long drive (24 hours) to see some of the country we've never seen.  This time it was the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina.

Our first day was a half day so we only had time to see a little bit of the park.  We stopped at the visitor's center and the ranger said it would be a good idea to go up to Clingman's Dome, the highest peak in the park, to see the views before some clouds rolled in.  So we did.  The views were spectacular!  Of course they would be at 6600 feet.  We got caught in a little bit of fog but were still able to see pretty far.  Mountains are awesome.

On our way back down to the parking lot from the observation tower we saw a black bear and her baby cub!  They moved behind the bushes before we could get a good picture though.  We also started our search for birds . . . we bought a birding book at the visitor's center and spent the next few days pretending to be birders.  Birding is so nerdy and so fun.

Then we drove to Bryson City, NC to check out our cabin.  We found this gem on VRBO.com and it was exactly what we wanted.  The views from the deck were gorgeous!  Paul sat out on the deck every morning reading and watching for birds.  It was basically paradise.

That night we went to dinner at Jimmy Mac's in Bryson City and got huge hamburgers and key lime pie.  We planned out our next day and went to sleep.

Suffolk, VA

We were in Suffolk, VA from February 20th to March 3rd on another TDY (temporary assignment).  This TDY was a little more pleasant than Florida for a few reasons.  First, I didn't have morning sickness.  Second, we had a kitchen in our hotel room.  Third, my friend Shera brought her dog along so I got to take her out on walks around a nearby lake.  The dog's name is Fancy; how cute is that? 

Shera and I had fun walking her around and chatting while Paul was at work.  There were some amazing houses/neighborhoods to gawk at!  When I'm a multimillionaire I might go back to Suffolk to find a house. 

Paul got stuck with a 1 pm to 1 am shift and it took me almost to the last day to be able to still be awake when he got home.  I don't think work was too bad though . . . he had enough free time to reread The Hunger Games.

Overall, we had a good time in Suffolk.  We met up for lunch a few times and went out to the movies.  I went maternity shopping but didn't buy anything.  (Although I really need to . . . now I'm using a rubber band to give my jeans a little more room.)  Still, I think the best place to be is home.  And we have 5 more weeks here before we leave for another TDY!

Charleston, SC

After our trip to Fort Sumter we decided to head to downtown Charleston to see the sights.  We had a tourist map that we used that to navigate through the historic district and to help us find the cool buildings.

First we walked along the water and found this cool fountain.  The weather was perfect.  If I lived in Charleston I would just sit at the waterfront and people watch.  Say cheese!

Then we wandered through the streets and spotted these neat buildings.  I thought the area was lovely and would like to go back again sometime.

We had a delightful dinner and then drove home.  I'm glad we could give my parents a little taste of the south (that isn't Sumter).