May 30, 2009

"Our Excellent Adventure"

By Nana, Nick and Girlie
On Sunday, May 17, 2009

Nana came to visit us from San Diego, CA. for three weeks.
She flew on an airplane to Charleston, SC. We picked her up at the airport. While Mommy and Daddy were in meetings in Utah, we spent 4 days together having fun on our own!
Our adventure began on a Sunday morning...

As we set out to explore the sites of South Carolina, our first stop was at the Hungryneck Antique Mall on Highway 17 in Mt. Pleasant. Girlie loved this large, black iron dog in front of the store. She had her purse and was ready to shop!
We spent an hour exploring the aisles...there were so many things to see. We were looking for just the right treasure to buy with our bag full of quarters!
Oh, no! An alligator tried to eat my arm! (Just kidding!)

"Blue lawn furniture and there's a dolly!" squealed Girlie.

"Nana, look at these old timey trains!" Nick had found a real treasure.

"I like this pretty, yellow birdbath, Nana!"

Nick searched for trucks and cars, and bought 3 airplanes for $3.oo each and an old time Chrome Steel "Steely" marble for $1.00. Girlie looked at lots of dollies and then found a dolphin key chain with shells inside. She said it was beautiful and it was only .50 cents! Nana bought 2 salt dishes for mommy's birthday. When we came out of the mall it was pouring rain! A nice lady with an umbrella walked us to our car.

It was good we had our umbrellas in the car because our next stop was outdoors!
We were in search of a Venus Fly Trap and tropical plants, so we stopped at Abide-A-While Gardens, a real jungle!!!A little rain won't stop us from having fun!

We fed the fish in the Koi pond with the free food provided by the nursery...they sure ate a lot!

Wow! So many fish!

It was interesting hearing about the plants. But we couldn't find an insect to feed to the fly trap so we decided to come back another day.
The only real "tropical" plant the nursery had was called a Bromeliad. They were very colorful.

All that exploring gave us a real appetite so we were off to find a tasty lunch. We love Chic-Fil-A but they are closed on sunday.
Next door we found Arby's and decided it was time to try one of their Junior Roast Beef sandwiches which Nick and Girlie had never tasted.

They were awesome...Nick even wanted a second sandwich and Girlie ate every bite of hers! We decided to head out in search of a most delicious dessert, so we were on our way again.
(If you click on the picture you can see it up close and personal!)
The windows are covered with rain but it didn't dampen our spirits!


We crossed the Isle of P Connector on our way to the Isle of Palms beach. And there we found it!

Just what we were looking for...ICE CREAM! Ben & Jerry's has the best. Nana had Cherry Garcia, Nick had Double Chocolate and Girlie had Very Vanilla Ice Cream!!! It was sooooo good. Nick put 4 quarters in the meter where we parked the car and we headed for the beach.

I found some shells!

I found some sand!

And I found some water!

It was raining again, but we didn't care, the water in the ocean was wet, too! We played for awhile and then wanted to hurry and go back across the connector to get to the Boiled Peanut Man. Nana and Girlie had never tasted them before. They are a big treat in the south! Nick said they were really good, so off we went to find the peanut man. And WE FOUND HIM!This was the sign we saw on the side of the road. We stopped to get some peanuts.

1 bag, please, of your extra special boiled peanuts!

Yummy good, I really like them!

We had such a great day. One we will never forget.
We headed for home and when we reached Mt. Pleasant, we turned into Ion and drove to our house.
After we looked at all of our pictures from the day, we decided to start our journals. We had saved something from every place we visited during the day so we could use it in our journal.
What a pretty color. This will be my page for Ben & Jerry's.
We turned our shirts inside out so if we got any paint on our clothes it wouldn't show on the good side!!!

Nick is working on his page for Isle of Palms.

Then comes the gluing and cutting and pasting
and cutting and...well you know!
Our journals will take us a few days. Be sure to come back soon and see how they turned out. Now back to work!

~TO BE CONTINUED!~

And here they are! All three of us made our own journals. We used all of the pictures we took and put them into our books. Now we have a memory of our Excellent Adventure!

Nana's book.

Nick's book.

Girlie's book.

Now we can look at our books and all of the pictures of the places we went on our adventure, over and over again! What a fun day we had together!
~~~

May 02, 2009

"Uni" and PAPER TALES!

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What a beautiful day today in sunny California! A great day to get out and explore and enjoy!

I started my day in downtown San Diego in Little Italy at Dick Blick's Art Store, picking up a few items for a collage I'm working on. I needed some water soluble oil pastels and found a nice set with my 30% off coupon. The day was off to a good start!

Strolling down the main street (India Avenue) I noticed an outdoor market. What a buffet of sights and aromas! Fresh organic fruits and vegetables, made to order while you watched were crepes with sweet or savory fillings, colorful fresh cut flowers, a French Patisserie with the most scrumptious pastries, an Italian man making Panini's, another man who introduced himself as Dave the butcher selling rabbit and lamb he had raised himself, a lady selling fresh caught Sea Urchins (Uni) with fresh samples (my first taste of Uni!).


A demo on how to cut it open and clean it was so interesting.



After the demo there was more to see...there were aged cheeses and rustic artisan breads, artichokes as large as my head (I'm not exaggerating!) Fresh almonds and a variety of nuts, and the the stalls went on and on!!! It's open every Saturday from 9:00am to 1:30pm on Fir Street (which crosses India Avenue). I'll definitely be back soon~

Then I was off to visit a little store in the Sports Arena area, next to the Soup Plantation. It's called Paper Tales and they were celebrating their First Year Anniversary!
The make-it-and-take was darling, a 4 page book with adornments which was created by K&Company. It was the stores gift to loyal customers and their way of saying "Thank You". They served refreshments, cookies and a grab bucket with prizes and discounts for your purchase. Julie was running the store this morning and was waiting for the owner, Michelle, to arrive for the afternoon shift. Such nice people and the store has such a warm and cozy environment. What an eyefull! It was hard to take it all in...so much to see!


This cute little bird was a gift from the store!
Lots of glitter and jewelry and charms along with fabulous papers.

After my visit to Paper Tales, I headed toward Poway to check out the sales at Cool Scrapbook Stuff and to JoAnn's Fabrics for a couple of books. This was 50% off coupon day and I picked up a tape runner and two great books, and with my shopping completed I was ready for lunch.

All in all it was a great day as I headed for a favorite, little Bistro, "La Petit Corsaut", to put my feet up and do a little reading with my lunch!!! Bon appetit!


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