Sweet Carolina!!!

This is where we stayed.

Mike, Kira, and I took a trip to South Carolina last week. I want to tell you I LOVE South Carolina. Sweet Carolina!!! We had a blast. Mike's aunt and uncle are renovating a historic/plantation home there which they let us stay in. (It wasn't haunted, thankfully.) We spent most of our time in historic Charleston. The houses were amazing and the weather was perfect. Here's where we went:

1. Fort Sumter (where the Civil War began)
2. The Battery (a park with artillery from the Civil War)
3. Middleton Plantation (Middleton was a signer of the Declaration of Independence)
4. Isle of Palms - the Beach
5. U.S.S. Yorktown (an air craft carrier from WWII)
6. Clagmore Submarine (a sub from WWII)
7. Biltmore Mansion (or should I say castle) in North Carolina
8. Cumberland Falls outside of Corbin, Kentucky

Mike's aunt and uncle's home was built in 1890.

I think Kira enjoyed the trip as much as we did!

Mike and Kira on the boat to Fort Sumter.

Kira's livin' it up!

Outside of Fort Sumter

Fort Sumter

Mike frolicking at the battery.

View of the ocean from the battery

Beautiful Grounds at Middleton Plantation

Little Kira with the flooded rice fields in the background

Butterfly ponds at the Middleton Plantation

The plantation was so green!

The thinking man

Yep, I milked my first cow!

Our sweet baby girl was the best traveler.

Kira loved my beach chair. She hogged it the whole time.

The Isle of Palms had warm water and sweet sand.

The U.S.S. Yorktown

They said that 10,000 chocolate chip cookies fed the crew of 3,500 for one day. This is the recipe to make 10,000 cookies. Insane!

This Clagmore sub had such tight living quarters. I never could have lived on it. I barely fit through it taking the tour.

These are the cots on the U.S.S. Yorktown. There are 4 cots in each vertical row. Once again, I just couldn't have done it!

There was a dental area on the air craft carrier. There were 4 operatories, x-ray room, and a dental lab.

Mike loved looking at the planes. His dream when he was little was to be a jet pilot. That dream was shattered when he realized he was color blind. I think I prefer the color blind dentist to the risk taking jet pilot.

This is the Biltmore mansion. It is the biggest home I have ever seen. It measures 4 acres inside the house. The tour took us 4 hours!

One of the green areas at the Biltmore.

The grounds of the Biltmore Castle!

Check out the view!!

Some of the gardens at the Biltmore.

Cumberland Falls - One of only two waterfalls in the world with a moonbow.

Cumberland Falls

Time to Talk Derby

Hoping we have picked the winning horses!

So our neighbors, friends, and gamers, the Shep-dawgs had a last hurrah, the Derby Party. We had a great time watching the Derby and trying to pick the winning horses. My niece and sister also watched the Derby on TV in Vegas. Sadly enough, my 8-year-old niece's winning horse pick was Eight Belles. She was so happy that Eight Belles got second. Then she asked her mom what euthanized meant. When she found out that Eight Belles was laid out to pasture, she burst into tears. My sister called to tell me about it, and I could hear my niece wailing in the background. It was so sad. That filly ran her heart out!

Mikey and I

Me, Janelle, Chelsea, Heather, and Tessa

Jamie and the Xan Man

Senioritis

Mike is officially a senior in dental school. Can you believe it? A senior! I can hardly believe how fast the time has flown. It doesn't seem like we've already been here for 3 years. We have absolutely loved being here in Kentucky. These pictures are at Mike's dental clinic dinner. It was their celebration of going from junior clinic to the senior clinic. It was a lot of fun to see friends and eat yummy food at Texas Roadhouse.

Derby Daze!

So I've always dreamed of going to the Kentucky Derby, wearing a Derby Hat and getting dressed all fancy. But the Derby is so expensive to get tickets where we can actually sit (rather than be flashed by nudists in the infield), that it probably won't ever happen. But a girl can still dream... Anyway, I did the next best thing I could think of. Our ward had a derby party with a derby hat competition, so I decided it was now or never. I must make a derby hat. So I tried to let the creative juices flow, but just could never find time. So I threw it together before the party. Guess what? I won first place. Well, I should tell you that no other adult made a hat, so I competed against young women and primary children. Hey, that's still a victory in my book. : ) So I wore my derby hat with pride. Now I'm wondering, what the heck am I going to do with this big old hat now. Anybody want a homemade derby hat?

The pink derby hat in all it's glory.

The hat is ginormous!

Next year, it will be matching hats for the girls!

Our Little Diva!

This is our little Diva in fur! She just looked so adorable sitting on the couch! I wish I could have some of her clothes in my size. I was so excited that I could get a bow to clip in her hair! Guess what she is fixated on while I am taking these pictures? Why Baby Einstein, of course! She loves those videos!

The Big 2-7!

Happy Birthday Mikey! It was Mike's birthday on April 9th. He is now 27 years old. Mike is getting so old and mature. He even has a mature face he likes to make. I wish I had a picture of it, but if you see him, ask him to do the mature face for you. Mike loves ribs so we went to Mark's Feed Store so he could go hog wild on the ribbies. Since I'm already 28, Mike has to deal with the fact that even though he's 27, I'm still a little older and wiser. : ) Mike is such a wonderful husband and father. It was so fun to celebrate with him!

This is Mikey 6 years ago when we dated at BYU. What a hottie!

This is Mikey and our baby chubster on his birthday!

Mike and his tooth cake.

The tooth cake!

The 27 year old!

These are the homemade kisses I made for him. (Thanks for the idea from your blog Heidi and Bakerella.)