Charleston.

I love Charleston and I tell Erik that all the time :)  We were supposed to go on a babymoon to Charleston but we just never got around to it.  So my clever husband bought us a weekend in Charleston for my birthday (May 25th).  He bought two nights in July for us to stay at an awesome hotel in downtown Charleston called the Vendue Inn.  It was fancy (well for us).  They valet your car each day (for a cost of course), offer you "chilled" towels, have a wine & cheese happy hour, offer freshly baked cookies at 9pm every night (no cost, wahoo!), "turn down your sheets" before you go to bed (seriously?!), and walk your luggage to your room and pick it up when you leave.  Now, thats fancy.

Well you know our trip couldn't start off the right way, duh.  On our way down I realized I forgot my make-up.  Oops.  So we immediately took Vendue Inn out of the GPS and typed in mall.  I had to do everyone a favor, nobody wants to see me all weekend without makeup.  So we went to a mall about 6 miles from out hotel.  I got my makeup and we headed to the hotel.

The Vendue Inn is very dated or historical if you will, but fancy at the same time.  We checked into the hotel and decided to go explore.  We got TONS of recommendations for eating places.  Good lord, we would have to be there a month to eat at all the places.  But Friday night we went to Fleet Landing for dinner and Kaminsky's for desert.  Erik got a brownie with ice cream and I got the mixed berry cobbler  YUM!

Saturday morning we woke up and grabbed breakfast at a local coffee shop and then went for pedicures.  They were at a ladies and gents spa.  Erik of course had to do his research.  It use to be a gents spa ONLY but they added ladies 2 years ago.  So anyways, I finally talked Erik into getting a pedicure.  He wanted to hot shave but he wasn't stubbly enough so he had to settle for a pedicure :)  This wasn't your average pedicure.  You sat on a very comfy bench (it was one bench for everyone) with lots of pillows and you put your feet in what looked like a real bath.  Anyways, it was nice and $119 later, very relaxing :)

After pedicures, it was time to SHOP!  Wahoo.  We went to King's Street.  I wasn't really in the mood to shop but I made myself.  I got a pair of wedges from Steve Madden.  Aren't you proud of me?!  They were on sale AND that's all I got.  In between shops, we ate at King Street Grille.  It was typical bar food, nothing special, but good.  We went for convenience :)

After shopping, we went on a carriage ride!  The carriage ride we went on took us on a tour of Charleston and mainly talked about the homes in downtown Charleston.  Fun experience!  We went back to the hotel for a little bit and got ready for dinner.  We had reservations at Poogan's Pooch.  I got porkchops (they were good) and Erik got a filet.  After dinner, we went back to Kaminsky's :)  Erik got an oreo milkshake and I got the mixed berry cobbler again with ice cream!!!!

We then went back to the hotel and went to the Vendue Inn roof top bar.  It was a great atmosphere and had an awesome view of Charleston!  I was sad to end the night because I knew we had to leave the next morning :(

On Sunday morning we got up and decided to go to breakfast before we left.  We had a few recommendations and unfortunately none of them worked out :(  We went to Toast (highly recommended) and the line was wrapped around the door.  Then we tried Caviar and Bananas but they don't serve breakfast on Sundays.  So we went to a local coffee shop instead and hit the road!

I had an AMAZING time with my husband.  We will definitely do more of that :)  Thank you to my mother-in-law for keeping such great care of our sweet Gage. We know we can always rely on her to keep him safe and exhausted :)  He always sleeps well for her because she keeps him busy outside on the playground!  She's great!

Here are some pictures, we didn't take many.

The strongest Lemonade Martini EVER @ Fleet Landing.

Friday not long after we arrived.

Horse Barn.

Before the Carriage Ride.

It's so awkward going on trips and asking people to take your picture (Erik hates when I ask people to take our picture).  So I tried :)

Love this man!

First 'REAL' Beach Trip.

As usual, I am behind the times.  We went on our annual Looper Family Beach Trip July 14-21st.  Gage had been to the beach before when he was too young to know so this was his first "REAL" beach trip as I like to call it :)

We had a GREAT time, well except for one day but I'll get to that later!  Gage and I drove down on Monday morning and Erik came down Wednesday morning.  The first day we went to the sandbar and Gage was non stop.  He would go into the water then on the sand, in the water, on the sand.  Per the usual, we had to chase him the whole day...but it was fun!  I think we went to the sandbar 2 or 3 days.  When going to the sandbar, we obviously went by boat.  Gage was not a fan of having to wear a life jacket.  He liked to the boat but when we went fast, I think he held his breath or something because he didn't really care for that either.  If I blocked him from the "wind", he was fine.

Well....Wednesday was not such a great day.  We got to the sandbar late so we didn't get our usual spot in the shade.  We found a spot so Dad and Erik parked the boat, we got out all the chairs, toys, towels, bags, cooler, you name it....we had it, out of the boat.  Reese and the girls started playing in the water and the next thing we know, Reese is screaming and running out of the water.  We thought maybe a crab got her.  After looking at her (and Gracie too), we noticed little white lines and the area around it was really red. Reese and Gracie said they felt it stinging.  So we concluded a jellyfish must have gotten them and maybe we should move to a different area.  So we walked all our stuff to another spot, treking it all through the sand.  I swear it wasn't 15 minutes later, Lauren and Tristen were sitting at the shore line.  They got stung too.  That was enough for me and mostly everyone else, besides Bella.   So we just played in the sand for a whole.  After about 30 minutes, I decided to take a dip :)  Well, as soon as I walked into the water, I got stung.  Thankfully I was standing up so I was able to react pretty quickly.  It feels like someone constantly poking you with needles.  Its not unbearable but certainly not comfortable.  That lasted for a good 45 minutes.  Last but not least, Bella kept saying "I'm not getting stung".  She kept on and on in the water.  Well, the jellyfish got her good.  She definitely got it the worse.  She got stung all over her legs, arms, and neck area....BAD.  I wish I would have taken a picture.  So, they say pee on a jellyfish sting.  Well, that doesn't ring true :)  That's all I'm gonna say about that.  Needless to say, Thursday was quite an adventure.

The last few days, we did not go back to the sandbar.  We decided to go to the beach :)  On Friday everyone got burnt so Saturday we all decided we should stay away from the sun.  We drove to the aquarium and it was SO cool!  We saw lots of creatures and even watched a scuba diving show were the scuba diver got in a huge tank with lots of sea creatures and told us all about them.  Gage and the girls were very excited!

I am such a lucky girl to have an amazing family to spend time with every year.  I love them all dearly and had an awesome time.

T modeling :)

Lovin' it!

1st day at the Sandbar!

Nice Outfit.

Dinner at Bluewater

Little Silhouette :)

What would I do without these two?!

Bella Bergman is one.of.a.kind

PawPaw and Nannie

Looper Beach Trip 2013!

Checkin' out the fish with PawPaw @ the Aquarium

Blowfish!

This is what got us.  Losers.

Lazy 5.

Gary, Alicia, and Chase came to visit!  We decided to do something fun on Saturday and go to the Lazy 5 Ranch.  We packed into my car and headed that way!  When we got there we got 2 buckets of food.  They told us not to feed the zebras or cows with the long horns.  Well I fed one (we still aren't sure what it was) and it about took the bucket out of my hands or he tried too but I wasn't letting go.  Chase had a ball, he wasn't scared of any of the animals!  Gage sat in Papaw Gary's lap for most of the trip and he was a little hesitant with the animals at first but enjoyed petting the llamas :)  The ostriches would look you up and down until you offered them food, they were hilarious.  We started to get a little freaked out and rolled the windows up on a few of them.  They would turn their heads side to side, looking for you.  Craziness.  My favorite was the buck-toothed llama, see the picture below :)  We saw ostriches, llamas, bulls, goats, sheep, zebras, giraffes, pigs, a HUGE rhino, camels, kangaroos, and I probably forgot a ton.

My FAV :)

Some hungry camels.

The Nordmark Clan!

Kanagroo and her joey :)

Thanks for coming to visit us!!