We're Back...

   We just got back into town late Thursday night after several fun-filled, educational, memory making days in Savannah, Georgia. Lee had a business meeting to go to so we all went down together a few days before his meeting and stayed later. This was the first "real" vacation we have had in a few years! We are planning another vacation for next spring so we used this one as a "practice run" before then. Everyone did really well even though we wore them out nearly every day trudging in the heat from one end of historic Savannah to another, up and down beaches and on the search for diapers...but I get ahead of myself ;).
A lot of our pictures are on Lee's camera, the old fashioned kind that stretches you in the area of patience because you must (gasp!) wait for them to be developed, but which also takes much better pictures. I do have some to share though.
We got there pretty late in the afternoon on the first day but we wasted little time in dropping our things off at the hotel and driving on to the beach. We were kind of unsure about the sort of company we might find at the beach so we were prepared to leave if need be but we were pleasantly surprised to find that it was really very quiet and for long stretches there would be no one at all. It was so beautiful! We've been to Charleston several times since we've been married but the beaches there are nothing like in Savannah! I went to Florida once as a teenager and they had the most beautiful beaches there and this beach was very, very similar! Light colored sand, beautiful colors in the shells, just gorgeous! I am extremely uncomfortable around large bodies of water but even I can greatly appreciate the creativity of God in the beauty of the oceans. This was Andrew's first time at the beach and he seemed to enjoy it at first but by the time we left he had had enough. He would run any time he saw approaching waves, he was complaining about the sand on his little hands and feet, and he much preferred to just be held. 

 

 The rest of us greatly enjoyed it though!!!

 

 The beach we went to was at Tybee Island. Did I mention that I am extremely uncomfortable around large bodies of water? Thankfully I wasn't aware that we were on an island, let alone an island off of an island until after we left for the last time. Yes, I realize this makes me look extremely unobservant but I don't like bridges either and there are bridges everywhere down there so I paid as little attention as possible when we were hovering over any amount of water... Anyway, Lee took a beautiful picture of the lighthouse with the sun peeking through the clouds over it that I will share sometime. It was a beautiful illustration to me of the smallness of man and the omnipotence of our great God and Creator.
During one bit of excitement Bethani fell while we were wading at the edge of the water and Bri threw all of the shoes she was carrying...into the ocean...and ran for Bethani. Lee and I ran for Bethani as well, looking longingly after our shoes ;). When Lee saw I was going to get to her first he went after the shoes and happily he was able to retrieve them all. I am thankful that Bri thought more about her sister than about our shoes. I am also greatful that we didn't have to go shopping for shoes "shoeless" ;). Bethani talked about it all the way to the car when we left, "I felled in the waters and Daddy came to get me and Mother came to get me and I got wet...."
On the way back to the hotel that evening, or the Inn as Tori referred to it, Bethani revealed her whiny side. Now, Bethani has a bit of a temper but all in all she is a really sweet little girl and she never complains. Well, apparently she has been saving it all up for that one trip back to the hotel. "I'm tired, I'm hungry, I'm wet, I felled in the waters..." over and over again. It was so hard not to go into fits of giggles because it was so completely out of character for her :)! Lee stopped on the way back to the hotel and picked up some pizzas for our supper so that perked her up a little bit, sort of.
While down there we toured the Andrew Low House. Coincidentally this was also the married home of Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Scouts, but that isn't why we went. I was a Scout growing up but scouts have gotten a bit too "girl power" in recent years. It was a beautiful house and it was sooo funny to watch Andrew look the tour guide over every time she said his name as if she shouldn't be privy to such information. We saw huge books that weighed 50 pounds each, a brooch that was a gift from Robert E. Lee and his wife to Andrew Low's second wife at their marriage, a set of amethyst jewels that had belonged to Napoleon's wife (I think it was?) and much more of interest. The tour guide was very sweet and truly enjoyed what she was doing. Here is a picture of the children on the steps at the Andrew Low house...

Much of what we did while we were down there cost little or nothing. Well, we seemed to have to pay for parking everywhere. We walked River Street and went into River Street Sweets where we got to watch them making the candies, watching the machine pulling the taffy could become mesmerizing! Lee treated us to a bowl of ice cream there and some pralines and taffy to take back to the hotel. I've already tried to recreate the pralines here at home because Lee loved them but they weren't quite right, I think I'll have to try another recipe. We also stopped in a little country gift shop and found a cute little pansy pull chain for our living room fan (you may remember from this post that our living room is decorated in pansies). We didn't stay long at River Street though because it just wasn't very "family friendly". In fact, Savannah itself didn't come across as overly family friendly. We saw just a handful of children the entire time we were there. At Cracker Barrel the second evening our children made up more than 50% of the children for the entire time we were there! I felt very self conscious as Andrew is our loudest baby yet even, and maybe especially, when he's happy and he was really happy that evening ;). About half-way through our meal though a couple came over and commented on our "sweet and well-behaved children". I wonder if the people who stayed next to us in the hotel would second that ;). Later on Bri made the observation that nobody seemed to have children but everyone seemed to have a dog.
We could have spent days and days just roaming the squares and looking at the houses. We went to Forsyth park where we saw a fountain that is over 150 years old...

 

 We went to Colonial Park Cemetery and one grave that seemed particularly meaningful to us was one of a physician who lost his life by tending to others during the first yellow fever epidemic. The grave mentions his burial as a tribute of the love of his sister and while many stones seem neglected this one had a plaque placed on it by a descendant in 2000 that "translated" what the faded etching on the stone once said. Perhaps the influence of a sister's love is what gave this physician the strength to give his life for others and perhaps that same influence is working through the descendants of this same family as seems to be suggested by the care taken to preserve the memory of their ancestors. It's a beautiful thought. In this same cemetery we also saw a memorial to Button Gwinnett, one of the Georgian signers of the Declaration of Independence. Button Gwinnett was killed in a duel (held at his request) by Lachlan McIntosh, McIntosh is buried just across the way in this same cemetery. Interesting, I thought.