August mini vacation

 We decided that we wanted to do a small family vacation before the girls had to start school and while Austin was in a good rotation where he had Fridays and weekends off.  I have always wanted to go to Savannah, GA so we decided that would be it. We found a good price on a hotel and took the 4 hour drive to the most haunted city in the U.S.  Our hotel was right in the historic downtown area which was nice because we could just walk down to River Street. It was HOT and HUMID but the beauty of Savannah made the walking worth it. I loved all the old buildings, the view of the Savannah River, the cobble stone streets, the southern style, and especially the gorgious trees!

 

 There were these guys making roses out of palm branches, so we stopped and got the girls one. They thought they were pretty special because the guy said he would make an extra special one for such beautiful girls.

Before we left I started asking around for some things that people recommend doing or going in Savannah and several people told me we had to go to The Sweet Shop on River Street. Oh boy, were they right! Austin and the girls got homemade ice cream and I got this heavenly thing called a bear claw. I didn't get a picture of mine but it was the size of my palm and was a layer of pecans, topped with a thick layer of homemade caramel, and then a layer of homemade chocolate, AMAZING!

 Me and my little ladies!

Austin and his girls.

 It started to rain on us while we were about half way down River Street but we found this area of beautiful Spanish Moss Trees. I loved these trees! They are so big and the branches are the kind that grow really wide so if you are driving down the street they form a canopy over the street. They also have moss hanging down which is both romantic looking and creepy all at the same time.

 See us spotted with rain

(these pictures really do not do these trees justice)

 I wish I would have gotten more pictures of the buildings but my camera battery was almost dead and I forgot to bring my charger :( so I had to conserve my battery because we still had 2 more days of our vacation. Here are a couple of cool buildings I liked.

 On day 2 we figured we couldn't get that close to the coast without going to the beach, so we headed to Tybee Island. On our way there is a old Civil War fort called Fort Pulaski. Since my husband is a history/war buff we stopped there. I only got a few pictures before my camera died so these are all the pictures I got.  The first is the outside of the fort by the draw bridge.

 This is basically what the inside looked like. In each of those dome things are rooms that area all connected. Some were the barracks, Jail, officers quarters, hospital, and shooting places.  You could also walk on top of the fort. Form the top you could see all the way to to coast, and for miles and miles in all directions. It was a beautiful sight. 

 This guy was doing a civil war musket demonstration.

 

We finally made it to Tybee Island. It was a nice beach; it didn't quite compare to Cayman's beaches but really what beach can? We got all set up and Austin and Allie headed into the water. Kaity and I stayed on the beach for about 10 min and finally decided to join Allie and Austin. We were holding onto a little air mattress and were swimming out. We had been in the water for about 1 min and Kaity starts to panic and say" something bit me. " She was trying to climb on the air mattress all the while insisting her leg was stinging. I got her up on the mattress when I felt a small little sting on my leg. I knew then that she must have been stung by a jelly fish! Great (huge sarcasm)! I waved Austin over and whispered to him she had been stung. I didn't want to her to hear me because she would have started freaking out even more. We got her to our towels and saw these welt looking hives appearing on her thigh, and foot. Luckily this lady that was near by had some jelly fish spray and came and sprayed her stings.  After about 30 min they stopped stinging and Kaity was up and playing (on the sand only)

(sorry about the quality of the beach pictures I had to use my cell phone and so they are not that great)

 

Allie found a little dead jelly fish that had washed up on shore.

 

 My dad used to make the coolest sand sculptures, I got a tiny fraction of his sand sculpting skills I guess. (His were way better than my turtle, but I tried)

  

The girls made friends with this little girl who let them take turns riding the waves into shore as the tide was coming in. 

  

Oh, I forgot to mention that Austin and my 10 year Anniversary was the following Monday, so this was sort of a anniversary trip too.  Wow, 10 years went by fast! I have loved every minute of being married to this amazing man! He is the best decision I have ever made. I love you Austin.

 Here are some pictures of Kaity's jelly fish stings a few days later. Poor little thing, I felt so bad for her.

Monday Austin came home with some beautiful white and Red roses for our Anniversary and we went out to dinner.