More sister fun...in Savannah!!

Jenn and I been having a fun week so far.  After a lazy Sunday (Well lazy for the 3 nappers that were at the house!  They shall remain nameless except to say that there are only 4 of us here, and I started painting Nathan's room!), we took a road trip to Savannah on Monday.  We jumped on a trolley bus that took us to/dropped us off at different places throughout the city.

Lincoln loved the trolley ride!

Our fun stops involved shopping, eating lunch, eating ice cream, buying pralines, and walking around the park! Maybe we should have done more walking and less trolley riding!  

Lunch at Paula Deen's Lady and Sons.  No surprise that there was not a long wait!  

The food was awesome though!

A selfie in front of the fountain at Forsyth Park

A better picture of the fountain

After a day of getting on and off of the trolley, we left downtown and went to dinner at the Crab Shack on Tybee Island.  We went there by way of a detour through our old stomping grounds from when we lived in Savannah.  Very interesting.

This was our dinner after we had already started eating it.  I don't usually take pictures of food, but this was too good to not remember!  This is definitely one of my all time favorite seafood restaurants!

Not a great shot of how cool the inside looks, but a good picture of Lincoln :)

Hanging with the turtle outside of the restaurant!

We had a great time and great food.  Good thing tomorrow is our paddle boarding day!  We need the exercise :)

While the kids are away...

...the sisters will play!!

Today was the first day of Grammie Camp!!  All five kids are at our parents this week and we just have baby Lincoln.  So we get some sister time.  We plan to do lots of fun things, but at the very least, we will go out to eat a lot :)

Cabinets have been ordered for the kitchen!  Yeah!!  So we are in waiting mode.  How long?  Should have an ETA for the cabinets, and thus our next step in the kitchen, on Monday.  As fun as it is to eat out, I at least want my kitchen furniture back in the kitchen and out of the living room!!  

In the meantime, Jenn and I will continue our tour of Charleston restaurants.  Zen was tonight!   We will see where we end up tomorrow.

An empty kitchen

Our kitchen is now an empty room in our house!  While I was at camp, the workers tore all of the moldy and wet floor out and all of the cabinets and left a blank slate.  Well, not too blank as we will be putting things back pretty much the same as they came out.  Just a few tweaks.  It has been a week since returning home from camp, though, and all we have is an empty room.  We should have our cabinets ordered tomorrow.    

In the meantime, we will continue our tour of Charleston restaurants!  So far our favorites are Boxcar Betty, Zen, and eating on the boat :)  Well, Mellow Mushroom and Bushido were good too!  And Taco Spot is always a favorite!  We have so many good places to eat, that hopefully we will not have too hard of a time trying to decide what's for dinner.

A new kitchen

About 3 years ago we had our cabinets refaced.  I have really liked the way our kitchen looked, but we are now about to redo it again!  Not by choice, but in the end it will be great.  We had a line burst under our floor and thus major water damage below the house.  The wood holding up our floor is moldy and wet, so the floor has to come up which means the cabinets on the floor have to come up.  Which means we will get a new kitchen; cabinets and all.  It is was an unexpected renovation and I lost my whole kitchen in a matter of days and I won't get it back for at least 6 weeks.  Yikes!    

So my summer will be filled with decisions about what cabinets to choose; what tile to pick; and deciding if we will stick with the lovely blue we already have.  And it will also be filled with eating out a lot.  The boys are excited about that :)

So here is the last picture of our kitchen before demolition.  It looks so plain with everything put away.

And here is our kitchen after a day of demolition.  Lots of wet flooring, and mold growing under the floor.  So we get to have fans in our kitchen for the weekend.  

Why I am going back to Look Up Lodge

I am going to camp with the youth from our church this week.  This is my second year going as a chaperon for the full week.  I went last year, not to check up on Nathan, but because several girls asked me to go.  I am so glad they did because even though I did not keep tabs on Nathan, I was able to see what awesome things he was learning.  And he was nice enough to spend some time with me during the week.

I always loved camp growing up, and last year was no different.  If you get over the fact that you have to wear flip flops in the shower and balance on one leg to shave the other (thank goodness for balance drills at the gym!), it is wonderful.  I was able to have a week away from work and media and electronics and just focus on the kids and God.  I was able to make great memories with the girls in my cabin and all the youth I met.  And hopefully I was able to connect with them in some way that helped them want to know Christ more and be more like Him.

But the reason I am going back and the reason I want to always find a way to send Nathan is what they were taught.  The topic was Sex, Love, and Marriage.  What better things to talk about with hormone ruled teenagers :)  And there was lots of talk about sex...both in chapel and in the cabin!  But the ultimate focus was not just on sex, but on being a man or woman of God.  Although I only heard what the girls learned, I was able to understand what the guys were learning also and it thoroughly impressed me.  It is hard to get in words, but if you could have seen the end of the week scene of girls walking under upraised swords made by the boys of the camp, you would be in tears.  The boys grew up that week in a big way.  They were taught that real men will take care of and defend women.  They were allowed to take their shirts off and put war paint on, and run up the hill yelling like Braveheart.  They were allowed to be boys/men!  And then they wrote letters to the girls stating that they would protect them and not harm them.  They were taught that real men won't have sex before marriage and won't  try to seduce a high school girl into bed.  By the end of the week, they were almost fighting to see who could take a girl's tray after dinner; and would always let the girls go first and hold the door for them.  At the last night ceremony, after the girls had done their own thing, we walked to where the boys/young men were waiting on us.  This is where they had their swords drawn.  I had to fight back tears as I walked through the line of boys that I have seen grow up with Nathan and see in their eyes that they wanted to be a real man.  No smiles or laughter at this point, because they were very serious about their intentions.  And then they served us dessert and gave us the letters that wrote.  Not to specific girls, but to any girl. They had been taught to be the defender of any girl/women.   It was a very moving experience.  

Later that evening in the cabin, I could tell the girls felt the same way.  They cherished the letters they received and kept talking about who served them and what they ate.  Of course after the serious part, there was a fun party!

So I am going back.  I did see a change in Nathan when he returned home.  Yes, it wained after a bit, but not all of the change faded.  I am looking forward to what we will learn this week.  And I pray that our youth will have their hearts prepared for a heart changing week!