South Carolina

Warning-this may be a long post..



My grandma Reeder grew up in Charleston, South Carolina. Growing up she has always told us stories of her growing up and I always loved hearing them from her. When I was 15 my grandparent's used money they earned from the farm that year to rent a beach house for all their kids and grand kids to go to on Folly Beach. Most of my dad's 8 brothers and sisters and their families went. It was a blast. We went again when I was 19 a lot of my dad's siblings and their families went. My uncle Kindall's family had not been to either of trips and wanted to go, so my grams decided to have one more family trip back. This time we had 2 beach houses and a condo. We left on the evening of the last day of school and stayed a week. It was such a relaxing and fun trip. When my grams grew up Folly Beach was the most popular beach in the Charleston area. There was a big dance hall that was very popular. There was also a Ferris wheel and a lot of fun shops. The hurricanes since my grandma grew up have taken at least 2 streets away and so a lot of the things are not still there from when my grams grew up. Folly Beach is not the most popular beach now but I love it!! It is not crowded and not commercialized, it is wonderful! It has some fun shops and places to eat. My uncles and brother found a bunch of sand dollars right by our beach house.

Alexis and some of the family on our back porch after dinner.

Sue, Dale, Emily, Mckell, and Morgan at dinner.




A bunch of us at dinner.

There is the pier by our beach house. We loved to go and walk on it. There were always people fishing off it. One night when my mom, grams, and I were on the pier 2 people caught baby sharks! We were able to touch them and they sure are ugly creatures. Needless to say it made me nervous to go too deep in the ocean after that... if there were baby sharks then there were big sharks!!!



Since our family would take up a lot of room my dad rented us our own beach house. It was very nice. All 3 times my grandma rented the same beach house and we were happy that this one was next door so we were close to the rest of the family.

This is the front of the house.

This is the back of the house, it went right to the beach.


Me back by the beach

Dave was selling in Lynchburg, VA at the time and was able to rent a car and come down Saturday night after work and left Tuesday night. It was a long drive and quick trip but I was happy he was able to come and enjoy at least a few days. It is fun to have him see the place where my grams grew up and meet some of her family. On Sunday Dave, Mckell, Mindy, Nate, and I went to the Morris Island Lighthouse. I LOVE lighthouses.

On Monday we went crab fishing. My cousin Raymond usually takes us but he had a bad foot this time and was unable to go but he helped set us all up to go. It is a little gross but very fun. You tie a string on stick and put RAW chicken on the end of the string. You throw the chicken in the water during low tide and when it starts tugging you slowly bring it in and then catch it with a net. We all had a blast! We caught probably 30.

Mindy, Me, Mckell, and Dallin

Emily, mom, Nate, Dale, and Sue

Elizabeth is such a daredevil, she just picked the crab up without thinking twice. Alan and Nate were pinched pretty good.

Dave, James, Cameron

On Tuesday we went into town. We went to the Markets and bought some fun things. We walked around the Battery. They have HUGE BEAUTIFUL houses!! I love looking at the houses. It is such a neat place. This is a picture of Dave and I in front of one of the houses.

We stopped at a park for a bit and grams ran through the fountain, ha ha. I have the best grams!

We spent a lot of time at the beach.

Grams, dad, Mckell, Jarrett. Grams is so funny.

Grams and I

J on beach chillin. Isn't he adorable!!
J relaxin

My grams and her sister Yvonne. They are so funny together. My grams is such an amazing woman. She left her family, her home, and everything she knew and moved to Utah when she and my grandpa got married. The plan was to move back to Charleston when my grandpa got done with his schooling but it didn't work out that way. She was not able to make it back to visit her family but every 10 years or so until she raised her children and has been able to go back more frequently. Charleston is so beautiful and has so much to do and Perry Utah is nothing compared to that, especially 50 some years ago. I am so grateful to my grandma for her sacrifices. My grams has such amazing family history, her family fought in the wars and helped a lot of the things that happened in history.

When my grams grew up the Christmas tree was always an exciting event. Her mom would spend days decorating the tree and hid it under a sheet. On Christmas morning it would be lit and beautiful when they woke up. My Aunt Yvonne's got tired of decorating it every year so she has a curtain to put around the tree to keep it up all year. The tree is amazing!

At the end of our trip I drove with my Aunt Sandy's family to Charlotte, NC and Dave came down and got me. It was Maddie's birthday the next day so the restaurant sang Happy Birthday to her. She was VERY embarrassed!




Cute Maddie!!

I survived!

I finished the last day of school today!!! It is great to have my 1st year of teaching behind me. I have learned a lot this year. I had great students and I will miss the ones that will be moving onto 8th grade. I am also excited for a break (well working at home...). I have made some good friends and had interesting experiences with others but overall it has been a good year!

Now onto South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia. It will be an interesting summer!

Happy Birthday Mom!!

My mom's birthday yesterday. She threw herself a birthday party, ha ha. She sure is funny. Mom and I went and got pedicures so that we have cute feet for the summer.

Mom made dinner and then we played the candy bar game.

Then she made sure we all sang Happy Birthday to her.

It was fun being around people! It has been a little lonely at my house lately. A few of my cousins came and spent the night a few weeks ago. We had fun! We went to the park, yougurt factory, ate lots of treats, and watched Savana Smiles!

Update

I guess I should probably update my blog. I will post a few high lights from this year. I will try to be better at posting this summer.

1. I got a teaching job in Brigham at ACYI. I teach 6th and 7th graders with severe disabilities. I really love my job. It has been a very challenging year but I have learned and grown a lot and hope that next year will be better!

I was the first 6th grade class that went to ACYI and so it was weird at the first of the year because a lot of the teachers I had are still teaching there, I struggled calling them by their first names! I was reading in my journal that I wrote when I went to ACYI a few months ago and saw some goals I had written in 6th grade. I wrote that I wanted to be a teacher and to teach at ACYI, I thought that was pretty crazy!

2. We bought a house in Perry. It has been fun being back close to my family, not that Logan was far away but now I live up the road from my parents. We still don't visit them too often but it is nice knowing they are close. Dave and his brother Cory did A TON of work on our house. They pulled up the carpet, put in the wood floor, repainted the WHOLE house, and lots of other odds and ends. They spent so much time making it so that I would move into the house! I now love it and owe them so much. I will post pictures of our house when I finally clean it.

3. We went to a few concerts (I am putting this in for Dave, ha ha)



My batteries were dying so I couldn't take long videos.


We were able to go to 2 Dashboard concerts, they are VERY good.

I went to my first Smoking Pope's concert. We went to a bar on New Year's Eve in Chicago. We were the only non-drunk people there. We got a few weird looks!

We were able to meet the members of the band Rooney.


4. We spent a week after Christmas in Chicago. We love spending time with Dave's family and friends. (Dave has since cut his hair as you will see if you finish reading the post, I can't believe how long it got!)

5. While Dave's mom had her surgery we took care of their family dog Otis. At first I was so annoyed of him but sad to say he grew on me a little. I never got used to his shedding EVERYWHERE or his AWFUL smell but he was fun to have around. Dave spoiled him, it was kind of cute. He has now gone back to Chicago and I am still sweeping and vacuuming up dog hair, I am not a pet person.

6. We celebrated our 2 year anniversary. We went to dinner at Maddox and a movie.

7. Earlier in the year we went to Vegas. We went to the Lion King and Blue Man Group. I loved the Lion King, I am amazed at how creative the costumes were. I didn't love the Blue Man Group.... We also ate at a lot of yummy restaurants. We even found a restaurant we loved when we lived in Florida a few years ago, I was in heaven!!


8. RIP to Dave's car. Dave totalled his car driving out to Virginia this summer, this picture doesn't show all the damage, sorry. He is very sad. I am sad too because now we get to disagree about what car to buy...he LOVES fancy expensive cars, I like cheap cars. I am sad to say, I usually lose on this battle :(.

9. We will be living in Virginia and West Virginia this summer. It is nice to get a break in the summer and see new places. I do have to admit that I am a little disappointed that the first summer I am not working we are going to the middle of nowhere in Virginia ha ha. Why couldn't we have gone somewhere with a beach? The other 2 summers we were in Miami and NYC. I am sure that Virginia will still be fun, I am just SOOOO happy our friends Nelli and Ashley have decided to come and sell in the same office. It will be nice having a friend to do stuff with.

Wow, hopefully I have some fun things to blog about sooner than 8 or so months!