charleston

this last weekend kenneth and i roadtriped to charleston, south carolina. 

okay... people. THIS IS MY FAVORITE CITY. 

how come this place isn't talked about more? how did i not know? i mean, it might not be everyone's cup of tea, but i fell in love. 

between kenneth & i, i'm the one that gets excited about the little things...

"kenneth, i got a new candle and it smells soooo good!" 10 minutes later... "kenneth, do you smell how good our room smells right now?!" 10 minutes later... "seriously this is the best thing ever, i love it!" 5 minutes later... "aren't you excited about it?!" 1 minute later... "i mean really it's just the best!!" 30 seconds later.... "how come you're not more excited about this!? it's awesome!"

i just get excited about the most random things i guess. and i am all about the holidays. kenneth, supports it and enjoys it, but he doesn't quite share my same enthusiasm for all of it. which is okay because i think i make up for it. 

but kenneth was stoked on charleston. which is how you know it was really that good and not just me being overly excited. 

we left bright and early friday morning (and kenneth almost killed us driving twice). that afternoon we attended a tour/department meeting at the grad school he is looking at, musc. and we really loved the university so that just started the mood off for charleston on a high note. the whole tour lasted a really long time (like 4 hours) yeah do i win best wife award yet for attending all these grad school tours with him? by that point we were starving and headed to the famous king street. so many people recommended restaurants to us, but we were starvingggg because we hadn't eaten since breakfast. so we just found the closest place. nacho royale. best. decision. ever. seriously such a perfect hole in the wall restaurant. if you want a LOT of food for a cheap price, this is the place. i ordered nachos that could have easily been shared by 4 people. that's not an exaggeration. sorry for the blurry picture, but just look!

after we ate we walked the street and i fell in love because i felt like they had all the stores that i love in one place and on the cutest strip. kenneth was set on the idea that we needed to go on a ghost tour. i mean i'm down to get scared, but i was a little skeptical about the whole thing. we decided to go on a ghost tour of an abandoned jail. it was pretty cool to learn about it and explore through it, but we both agreed it wasn't worth the money. we were told 1 ghost story that we could have googled. oh well, what do ya do. some of the other people on the tour with us were pretty funny though. i believe one of the guys standing next to me said something along the lines of...

"did you feel that?! what the heck!!! i swear i just felt this huge drafty breeze right by me! ohhh no.. ohhhh noo... i am freaked out. this is not okay. guys, i swear. that if freaky. it went right by me." 

(we were standing next to an open window.....)

after some much needed frozen yogurt we headed back to my aunt and uncles house, who were gone until saturday but let us crash there. bless them.

so we pull up around 10:30pm to my aunts house. (side note, my phone had died and i didn't know my aunt's address, but luckily remembered it from my somewhat photographic memory). exhausted, we pull up and see about 10 firetrucks surrounding my aunt's house.

PANIC.

i thought my aunt's house was on fire and my phone was dead so if anyone wanted to reach me, they couldn't have.

turns out, a few houses down, the house was on fire. the fire hydrant is in my aunt's yard so that's why they were all around there. i literally cried after we realized it wasn't our house. i felt so awful too for their neighbors, their house was basically gone. counting my blessings.

the next day we woke up and headed to folly beach, which we've been told has waves.. yes, like actual surfing waves! kenneth rented a board for $7/hour and went out. definitely not hawaii waves, but he was happy nonetheless. i think folly beach is so pretty. i loved the broken shells everywhere and the black sand. we ate lunch on the pier and then headed back to meet up with my aunt and uncle.

black sand?? reminded me of the big island :)

we found a dead horseshoe crab, which is kenneth's second time seeing one... the first time his reaction in tybee was more of a really confused... "uhh... what is that... it looks like a... dinosour?" haha

my aunt took us on a little driving tour of charleston and showed us the battery. um... amazing. kenneth says one day we will live in one of those houses. (haha yeah right). it just amazed me how gorgeous everything was. i love the south and all it's southern charm. 

that night we headed back to king street to eat dinner at prohibition. my uncle jamie is awesome and he's a musician so he was playing at that restuarant. it was so fun to get to see him play and chat with him between sets. i love my uncle jamie and aunt christine so much. it's nice being around them because it makes me feel a little bit of my dad (christine is my dad's sister). it's nice too because they laugh and make jokes about him. most people just avoid talking about my dad because they probably don't know what to say and feel awkward about it. but it's actually really nice to talk about him because he's something i'm constantly thinking about. my aunt and uncle used to live in ireland so i never saw them much growing up. i'm happy to have them much closer to home now. family really is everything.

sunday morning we went to church and the couple that sat behind us went to byu-hawaii and kenneth had a class with one of them, such a small world! after church we headed back home. such a short trip and i wish we could have spent more time there. i also wish i took more pictures so i could swoon over them. all in all, charleston was just amazing. who knows where we will end up next year, but kenneth and i have decided that one day in our long lives together, we will live in charleston. i hope that day is sooner rather than later though.

happy last day of september

xx