Happy Birthday, Mom!

We love you, MOM!

The Thanksgiving Feast

It was an awful lot of food for just four people... we can have our Thanksgiving meal today, tomorrow and maybe the next day! (Ok, that might be stretching it a little - we Yens have large-capacity stomachs).

And yes, even on Thanksgiving and even on the day after Thanksgiving, oblivious to 40 degree weather - the golfers are out.

Pre-Thanksgiving Festivities

This weekend held two Thanksgiving related "events" for us. Saturday we spent the day at our Opa and Oma's house, along with cousins and second cousins. This year, instead of the traditional turkey and accompanying dishes, they (NOT ME) opted to do a brunch and then have pizza for dinner. Can you believe it? PIZZA! (That's a whole separate post in itself - however, I will restrain myself).
We relaxed and chatted, ate lots of bread for brunch (with little eggs and sausage to balance out the starch), watched a couple of old family videos, planned music for Michelle (1st cousin) and Ben's wedding (Tara, Dad and I are doing all the music for it), went with Fleur (2nd cousin) to her horseback lesson (where we froze our toes off), ate PIZZA, and played games (the cup game, "This is a Moose" and 4 on a Couch).
We were too busy to take any pictures (for some reason I have the hardest time taking pictures at events, unless I am on the sidelines watching), but we did get a few videos with our handy little baby camcorder.

Have fun watching us completely embarrass ourselves playing "This is a Moose":



Here's Fleur trotting on Cooper:



Ok, now for the other event. Sunday afternoon we had a small "program" at church. I'll let the videos speak for themselves...

The little kids singing "Can A Little Child Like Me":



Hirst, Geaschel and Webb kids reciting a poem:



Jonathan Erber giving a first-person eye-witness account of the first Thanksgiving:

If you're wondering why the camera suddenly pans to Beth, that's because she took a picture of Mom, and so Mom was getting revenge by videoing her. :-) And it pans to Tom because he walked in front of the camera.

The "big kids" (pardon me, the CHOIR) singing "For the Beauty of the Earth" by John Rutter:



Mr. Carlson giving an HILARIOUS turkey poem:



Well, that's all folks (there were more presentations, but some of the videos didn't turn out).

It's a Beautiful Thing!

Ever wonder what life is like without running water?

Well, you are welcome to come on over to our house and find out.

Yesterday morning, the door jam out to the garage and the ceiling close to the door jam in the garage, started leaking. At first we thought it was from the shower (mom, dad and Tara having all taken one). It was odd because for a while it was leaking in the house, in the door jam from the laundry room to the craft room. But now it had moved. We waited.
It just got worse.
We put buckets under the drips.
We called Daniel Hill.
He informed us that we have a leak. :-)
The rest of the Hill family is coming home today with Olivia (!!!!!!) which is wonderful, but also meant that Daniel would be unable to come check it out.
Mom was worried that the ceiling would cave in.
So she cut the power on the well pump.
The dripping stopped; we have no water.
The plumber is coming today, at any time from noon to 4.

We're hoping for noon. Showers would feel really good right now.

On the bright side, however - you sure conserve a lot of water when you wash dishes in only 2 pans of water.

Middleton Place

Doesn't that just sound elegant, like something out of an English regency movie or something? Anyway, we are back home and it's cold. :-) But there are still pictures to be posted from the last day of our trip!

We flew out of Charleston, so we checked out of our condo early and drove to Charleston.

Always a challenge - "How did we fit this in the first time?"

Dad says this is the best picture from our vacation. Too bad we couldn't bring some home with us...

The reason we checked out early was because we wanted to visit Middleton Place before catching our late afternoon flight. Middleton Place is a plantation in Charleston that was built in the 1700's by - you guessed it - the Middleton family, who were originally from England. Amazingly the plantation stayed in the family through the late 1900's when it was opened to the public.

When we arrived, there were sheep just wandering around at their own sweet will

The first thing we did was take a carriage ride tour through the woods, on which we learned all about the Middletons.

Here we are approaching the house. 

More sheep grazing on the lawn

This is not the original house; originally, there was the main house, and two "flankers." In the Civil War, the whole of Middleton Place was burned by Union troops. Williams Middleton who was then in possession of the house (I think... it's hard to remember which Middletons were there at what time!) decided to rebuild the south flanker as a home. Formerly it was I think a kitchen (?) downstairs, and upstairs were the "gentleman's quarters," where the unmarried men who visited would sleep.

We toured the house but were not allowed to take pictures. Then we were free to wander around the grounds. The scenery was gorgeous and I took a lot of pictures - enjoy!

This is the view from the top of the "back yard" - though it could also be considered the front yard, since in the "olden days" many visitors traveled by boat. The water you see in the far back of the picture is the Ashley River.

Here's what the back yard looks like from the bottom.

Then we went over to the stableyards where they had some folks demonstrating some of the crafts that may have been done back then. There were also some animals...

Water Buffalo (used as work animals in the rice fields - Middleton Place was a rice plantation before the Civil War)

A Jersey cow 

And yes, peacocks!

A gentleman playing what I think is called a hammer dulcimer - correct me if I'm wrong. (If you were at Liberty Day, you will remember that Amy Lautenschlager, of the Fiddlers Three, played one of these).

This lady demonstrated pottery that the slaves would have made.

This gentleman showed us how the young slave women ground corn.

I want one of these for my birthday. :-)

Hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Finally! The beach!

It's been rainy and/or overcast every day since we've been here - until today. So we HIT THE BEACH!!

We found this creature stuck in the sand - we're not yet sure what it is. We were thinking a jellyfish, but then Mom wondered if sand dollars are jelly when washed ashore and get hard when they dry up. This was still very squishy to the touch (not that I actually touched it - I used a stick! :-) In the photo above you can see how huge it was compared to Tara's hand. Anyone have any idea what it might be?

A butterfly drinking nectar from a beautiful pink hibiscus

Tennis

Dad gave Tara a little tennis lesson yesterday. Pretty much the only time Dad gets to play tennis is when we come to Hilton Head. He has some "tennis buddies" that he always plays with, but this year Tara wanted to learn.

Could you be more specific?

On the way to our condo...

A couple hundred feet down the road...