happy place

well, i know in my last post i said i would post these pictures later, but they're just so stinkin' fun to look at i decided to go ahead and do it now. i mean, what else do i have to do?? don't answer that.

i love this place. it's been my happy place always. since i was a little girl, i've been heading down to orange beach, AL. it's one of my favorite places- i mean, obviously. keith went on his own adventure to colorado with his dad while we were there, so it was just me and my boys. my parents were down too, so i got to be lazy :) we got to see my grandparents and aunt as well- which was a huge plus.

i was AMAZED at how fearless caleb was this year. he played in the waves for hours- going  under, riding the waves, letting them knock him down.

collin was too- but then again he is about most things.

yep, this was my view most of the time. 

i bet they only spent about 15 minutes in the pool. since we spent almost every day there this summer i think it wasn't all that exciting.

most our time we spent chillin' in the sand. 

photography by C

they also spent a pretty good bit of time playing in the sand.

one night for dinner we drove over to florida to eat at the crab trap. when we crossed the line i showed C the sign and he yelled, "seriously?! i'm in another state? wow. can we go to disney world?"

yeah, not this time buddy. the crab trap was good but a little pricey. not a huge selection either. but they did have an outdoor playground which made it a hit with the kiddos.

we did C's favoritest thing and went to play putt putt at pirate's island. i can remember playing here when i was little too!

thankfully, collin made it through the entire course without one of us having to take him to the car like last time we took him. he did good!

he wasn't sure about these pirates. when we got on the ship part of the course he said, "mama, 'dose piwates is wookin' at me."    "buddy, he's just pretend- he's not real". "but he's frownin' at me".

yep, my happy place.

It was EXCITING. here's why:

Last week Keith hinted around that we would be going somewhere for our anniversary. He also said, "Don't ask me any questions about this weekend because you always ruin the nice stuff I try to do for you." Thanks for that, babe.
So Friday morning I took the kids to Meridian to meet my mom and went to get my hair done and he texted me: "Come home and pack an overnight bag". The ladies at the salon were all a-twitter.
So I came home and packed my little bag and waited on Keith to get there. I asked him when he would tell me where we were going and he said, "You'll figure it out".
At first I couldn't figure it out, because after 10 years of living here I still have no idea where cities are in relation to Jackson... but in reality I can get lost I my hometown :)
So after a bit we ended up on the Natchez Trace and I think at that point I started squealing.
I have ALWAYS wanted to go to Natchez. After heading into Natchez we pull up at a beautiful antebellum mansion named Dunleith. The original house that was on this property was given to a girl aged FIFTEEN who had three children and was a widow. Madddness I tell you. Anyway, her family gave the original house to her and her new hubs and it burned down like three years later. So, they built Dunleith. Although Dunleith was built on 40 acres it wasn't a plantation house. More like a town mansion- all the houses in Natchez were. Most of the owners had plantations over in Louisiana.

That night we ate at The Castle, the carriage house turned restaurant. The food was fabulous and almost too pretty to eat. Our waiter was a trip, everything we thought we wanted he had a better plan and he was too enthusiastic to resist. We ended up enjoying it all. This carriage house was older than Dunleith, and belonged to another mansion. It (the mansion) must've burned down at some point, because there wasn't another house anywhere except across the street. From what we heard, it's amazing that any of the houses survived fire. This shot was actually prettier than what my camera captured. I'm sure you can tell :)

 

The next morning we woke up and took a tour of Dunleith. I honestly didn't think a second about it, but a lot of the houses in Natchez are supposedly haunted. I think that would've freaked me out a bit if I'd given it any thought before we checked in to the hotel. This is where we slept. Our room was in the attic of all places. Never thought for a second we could be sleeping with ghosts. Thankfully, we weren't!!

This courtyard was original to the house. And, you can kind of see the 250 year old magnolia in the background. Oldest one in Natchez!

The next day we ended up just wandering around Natchez. I believe there must be some sort of city ordinance that states no buildings can be torn down whatsoever. The shack and the mansion must stay together. Outbuildings, slave quarters, lean-to sheds, all there... and not necessarily being kept up either. There was not a single new building in downtown. Not that I minded that AT ALL. I love to look back at the past. I love history. Not Civil War or political or even dates and facts. What I'm interested is people. Who they were, where they lived, what the did. I think it's as my favorite history teacher from high school would call Gossip About Dead People. That's the kind of history I like.

We ended up driving through Natchez Cemetery, not because we planned on it but that was the kind of day we had. Just ending up wherever we ended up at. No serious plan, I just loved taking it all in and seeing everything there was to see. We enjoyed reading the headstones, a lot of them were neato. It was also very pretty as far as a cemetery goes. Old headstones mixed in with new ones. Huge statues, small crosses, un-named soldiers from the Civil War, just interesting.

 

I'm really glad my name's not Lillicrap. How about you? 

After we left the cemetary we ended up walking a bit downtown and went into the oldest Presbyterian church in Natchez. Old church. Anyway, there was  photographer that lived in Natchez and took pictures from about 1850's on and then passed the torch onto his son. Both were very talented. A man who lived in Natchez bought the negatives from the photographer's son's widow (you following me?). There were like 75,000 negatives. 50,000 were unusable; 20,000 went to LSU (as the photographer lived out his last days in LA and the buyer was an LSU alum); and the rest went to this little church. Not only were there family portraits, kids, bridal portraits and advertisements, but also snaps of just everyday Natchez life. It was fascinating. My favorites were of Dunleith and the family that lived there. They seemed like a fun bunch. There was lots of commentary to go with the photos that connected them all together. Something I didn't know was that before the Civil War Natchez, MS had the highest income per capita of the entire US. 

After grabbing some lunch and wandering downtown a bit, we decided to head home. Instead of taking the Trace back home, we decided to go through Port Gibson so Keith could show me the Windsor Ruins. There's another plantation home nearby called Cane Mount that Keith stayed at once (of course he was hunting!!) and it was pretty, but vacant. I'd love to buy it. But then I'd have to live in the middle of NoWhere. And also the state owns it now, and i'm not sure they'll sell it to me. It was beautiful regardless.

These are the Windsor ruins. Pictures can't do justice to how magnificent they were. It must have been an incredible house, the likes of which would've probably dwarfed almost all of the homes in Natchez. The story goes that they were having a party and someone dropped a cigarette and the house caught fire. There's only one remaining drawing of the house, and it was done by a Union soldier who sketched it while camping nearby. Y'all need more history? I bought a book. This is like a Cliff Notes version of Cliff Notes about what I can now tell you about Natchez. 

It was the best :) My hubs is the best. I'm already scheming about when I can go back!

president's day= mountain getaway

we went with my parents for the long weekend to their cabin in the smokies. it was one of the best little vacations we've been on. i think caleb by far had the best time- he's still talking about it. his teacher even told us he wrote about it for weeks in his journal.

here's some of the things we did on our trip (and about a millleon pictures to go with it. ha!):

we did a little hiking to laurel falls. i loved the trip, but i only brought my zoom lens for my camera. what i didn't realize (being the novice that i am) was that you can't use the zoom for anything close up. so a lot of my pictures are blurry :( boo!! but my mom got some good pictures, so that makes it a little better.


we also visited cades cove. i've been so many times, and yet it never gets old. see that deer? the zoom lens does come in handy! we were in the car and that deer was waay out in the middle of a field. the boys had a ball. surprisingly caleb loved the old homes and churches, he wanted to visit them all. i guess he'll be like his mama in that respect- i always loved the old homes too, and i buy a visitors guide every year so i can remember what family lived where and find them all in the graveyards. history makes me happy.

we also visited the tennessee aquarium. really really good, but there were a lot of people there! my mom and dad said, "are we hogging the kids? i feel like y'all are missing out on watching their excitement." keith and i just looked at each other and were like- "y'all HAVE AT IT." it was so nice to get a break!!


we took c to play putt putt. it was the only thing he asked to do, the only thing he ever wants to do on vacation. from the moment we get there until we leave it's putt putt. we've never told him that there's one here in town or else we'd never hear the end of it. that's another thing grandparents are good for- entertaining the little one. i don't know if y'all remember our beach trip last year when we took collin to play putt putt? it wasn't very enjoyable is all i'm going to say.


few little bonus pics: the boys loved their "indian" bows and arrows (of course!) that their meme and pop got them; eating at the happy days diner; and caleb and daddy went to wonderworks... which would have been funner i think if there weren't so many people. we never dreamed that there would be so many people in the middle of february! another place we loved that we didn't get pictures of was "papa's pizzaria"- yummy pizza and $18 worth of free tokens at the arcade. the boys were ALL about that.

and the last night we were there.... IT SNOWED. the boys loved playing in the hot tub, and they got to hot tub and watch the snow come down. waaay cool. the next day was our last day, but the drive home was mighty pretty.


and that's it! you should see the pics i didn't blog :) and let me know if you ever want to stay in the smokies!! i can recommend a really nice place for sure!

da beach!

here's just a few of my faves from our beach trip!



pop and collin

meme and collin



cman was swimming pretty good by the time we left. collin used a little puddle jumper and had a ball swimming around (thanks aunt carey and kendall for letting us borrow it!)





C was pumped about getting to play putt putt. he remembered from last year and other than swimming, it was his only request.

if you want to take an 18 month old to play, you can- but we wouldn't really recommend it :)

or maybe it's just our 18 month old?

regardless, c had the time of his life.





in the afternoons it got cold- that little bump you see is cdawg.

collin had great form!


we took C to souvenir city to spend some of his birthday money from aunt sandy and uncle terry. there were two aisles of toy guns and swords- he was in heaven!

aunt sandy + boys

we passed two different souvenir city's plus a handful of alvin's islands and surf shops leaving the restaurant, but i wanted C to get to experience the one i grew up going to. y'all know, the one with the big shark's mouth out front! (obviously for those of you who know orange beach/gulf shores) it's been there since 1956, a classic for sure.

on our way home, we stopped by to see bebe and grandpa jack.
another great beach trip for the polk fam!