Our trip to Charleston

This weekend we took a quick trip to Charleston to visit Joe's grandparents. Joe's grandfather recently had shoulder replacement surgery and has been in rehab for a few weeks so we thought now would be a good time to visit. Baby Jude can cheer anyone up!

Speaking of Jude, he did wonderfully the whole trip. The drive from Raleigh to Charleston is between 5-6 hours. Traffic on the way down was a bit heavy and we stopped 3 times. (1 for gas, 1 bathroom, 1 dinner) Arriving around 8pm Jude was pretty tired but also excited to be in a new place with new people. Joe's parents also came down to Charleston so Jude didn't lack for attention. That evening he learned to climb the stairs, Grandma and Great-Grandma fed him a banana and he opened and closed all the cabinets in the house. He had a pretty hard time going to sleep that night but finally around 11:30 he fell asleep after fighting sleep for over 3 hours. However, during the middle of the night we were all awaken by Joe falling off the bed. Apparently, he dreamed Jude was falling off the bed and he was trying to catch him. Unfortunately, Joe fell of the bed and bumped into Jude's bed scaring him. We sat up for a bit with a scared screaming baby but he was so exhausted he fell back to sleep pretty easily.

The next day we stopped at Metto for coffee, tea and a muffin then headed over to visit Jude's great-PaPa. Jude didn't get any of his regular naps but did pretty well with little cat naps as we drove in the car from place to place. We ate lunch at Melvin's BBQ then went in search of a record store. We didn't find any but we did get sufficently lost. We drove around all of Mt. Pleasant and even took a little trip over the bridge to the Isle of Palms(where Joe lived when he was little) and Sullivan's Island. We took a wrong turn down a dead end street with a large median so we had to back-up about 1/2 a mile. Finally we gave up on the record store and went back to visit Joe's grandfather again. Jude crawled around the room, playing with anything he could find. Smiled and laughed at everyone he saw! Then we stopped by the house to pick up more diapers and food then went to the Shoppes at Sea Side farms and walked around a bit before meeting up with Joe's extended family at Gilligan's Steamer and Raw Bar for dinner. Joe's parents, Grandma, Aunt, Uncle, Cousin and her son were there. Jude had a great time showing off for everyone and tried his first hushpuppie. After lunch we finally found Mt. Pleasant Towne Center. We walked around a bit, got a Carvel Ice Cream Cone and met an interesting guy named Justin. (Ask us about Justin and Geneology and we'll give the awkward details)
Finally we headed home with a sleepy baby who slept great that night! My plan was to run him until he crashed and I think we succeded.
Sunday we went to First Baptist Church of Mt. Pleasant with Joe's grandma. Jude played in the nursery, where he was treated with extra special care since his Great-Grandma served in the nursery for over 30 years. They even have a picture of her on the wall! Of course Jude was the best baby every and all the ladies wanted to keep him but we decided they couldn't keep him. After church we visited PaPa again before going to lunch at Queen Annes Revenge. Then it was time to go home so we packed up our stuff, stopped by Metto for a coffee to go and off we went. Traffic was great we made home by 8ish even after stopping for an hour for dinner. Jude is the world's best traveling baby. We brought plenty of toys and snacks on the road and he even got a new toy for being so great. Also his grandma bought him his very own pair of sunglasses since he took such an interest in playing with everyone's glasses.
Now we're home and it's nice to relax and get back into the swing of thing. Vacations are fun but not usually very relaxing.