Charleston Weekend

Last weekend, my mom was in town (yay!) and we spent the weekend in Charleston.  We picked a perfect time to go because the weather was beautiful.We left on Friday morning and went to the Magnolia Plantation.  One of the most amazing things about this plantation is that it was established in 1679 and has stayed in the same family for 300 years and is still run by direct descendants of the original family.  There was so much to do here we could have spent all day.  In addition to walking through the grounds and gardens, we decided to take a nature tour and a house tour. 

See the alligator? Nice water huh!

 Slave cabins

 Spanish moss..everywhere

 Blue Heron 

 The Drayton home

Front garden area 

 My cute mom

Cypress knees

  

Back of House

After we finished up at Magnolia, we checked in to our hotel in the historic district.  Thanks to Marriott rewards, we got a free night there!  We went to dinner at a great seafood restaurant called Coast and I had wonderful adobo shrimp skewers and mom had plantain encrusted mahi-mahi.  I loved the menu and pretty much wanted to try everything, but was happy with my choice.

The next day we took a walking tour around and did some shopping.  Pictures below are from our self guided walk around the French Quarter and South of Broad neighborhoods.

 A boot scraper- I think I need one of these for us now!

 Rainbow Row- loved all the cute colors

 

This is Ft. Sumter- which brought me back to when John and I came here for Valentine's Day in 2006....

He does not look so happy about the harbor cruise we took to get out to Ft. Sumter!

Ok so back to last weekend, after we walked around, we went shopping.  We went to the open air mart and saw lots of people making sweetwater baskets:

Then we went to King Street where most of the boutiques were.  One of my favorite stores was the Spice and Tea exchange.  It was so cute, lots of spices and loose teas to choose from.  We got 4 decaf herbal teas to try and some grill rubs for John and my dad.  Oh and I had to buy "real" cinnamon because John read an article in Men's Health that apparently all the cinnamon you buy in the grocery store is bastard cinnamon, so you have to buy "ceylon" which is real cinnamon at the specialty mart.

We had such a wonderful trip, I love Charleston and was so happy to spend some time there with my mom!