Celebrating One Year in Charleston

As alluded to in this post from a few weeks back, Kyle and I took our one-year anniversary trip the first weekend in April. And from the teaser photo I'm sure you guessed that we went to Charleston! This was Kyle's first trip to Charleston, so I was especially excited about him getting to experience the city's rich history and old Southern charm.

We arrived around noon on April 2, and started our day with a picnic lunch at a park next to the New Cooper River Bridge.

Try not to laugh at Kyle's modeling skills. ;) There were a ton of people walking around the park in running clothes with numbers on their chest, so we figured there must be some kind of race that day. Little did we know that the Cooper River Bridge Run was that day, which usually attracts around 40,000 runners every year. Duh!

After lunch, we explored around the park a little bit and then headed to Patriots Point to see the USS Yorktown. Just a little side note: If the colors of the sky seem off in some of the photos, it's because Kyle and I were using two different cameras. Kyle was using my old point-and-shoot, which tends to cast everything with a blue hue. I tried to fix it in Photoshop, but alas, I am not as much an expert as Michael Scott. ;)

As you can see, it was really windy on the flight deck. Below is probably my favorite shot of the trip. I can't believe we got the timing right on just the second try!

Our tickets gave us access to tour the USS Clamagore submarine, but walking around the inside of the Yorktown was already pushing my claustrophobic limits, so we just snapped this quick photo and called it a day.

From Patriots Point we headed to Middleton Place, which turned out to be the favorite part of the trip for both of us. We just bought tickets for the gardens and stableyards, and even got a discount with Kyle's student ID. Woo hoo!

They had garden chairs set up for a wedding that night. What a gorgeous setting for a wedding, and the weather that day was equally as gorgeous!

Speaking of weddings, Middleton Place will be having a Royal Wedding Event tonight. The attendees are encouraged to dress in cocktail attire and hats to pay tribute to the princess-to-be. How fun is that? I immediately thought there must be some link between Kate Middleton and Arthur Middleton (signer of the Declaration of Independence and past resident of Middleton Place), but so far they have not been able to establish a connection. They are still working on it though! We wrapped up our day at Middleton Place with a walk through the stableyards, where Kyle apparently got in touch with his inner animal whisperer.

That night we had dinner at the Swamp Fox, which is at the bottom of the Francis Marion Hotel off King Street in downtown Charleston. When researching for our trip, we decided to use Restaurant.com for eating out, which allowed us to save lots of moolah! We had an 80% off coupon code, so we were able to get a $25 gift certificate to Swamp Fox for only $2. Sweet! I highly recommend using Restaurant.com for when you are traveling, and they always have coupon codes available. Just watch for them on Southern Savers. Anyway, we both ordered the Shrimp & Grits, which of course earned both of our thumbs up.

After dinner Kyle treated me to a double chocolate cupcake from a bakery off King Street called Cupcake. Unoriginal name, but super-amazing cupcakes! We woke up to another gorgeous day on Sunday, so we grabbed the continental breakfast at our hotel and then headed to the Battery and White Point Gardens for a nice Sunday morning stroll.

We walked over to Market Street Deli for lunch, and then headed to Boone Hall Plantation for the rest of the afternoon. The house tour was included in the admission for Boone Hall, and I think my favorite takeaway from the tour was that they used chicken wire on their bookshelves to allow the books to breathe while still protecting them from little children's curious hands. I kinda want to do that on our bookshelves one day!

The famous Avenue of the Oaks. Breathtaking!
It looked like Boone Hall also hosted a wedding on Saturday.
We ended our day at Boone Hall with an open coach tour of the plantation, seeing some of the live crop that the plantation still produces and even a few reptiles. :)

We concluded our trip with a casual dinner at the Noisy Oyster in downtown Charleston, where we were able to score another $25 Restaurant.com gift certificate for only $2. I couldn't resist grabbing something sweet at the River Street Sweets across the way, and from there we were on the road back to Augusta. It was a short and sweet trip, but the perfect way to celebrate one year of marriage together. We are hoping to go back soon since we didn't get to check out the beach, and we would love to go to next year's Family Circle Cup (we heart tennis!) or maybe even run in the Cooper River Bridge Run. Who's with us? ;)

Love y'all!