Yesterday for lunch I was off to Bethany Elementary School, for Clara’s last Thanksgiving lunch before she goes to middle school next year.  Her other grandmother Emmy changed her schedule to she could be there, too.  Lindee got this picture of the three of us after we ate (and the food was actually very good for an elementary school lunch.)

Then last night was another program at the auditorium. Meg was out of town, so Jeff went with me to see the Masters of Soul put on a Motown tribute. I especially loved Ike & Tina Turner. It was such a fun night.

Jeff has decided that he wants us to do an old-fashioned Christmas tree this year – string popcorn, paper chains, have the kids make ornaments.  I’m not sure about that, but yesterday when June and Mason were here we did start making some ornaments – melting peppermints in cookie cutters.  They actually turned out very cute.  Here they are tying the ribbons on.

Monday we started off the day celebrating Veterans Day at Larne Elementary School, where Mason is in third grade.  They had a really nice, big breakfast for the veterans and their guests, and then presented such a nice program.  And afterwards they got a picture of all the parents and grandparents who were veterans and had come to be honored that morning.  Jeff is third from the right on the middle row, in his field jacket.

Then at lunchtime Jeff headed to Rosewood Elementary School at Adam’s invitation to participate in the Veterans Day program there. I stayed home to babysit little Keaton, but Jeff took the camera and got this picture of Adam and his fellow fourth graders when they were congregating in the gym. You can barely see Adam right in the middle – the little blonde looking down, in front of the girl in the light blue shirt.

…of the regular fall season, anyway.  The Clover Blue Eagles had played earlier in the day, and then again in their final game that afternoon, so Jeff & I headed down to Columbia for that.  Here is Clara running hard to the ball.

Got this picture after the game of the undefeated league champions. We were proud!

Thursday when I picked Clara up at school she didn’t have much homework, and it was a nasty rainy day, and we didn’t have to pick Mallory up until late, since she had chorus practice after school.  So I put Clara to work helping me make both of our households supper for the following evening.

The kids were out of school Tuesday for Election Day, so Charlie and Adam were here to go with us to vote.

And to help me make pies that afternoon for our church dinner.

Sunday afternoon the festival closed down with a program on the Gullah Gee Chee culture.  She talked some about the food and other aspects of their lives, but mostly it was about their spiritual lives.  She shared this with us, and I just loved it so much.

The lady who gave the program, Victoria Smalls, was so good. The program originally was supposed to be a man singing Gullah spirituals, but he got sick, so she filled in at the last minute. She did an amazing job. One of the really interesting things she talked about was that the churches were important to the slaves on the plantation, but the real center of both their spiritual life and the entire community were the Praise Houses – small buildings where they could gather in small groups to sing and dance. I just enjoyed listening to her so much.

Sunday morning in Beaufort we had time before we needed to be at the brunch that was on the schedule, so we did some cemetery visiting.  I do love a good cemetery.  First stop was the Beaufort National Cemetery, where we found the grave of The Great Santini, Pat Conroy’s father.  Right next to his grave was this one, with a Methodist cross on it.  I’m not sure I had ever seen that before.

From there we headed over to St Helena Island, where we found Pat Conroy’s grave, way out on a little torn up road, in a little African-American cemetery. It backed up to the Penn Center, one of his favorite charities. We agreed that spoke volumes about someone who, with all his fame and money, chose to be buried there.

Saturday at the festival we spent the entire day at the USC Beaufort Center for the Performing Arts.  We didn’t have a lot of down time between presentations, but when we did they had a pretty cool exhibit for us to check out – The South from A to Z.  E was for Elvis – I loved that, of course 🙂

Probably the highlight – or at least one of my favorite times – of the weekend was the conversation on stage between Rick Bragg and Walter Edgar. Hilarious, of course, and I just loved listening to Rick’s stories. I bought his new cookbook – here he is signing it afterwards.