Liz Smith came to surprise Gran while I was there Monday, & then came here to spend the night and to breakfast the next morning with Addie and June. What a great time we had!

Sunday afternoon we were at Greg and Tabitha’s for Whitley-Grace and Mackinsey Sue’s Unicorn birthday party – WG’s 4th and Mackie’s 2nd. It was so much fun watching all of the kids playing outside.

Present opening and birthday cake was inside, though :-). What a special day.

This past Saturday we had a family reunion in Hiawassee. Normally we get together at Christmas, but this past year Covid had us postpone it until last week. There really was a very good turnout, including both of my aunts, my daddy’s younger sisters. Aunt Norma Jean, who hosted the event, and Aunt Nita. I love them both so much.

From Hiawassee June and I headed to our motel in Monroe, GA, where we checked in, and then were off to eat supper at Greg and Tabitha’s. From there we went to Sherri and Gary’s hotel, where there was an indoor pool, and June and Sherri & Gary’s granddaughter Lynleigh swam until closing time. Wonderful day.

Sunrise from our balcony, taken just before we headed home.

Supper Wednesday night with our Forever Young group was at Chesapeake House, which was built right out over a pond. And in the pond was this alligator and numerous turtles – who swam right around the alligator. Apparently he never decides to have them for supper. When we went over to take pictures, the lawn man told us there were actually four alligators living in the pond, but we just saw this one.

That night on our way back to the hotel, Meg & I saw this ferris wheel in action, and there were the most beautiful, colorful designs spinning around on it. We must’ve watched it for 15 minutes, and the designs never did repeat. I hate that a still picture doesn’t show all the action that was going on with the lights but they sure were pretty.

I really loved this picture from the Hunting and Fishing area of the Rosen Gallery, and learning about the artist.

After we finished up in the gallery, Meg and I headed back out to see more of the garden that we didn’t have time to get to on our tour. We still didn’t see nearly all of it, but this was a sculpture I really loved.

Wednesday while we were at the beach with the Forever Young Group last week, we spent the day at the gardens created by the Huntingtons, and located right across the highway from the state park. It is a huge sculpture garden, with treasures really around every turn. Just beautiful and so impressive.

We had a guided tour of the garden, and then a box lunch in the picnic area under the trees. Then the afternoon was free and Meg & I chose to stay at the gardens, since we had not been able to see even a fraction of it that morning. We didn’t tour any of the galleries, so we glad we had a chance to visit at least one. There was a room full of paintings and drawings of dogs and I thought the information about the artists was so interesting.

There was a small but very well done museum at Atalaya Castle with exhibits about the Huntingtons’ life away from the beach there. Both in the castle and in the museum there was lots of information about how much they loved their dogs, and several pictures of Jean Smith, who cared for the dogs wherever the Huntingtons took them for many years. We thought that sounded like a pretty cool job for an animal lover.

When we left the state park, we took time to drive down to the entrance to Brookgreen Gardens, where we were visiting the next day with our whole group. The Huntingtons had developed the gardens to display not only Anna’s sculptures, but those of many other artists. This sculpture is right at the entrance as you turn off the highway, and it was in fact created by Anna. Pretty impressive, to say the least.

Meg and I just got back last night from spending a few days at Myrtle Beach with the Forever Young group at our church. It was just a great trip. Tuesday we had the day free, and Meg and I headed down to Huntington Beach. Last year, at Shea’s suggestion, Little Hope brought some college friends there – one had never seen the ocean. The college kids had a great time, so Meg really wanted to see where they had gone. We spent a couple of hours walking on the beach (beautiful) and then went over to check out the gift shop – and mostly to get bottles of water. This display was outside of giant Adirondack chairs. So cute.

We spent the rest of the day exploring Atalaya Castle, the summer home there of Archer and Anna Huntington. The story of their lives was so interesting, as was the house that they built. There was a fireplace in every room – this was Archer’s study – and the plan had been to use the wood on the property – they owned 6500 acres – to heat the house, which was made entirely of bricks. But with that many rooms and that many fireplaces, that was just too labor intensive, so they converted them all to coal burning fireplaces. I thought that was very interesting. It was a great first day of our trip.