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.

This week Meg & I were at Myrtle Beach for four days with our Forever Young group at church. What an incredible view we had from our balcony. I took this the first afternoon almost as soon as we checked in. We never shut the doors to the balcony the rest of the week when we were in the room. Sleeping to the sound of the waves and that breeze blowing off the ocean was fantastic. Wonderful week.

are continuing to shape up for summer. Blooming more every day, as are the blackberries on the other side of the boardwalk. So pretty – and good eating coming soon!

What a beautiful, fun night we had last Saturday at The Wedding. No pictures were to be taken during the ceremony itself, and I was so busy having a good time at the reception that I didn’t get many at all at the reception, but did get this one of Matron of Honor Rachel and Groomsman Cooper. Such a fun, fun time.

Sibling photo. What a wonderful time was had by all.