Goodbye Blog...Kind Of

I'm sure by now most of you have heard the good news that John accepted a full-time job at MUSC and we'll be staying in Charleston indefinitely post-residency. Hooray! We had a lot of hard decisions to make this year, interviewing for jobs around the country, etc. But we have absolutely fallen in love with Charleston and couldn't be happier that our stay here no longer has an expiration date.

That being said, this blog might be expiring soon. As you know, I started it when we first moved here because so many of our family and friends were curious about our new life in the South. I've enjoyed posting our personal photos and adventures here and sharing them with you all back in Oklahoma. But now that the year of residency is over, it seems unfathomable to keep this thing going forever. Besides, it's hard to keep up with and let's face it, most of you are friends with me on Facebook anyway.

But don't worry, I wouldn't go cold turkey on you. This blog will stay active and I might even post here from time to time if I have an especially good personal story that needs sharing beyond a few Facebook photos. On the other hand, I have created a new blog with some new goals and purposes.

Now that I'm a permanent Charleston resident, I'm going to try my hand at freelancing more seriously at some local publications. Therefore I have created a new blog that is more of a professional online portfolio and editorial blog to showcase my writing rather than my personal life. I'll still write about fun things to do and eat in Charleston, so you should still check it out. But prepare to see more writing and less photos (find those on Facebook.) Different, but still enjoyable!

Find the new blog here.

So goodbye for now, blog reader (aka: Mom). Thanks for sharing in these adventures with me!

Anniversary Picnic

Tonight John and I celebrated our 4th anniversary spread out on a picnic blanket at the park down by the Battery. It was blazing hot in Charleston today, the heat and humidity of summer is finally here. But with the sun setting and a cool breeze coming off the water, a shady dinner under the live oaks was just beautiful.

Happy anniversary, Love.

We've had a really crazy, busy week and are also preparing to head out out of town after work tomorrow for a week in Oklahoma (woohoo!) So we decided a low-key, relaxing picnic was the perfect way to celebrate. Our dinner consisted of some rosemary olive oil bread, chicken salad, pimento cheese and crackers, watermelon and two delicious cupcakes. 

John's such a Southern boy. He loves him some pimento cheese! 

Glad this picnic is another check off my Charleston bucket list!

The park was beautiful, besides a few pesky dogs off leashes who kept sniffing around our food. We saw a couple elope in the park's gazebo, right near our picnic spot, and watched the tourists goof around on the nearby cannons. It was a lovely evening eating, talking and snuggling on the lawn. 

Our view while laying on the blankets, looking up. Gorgeous!

Palm trees, cannons and cannonballs in the background. I love this town. 

Sticky Buns and New Honey Bun

Catching up a little on what's been going on since Sarah Roland came to visit us (been a few very very busy weeks!)...I forgot to fill you all in on the best morning ever that happened a few weeks ago.

On the morning of Sunday, May 20, Sarah Roland and I woke up early and went for a long 6 mile run---how all great morning's should start if you ask me. The night before, my sister Sarah went into labor back home in Oklahoma and I was up several times that night checking text message updates from my mom. It was driving me crazy that I couldn't be there to be with my family, so pounding the pavement on a 6 mile run really helped.

After our run, we headed to WildFlour Bakery to finally try their famous Sunday Sticky Buns that we've heard so much about. We tried once before a few months ago, and by the time we got there, they had already sold out. This Sunday, we made sure to be there early. 

Back in Oklahoma, Sarah went into the operating room for a C-section right about the time we got to the bakery in Charleston. I was a nervous wreck the whole time we were ordering and nibbling our sweet treats. Their deliciousness wasn't lost on me though, they were amazing---big, soft cinnamon rolls with glazed pecans on top.

Could hardly snap a pic of them before they were eagerly devoured.

By the time we got back to the car and were driving home, I got a teary-eyed phone call from my Mom and this picture sent to my phone...

My new honey bun, Kingston Alexander is born

I couldn't be more proud to be this little guy's aunt. I talked to him on the phone a few hours after his arrival (aka my mom held the phone up to him crying,) but we've yet to meet in person yet. I can't wait to hold him and give him lots of kisses when we go to Oklahoma this weekend. 

Love my beautiful sister and baby Kingston.

What's SUP?

Last week my college roomie and best friend Sarah Roland came to visit me and John in Charleston. Sarah and I lived together for three years at OU and I was so excited to live with her again, if only for five days. We had a great time exploring Charleston together and she helped me cross several things off my Charleston bucket list while she was here.

My beautiful roomie. Miss you already!

One of my favorite things we did while she was in town was stand-up paddle boarding (or what the locals call SUP.) You don't know what SUP is? Well let me show you...

There are plenty of tour companies in Charleston who offer SUP guided tours, classes and even fitness classes. But we decided just to rent a few boards for the day and wing it. First thing's first, loading them up in the truck.

Three paddle boards ready to go.

The second obstacle was getting them from the truck to the ocean. You see, a paddle board is much bigger than even a surfboard. And despite the convenient handle in the middle, they are much heavier than you'd think.

What a trooper, carrying her own board. 

Demonstrating some SUP techniques, or just posing on the board, whatever.

We took our boards to Sullivan's Island (per the rental dude's advice) because the water there is much calmer thanks to the sandbar about 100 yards out. We soon discovered why he recommended calm water. Waves were our enemy on the stand-up paddle boards.

Oh yeah, we've got this.

After about 10 minutes of struggling, falling off in the water and getting laughed at by some passersby, we got up on the boards and were doing pretty good. The best part of the afternoon was when Sarah freaked out because she saw a fin near my board (lots of "It's a shark! It's a shark!") Turns out it was a dolphin! And he/she swam along side our boards for a while, which was pretty amazing! Who's laughing now, land-locked passersby? 

Paddling off into the sunset.

Swamp People

On Shannon and Neal's last full day in Charleston, we decided to get real country on 'em and take 'em out to the swamp to catch gators. Okay, not really. Really we just drove to Cypress Gardens in Moncks Corner and explored the swamp and nature trails there. 

This activity actually far exceeded my expectations. It may be one of my favorite new attractions in Charleston. First thing we did was hop in some flat-bottom boats and paddled out into the black water swap (don't worry, there was a marked path to follow.) 

Here's my view from the boat. Beautiful cypress trees growing out of the black water. 

Are you thinking this setting looks very romantic and beautiful and oddly familiar? Maybe it's because this is where they filmed the boat scene from "The Notebook"! You know....

This part from the movie

Here Shannon and Neal are in their boat. Just as romantic, eh?

 Unlike the movie, there weren't hundreds of white birds floating around on the water while we were there (I heard they flew those in for the movie.) But there were tons of pretty lilly pads!

Paddling in the lilies

Lots and lots of lilies

Don't worry, Mom, we didn't see any gators in the swamp, but we did see some in Cypress' swamparium! We also checked out the nature trails and the butterfly house (where we met a fellow Okie by the way.)

By far the best part of the day was when this happened...

Oh yeah, we're cool.

Sunset Cruise

One of my favorite things we did with Shannon and Neal when they were in town was taking a sunset harbor sail on a catamaran from Shem Creek. Riding on a sail boat was on my Charleston Bucket List, and this boat had sails, so I think it counts. 

Me and Shan sailing away

We enjoyed just lounging on the deck, chit chatting and taking in the spectacular views. We did see about three dolphins, but I didn't get pictures of them.

Beautiful views of downtown Charleston at sunset.

The four of us onboard the catamaran

 After the sunset, we got a great view of the Super Moon from the water. Not really sure what makes it super, but John seems to be into it...

John and the Super Moon

The Deadliest Catch

After a lovely dinner at Blossom (Neal got the fresh Charleston seafood he was hankerin' for) and drinks at the Market Pavilion's rooftop bar....

A stop at this rooftop bar was one of the things on my Charleston bucket list. Check!

We enjoyed the great bird's-eye-view of Charleston

we headed down to Folly Beach for a nighttime stroll. This innocent stroll turned into a full on crab hunt and hilarity ensued.

Strolling on the beach, minding our own business. 

Then, we spot a crab scurrying under our feet. 

The boys spent the next twenty minutes frantically chasing the crab(s) around the beach, while Shannon and I ran screaming when the crabs made a beeline for our toes.

Finally caught one in, what else, a red solo cup.

He's not very happy.

Sweet success! 

No crabs were harmed in the making of this blog post...not permanently anyway. We did let him go.

Shannon in Charleston!

Guess what! My best friend Shannon came to visit me in Charleston!!!!!! (Yes, it does require that many exclamation marks.)

Welcome to the Lowcountry, Shannon!

I was so excited this past week to have my dear friend from Oklahoma and her husband, Neal, stay with us for 5 days. Shannon and I have been friends since eighth grade and I have missed her terribly these past few years we have been away from Oklahoma. Since we didn't go to the same college, we figured these 5 days were the most time we've spent together since high school! So crazy! But the good news is, after 5 days of touring her and Neal around Charleston, I still love her. Just kidding, Shan. I had so much fun with you two!

On their first full day in Charleston, I had to take them for a walking tour downtown. We toured the neighborhoods South of Broad, visited waterfront park, the battery, the City Market and King Street. What an afternoon!

Pretty Shan and a Southern magnolia tree

Some of the sights we saw South of Broad

More prettiness

Us in front of the Rainbow Row area

Shannon and Neal by the water at the Battery.

Neal found something he could get into --big guns.

A highlight of the day: swinging on the pier at Waterfront Park.

And we finished the day off with a true Southern lunch at Jestine's Kitchen. The fried chicken and fried okra were amazing, but we were really there for the chocolate Coca-Cola cake and the sweet tea.

Yum!

More Shannon and Katie adventures to come....

Tasty Weekend

John and I have been laying low the last couple weeks (Actually, I have. John is always working like crazy.) getting ready for a pretty busy May. My two best friends are coming to Charleston next month and I couldn't be more excited! I'm sure I'll have plenty of adventures to fill you in on after their stay.

In the meantime, we had ourselves a nice little weekend eating some new yummy things around Charleston. First up: really freakin' good pizza.

Our friends Nate and Alexandra introduced us to D'Allesandro's Pizza on Friday night. The place is very low key, you might say hole in the wall, and was full of college students the night we were there. I liked that you could see the cooks preparing the pizza and sliding 'em in the brick ovens right behind the bar. Tossing pizza dough in the air = awesome.

We ordered the wings to start, seemed to be a hit among the wing-eaters, but the pizza was by far the stand out. John got the meat lovers as usual, while the rest of us split the Luau--- mozzarella, feta, bacon, onion, pineapple and a drizzle of BBQ sauce. I love me some pineapple pizza and this may the best I've ever had.

John lovin' him some pizza

I can see why the college students love it, too, since it was very reasonably priced. We'll definitely be going back again. 

And then for a complete 360, after D'Allesandro's, we decided to go to Peninsula Grill for drinks and dessert. Peninsula Grill is a pretty posh fine dining restaurant right by the City Market. You know it's fancy when they have individual real towels in the bathroom instead of paper towels. Nice!

We couldn't really afford much on the menu, but that's okay because we were there for just one thing. The coconut cake. Peninsula Grill is world famous for this cake. In fact, you can order a whole cake online for $100. Before our $10 slice arrived at our seats at the bar, we were all joking about how ridiculous it is to order a $100 cake. After that first bite... I'd pay $200. It was absolutely amazing. 

Sorry for the blurry shot. I didn't have time to focus, because I had to fight John for every bite of this  slice we shared. Actually, he was very gracious. Even let me have the last bite. Now that's love. 

I'm not a huge fan of coconut on most days, however I do enjoy a good samoa, but luckily this cake's coconut flavor wasn't overpowering. And you can tell the coconut used is the real deal, not the overly sweet fake stuff. So creamy, so delicious... I'm going to be dreaming about this for weeks. 

Saturday was another fun day of good food and time with friends. John worked all day, so Ali and I declared it a girls day and started the morning off with manicures and pedicures. We had planned to go to the beach, but the rain clouds had other plans. Luckily after our appointments at the nail salon, the sun came out long enough for lunch at the farmers market. 

Have I told you how much I love the Marion Square farmers market? Pretty amazing. And the crepes (upper left corner) are the best.

That night, we stayed in and had a chick flick movie marathon ("Steel Magnolias" and "Ghost".) And of course, no girls night is complete without chocolate....

Our new favorite-- Sweeteeth chocolate, made locally. I had Peanut Butter and Chocolate and Chocolate Carmel Seasalt.

My peanut butter chocolate bar. That seasalt on top really makes all the difference. So yum!

I hope your weekend was just as tasty!

We Got Over It

Well we did it! Me, my mom, Larry and our friend Julie all ran in the Cooper River Bridge Run (10K) this weekend and lived to tell about (barely). I've been training for the race for several months now and it feels great to have accomplished one of my goals and to check another thing off my Charleston Bucket List. 

Although I didn't get my best time (more to come on that later), it was amazing just to be part of a race that big. Did I mention we ran this race with 43,000 people? 43,000!! I still can't wrap my brain around that.  

So here's how the race went:

The morning started off early, waking up at 5am, eating a quick pre-race breakfast and heading out the door by 5:30. Did I mention how much I loved having my Mom and Larry in town? I love it when they come stay with us!

The team all ready to go 

There was all kinds of road closures and traffic due to the 43,000 people converging on little downtown Charleston. So we opted to have John drive us from James Island to downtown and catch one of the race shuttle busses over the bridge. In hind sight, this may have been a mistake. We read online to be in line for the shuttle bus at 6 am. When we got there, the line already extended four blocks long! We ended up standing in that line longer than we actually ran in the race!

Still dark out and we're standing in the shuttle line on King Street wondering if we'll ever get to Mount Pleasant before the start of the race.

About an hour and a half later, we're finally on the shuttle bus as the minutes tick down to race start time. Will we make it?

Glad Julie was there to calm me down. Otherwise I would have been a nervous wreck about  arriving so late to the starting line.

 We were dropped off in Mount Pleasant about 7:55 (the race was supposed to start at 8am.) Luckily, through a little Twitter search, I found out the race start had been delayed. But, we never knew how long they would delay it. The race operated on a wave start, so all the runners/walkers were separated into corrals based on their estimated completion time. Once off the bus, we set off to find our corral.

An ariel photo from The Post and Courier shows all the runners in the corrals. This only shows a fraction of the groups. This continued way down the street. 

To my relief, we made it to our corral with plenty of time. Julie and I may or may not have snuck into the corral ahead of the one we were assigned to :) Mom and Larry were in C, and we were assigned D. We couldn't let them fly half way across the country to line up alone!

Finally at the start line in our corral. After some more waiting around, the start gun finally went off and we were on our way. 

We crossed the starting line at 9:06 and we were off. Here's the play by play on how the running went for our team:

Katie: My goal was to finish in 50 minutes. While training, I ran several 6.2-runs in 49 minutes, so I beat my race goal in training. But add in 43,000 people and I had a lot of dodging to do! I pushed myself the whole way, surpassing several people in the time group ahead of mine, and really started feeling tired between mile 4 and 5. But I kept at it and sprinted across the finish line for a time of 51:56. My average pace was 8:20. Not my best, but I'm still pretty proud!

Julie: Julie's goal was to keep up with me. Yeah right, she's faster than I am most the time. We did stick together for almost 6 miles of the race. I was glad to have her with me, because she motivated me to keep pushing myself when there were times I really wanted to just ease off the gas and trot along at an easy breazy pace. We were also a great team when it came to finding holes between the masses of people to dart through. Julie finished in 52:04.

John managed to get this blurry shot of me and Julie running together down King Street. 

Mom: Mom's knee had been hurting her in the few weeks of training prior to the race, but thankfully didn't bother her come race time. She was proud to say she ran the entire way without having to walk, including on the long uphill stretch to the top of the bridge (go Mom!) Mom finished in 1:02:22

Larry: Unfortunately, Larry's chip didn't work! So we don't have any stats on his time, but he finished a few minutes after Mom. 

On the spectator side of things, John kept track of us on the nifty Cooper River Bridge Run app. He used it to track where we were on the run, so he could try to get a picture of us as we ran by his spot on King Street. It also gave him our split time and estimated finished time. Pretty cool!

Got to love technology!

John also caught one of these shirts they were throwing to spectators on the side of the road. He calls it his spectator shirt. 

Glad to have a big kiss from my biggest fan after finishing!

We all met at our designated meeting spot after the race and headed to the finish festival for what else...food

Unfortunately, there wasn't any beer at the finish festival (lame), so we stopped by Monza on King for a celebratory drink on the patio.

Exhausted. And immediately following this picture, my temperature sky rocketed, I got body aches and chills all over and so began my post-race strep throat that kept me bed ridden for the rest of the weekend. C'est la vie!