Adventures in Pregnancy!

This past week was pretty awesome! Chris and I decided since it was a “by” week for our Clemson Tigers that we would take a short trip to the mountains. We thought it would be a good time for us to get away before baby showers start and we get too involved in baby stuff. So, this was our last vacation for a little while. We had such a great time though! We decided to go to Hendersonville/Flat Rock. We stayed at a great bed and breakfast! We were the only guests too. So, we had the whole house to ourselves! Here is a picture of me in the gardens at the B&B. Check out the belly!

Friday night we decided to go to Hendersonville and check out some of the downtown shops and eat dinner. We had the best time just walking through some of the boutiques and even “Mast General Store.” We had dinner at a small tapas restaurant called “Never Blue.” Then, we decided to stop and get ice cream before we went back to the B&B. This is a great picture of Chris showing off his ice cream cone from Marble Slab!

The next morning, we decided to go to Carl Sandburg’s home. This is a national historical park. You can tour his house, pet his wife’s prize winning goats and even hike to the top of Glassy Mountain. We originally were thinking we would just go pet the goats and tour the house. But, I was feeling so good when we got there, that I decided it would really be fun to hike up Glassy Mountain. Here are some pictures of us with the goats and Chris checking out the chickens.

I started out the hike feeling great! But, as time went on and the climb got steeper, I started to have some doubts whether we were going to make it or not. My hands started swelling and we stopped every chance we could to rest for a couple of minutes. Chris was SO patient! But, I was determined that I could make it up there. So, we trekked along very slowly and eventually made it all the way to the top! And, it was so worth it! Check out this view!

I had to go back to the B&B for a nice nap after this, but it was definitely worth it! After my nap, we got dressed up and went out to dinner in Flat Rock and then to the Flat Rock Playhouse to see “The Drowsy Chaperone.” The dinner was good and the show was GREAT! I highly recommend the Flat Rock Playhouse to those of you that haven’t been there before. If you stay in a hotel in the area, you can get discounted tickets. And, they will give you priority seating. We were sitting 2nd row!!

So, we had a great weekend all in all. This was the perfect last vacation before the babies arrive. It was great to get to spend some time with just Chris. It is a little exciting to think that very soon we will be able to bring our boys to Carl Sandburg’s home and go hiking with them. Of course they will probably be doing circles around us, but I can’t wait to share this with them!

22 weeks and Counting!!

I know it has been a little while since you have had a baby update… So, these past couple of weeks have been pretty good. The babies have started moving around constantly! I was lying in bed the other day when one of the boys decided it was not bed time and he wanted to wake me up. He started kicking me down towards my hip and literally made me jump each time. Chris got a kick out of that!


I have also started swelling up already. My feet have started becoming the size of softballs if I stand up for more than an hour at a time. So, I am trying to limit my time that I stand up in a day. And, if I know I am going to be standing up a lot in a day, then I normally switch to tightly laced tennis shoes. That has seemed to help so far. Plus, it helps that Chris rubs my ankles and feet when they get really swollen. What a great husband!

The babies seem to be growing well. We went in for a check-up last week and everything went great. They should each be about 11 inches now and about 1 pound each! So, this past week has been a big growth week. (Which explains why I have been so sleepy and eating an average of 3500 calories per day!) At this point, they should each be forming tiny tooth buds beneath their gums too! It am so amazed at how God creates life!

The Celebration of a Great Life!

Most of you know by now that we lost a great member of our family this week, Dr Emory Lawrence Langdale also known as “Papa.” He had a great life of almost 91 years! He did so many amazing things in his life. You can check out his obituary by clicking here. I want to talk about some of the things in his life that aren’t on the obituary though. These are the things that make him the man that we loved. These aren’t all of the stories of his life, but a few that I was privileged enough to know about…

1) He was very proud of his service in the Navy. He realized during his service time that he had a passion for medicine and that he specifically wanted to work with rehabilitation of Veterans. He spent most of his career helping others. In fact, he kept his medical license renewed each year (last renewed in November of 2009) and a he even had enough supplies for a small clinic to be run out of his house if needed. He was always prepared in case someone needed some medical assistance. His children tell stories of when he was younger that he never left home without his medical bag.

2) He loved to build…He had projects going all the time. He officially built the world’s smallest bathroom at his beach house on Isle of Palms. You could use the shower, use the restroom and wash your hands all with just turning in a circle. I also learned this week about how he had his children hand dig a pool in their back yard! He has built garages and tried to build basements too! His latest project was his home in Walterboro, SC. He built this home in his 80’s! And, he helped his son, Tom, build his log home in Walterboro as well. I can specifically remember Chris coming home from a weekend of working on that home saying “Papa is stronger than I am! He was tossing cinderblocks like they were plastic!” Chris was so proud of Papa.

3) He loved his family! Just this past March we learned that he was going through kidney failure and he had suffered a small stroke. Chris, Tommy (Chris’s brother), Paula (Tommy’s wife), and I all went to go visit him and he lit up talking to Chris and Tommy. With everything else going on, he was so excited to spend some time with his grandkids. A few years ago when he finished his home in Walterboro, he took myself, and several other grandkids out on his new “all terrain vehicle.” He had me drive and told me to test out the brakes. Well, he didn’t tell me that there was really no need for brakes on the ATV because as soon as you take your foot off of the gas, it stops! Well, he braced himself as all of the grandkids went toward the windshield and laughed at all of us. He thought this was a great trick to play on us. Later, we found out that he also did the same thing to my husband and his brother. It is so much fun to remember him laughing at all of us…

4) He had a knack for picking out Christmas trees. He often would pick a tree out of the back yard or one off of his land in Walterboro. And, the trees he would pick were often what we would call “Charlie Brown trees.” They were very typical pine trees. They weren’t full of branches or the most beautiful trees, but I don’t think he wanted to emphasize the tree on Christmas. Maybe he had his priorities straight and saw Christmas as a day for the Lord and not for material things.

These are by no means all of the stories that could be told, but these are the stories that I know from the past 10 years. Papa was an amazing man who lightened the life of all those around him. For those of you that don’t know yet, we are naming one of our sons after Emory. We have already had several talks with baby Emory about how he has some big shoes to fill.

Thank you all for sharing in these memories with me. This past week was not easy, but it is comforting to know that he is no longer suffering and that he had a great life!