Girls' Weekend in Savannah!

Thanks to Alyssa making all-state chorus (see the post after this one), we - the girls and I - went to Savannah for the weekend.

We were hoping for warm weather - it was chilly, but sunny for the most part.
We got there with about an hour before we had to meet at the civic center.
So we went across the cool bridge

and back.

We found a great pizza place for lunch and then walked around a bit.

We loved all the Spanish moss hanging from the trees. We have lots more of those pictures - gorgeous!

We also loved all the squares with fountains and statues.
Once we dropped off Alyssa (that is the civic center above in the background), Natalie and I were off!

We checked into the hotel and then went down to the river walk. I forget how swift moving big rivers are - the water is amazing.
We looked at the river boats,

walked through the candy stores (yes, plural),

Natalie loved the 3 foot gummy snake - yuck!
We loved the candy apples all dressed up for Easter!

and the beehive and bees.

After walking around for a few hours, we went back to wait for Alyssa to come out of rehearsal.

After grabbing some good barbecue, we took Alyssa to the river walk to see some of the cooler shops we saw.

The girls loved these dragonflies that could balance on anything on a little tip.

Natalie needed a breather after all our walking around.

We had planned on going on a ghost tour that evening. Alyssa came out of her evening rehearsals (they ended at 9:15pm!) looking very tired and opted out of going. The only tour late enough to have her go started at 10:30pm and went until midnight.
So, Natalie and I went. It was cold and after meeting at the Sorrel-Weed house (the house we would tour inside), the tour guide walked us around to some other homes and told stories.

Above is one of the homes we walked by. We also made a stop by the cemetery before going back to the house and going inside. We heard about the family that lived there and what paranormal activity people had experienced. We got a paranormal activity meter. After listening to our tour guide tell some stories she let us walk around a bit. Natalie and I stood still against the wall. We didn't last much longer. And Natalie had me look under the bed once we got back to the hotel.
The next morning, Alyssa wanted to leave a bit early to walk around before rehearsals started.
We walked through the cemetery - during the day it is really pretty.

This is the St. John's the Baptist cathedral. We loved walking by it.
And stopped by for a night picture after Alyssa's evening performance.
Below is the Sorrel-Weed house, the one from the ghost tour. I told Natalie we should tour the house during the day, she didn't want to.
We loved all the old buildings and homes. Here on the river is the old cotton exchange building.
Natalie and I realized we had missed half of the river walk the day before, we had only gone in one direction. So we went the other way and found more cool things. The boys would have loved playing in the boat sand box.
We did too.
After I had dropped off Alyssa in the morning, I waited in line at The Lady and Sons - Paula Deen's restaurant, to put our names down for lunch.
Excellent fried green tomatoes. The food was so good and filling we had our leftovers for dinner that night.
That afternoon we found some more cool shops - Savannah is filled with them!
The giraffe that is as tall as Natalie was part of a toy store filled with really cool toys and games.
We made sure we got to the beach while we were there, so during Alyssa's dinner break we headed down to Tybee Island.
The light house was closing when we got there, but a beach entrance was right next to it.
We played in the water for an hour.
The girls raced,
and played.
It was chilly and windy, but it's always fun to be at the beach.
We had a great hotel right in the heart of historic downtown Savannah - yeah Priceline!
We could walk everywhere in less than 10 minutes!
The room was a bit small for the three of us, but who needs room when we were only there to sleep?!
As Saturday rolled around, Natalie and I revisited some favorite places - we did a lot of window shopping.
Natalie loved the sayings on the t-shirts - the one below about Toto is her favorite, I liked the Mark Twain quote next to it.
We even found Zoltar - from the movie "Big."
We opted not to make a wish.

The crazy thing about getting to the river walk was that it was steep no matter how you got down there - ramps or stairs. We went a different way up and down each time.
When we got to these stairs we didn't know if we wanted to go up them!
Notice that each step is almost as high as Natalie's knee!
Quite the workout.

I had been hoping for more trees and flowers in bloom, but we've had such cold weather for so long that there were only a few that were blooming.Blooming beautifully!
We loved our weekend in Savannah.
We can't wait to go back . . . and bring the rest of the family.