It's so sad to officially mark the end of summer on Labor Day weekend...but we definitely went out with a bang! Saturday we got to enjoy one of the local festivals here (The Stomping of the Grapes Festival) at the winery/vineyard that makes the FAMOUS Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka. We got to enjoy the afternoon (sweating) in the sun, drinking some wine...well, mostly cold beer that we brought, and listening to live bluegrass while hanging out with our friends. It was a great afternoon, though life would have been easier if it was about 10 degrees cooler!
Sunday....well, Sunday was another story! We went on one of our adventurous canoe/kayak trips to the tip of one of the islands here. We played on the beach, got some more sun, drank some more beer, then (begrudgingly) had to head home. We knew that having the wind at our backs on the way to the island had definitely made life easier, and we assumed that it would make the paddle back a little difficult. Well, that may be underexaggerating. HOLY CRAP! It was definitely a struggle, and to top it all off, we managed to somehow get turned sideways in the choppy water and flip the canoe. Two words for you: NOT. FUN. Luckily, everyone was pretty close to us and could help get the canoe to shore. The hardest part was trying to get all of the crap out of it to dump the water out (YOU try lifting a non-Hefty trash bag full of empty beer cans and full of water out of a boat and see if YOU don't break the bag!) Ugh. I guess we all knew someone was bound to flip at some point, and the lesson learned was that we can survive it! We managed to eventually make it back to the car in one piece, though we did have at least one casualty- sorry about your phone, Trey!!... What a way to end summer with a bang!
As we head into this week, we're definitely keeping our eyes on the tropics...Hurricane Hanna looks like it may have its' eye on us (literally!). Time to start making the hurricane preparedness kit- wish us luck!
This last weekend, we (a group of 12 of us divided into 3 teams) took part in the US Marine Corps annual mud run in Columbia...and had A BLAST! It's about a 4 mile course through the woods, running up and down hills, jumping in massive mud puddles, rope swings, climbing up rope ladders, more mud puddles, sliding down mud hills into mud puddles, a mud river to walk through (you get my drift...) 
Needless to say we were absolutely FILTHY by the time we were done, and Stephanie, one of our teammates, had definitely taken a beating on the course. She twisted her ankle, fell another time and scraped up her hip, and busted her elbow up so it was bleeding- but she was a trooper throughout and finished the race! All of the money raised goes towards children and families of those that have lost family members in the war, so it is definitely a great cause.
A HUGE thank you to my sister, who convinced us to do the race, rallied behind all of us during training, , and was standing before the finish line as our team was finishing and screaming (in support) at us the whole time. Thanks Beck!!
