We had a wonderful day yesterday....
The weather was perfect....not too hot, with a pleasant breeze.
After a morning of hanging around the condo and the pool, Mark and I went to noon Mass at a church about a 30 minute drive from our condo. Michael and John stayed behind with Beth and Steve so that we could have an afternoon to ourselves (awesome!). I can't begin to tell you how happy I was to walk into that church! Even though I had never been there before, it felt like home. That is always one thing I miss when I'm on vacation....all the reminders I have in our home reminding me of our faith.
After Mass, Mark and I ate our picnic lunch in the church parking lot....sounds crazy, I know, but this church's parking lot has a huge grove of trees in the middle of it, and our van was parked under these trees and it was very pleasant.
After that, we went off to Brookgreen Gardens. The gardens were beautiful but I must admit that I had never seen so many statues of the human form (if you know what I mean!) in one place in my life. It made Mark and I glad that we had left the kids behind! hehehe...
Seriously, though, it was bothering me somehow as we walked through....the place seemed so worldly to me. Hard to explain...let me see...
Even though it was a place showing God's marvelous creation, it was focused on the creation and didn't lift your mind to the Creator. When I go to a park and walk, it always lifts my mind to God, but this place with all of its beautiful nature and naked statues didn't exactly lift your mind heavenly...it was too much. I thought about some of the shrines we've gone to where there are religious statues throughout the nature walks....those places lift my mind heavenward...this place failed to do that.
Anyway, we went back to the condo and took the boys out for an early dinner and then Beth and Steve took the van and went out for a while on their own.
We took a walk on the beach and spent some time at the pool. I went back up to our condo and sat on the balcony overlooking the ocean and said my evening prayers. Mark and the boys came back, and then Mark joined me in saying the rosary. Lovely evening...
Everyone watched a movie and the moon came up again shedding its beautiful golden light across the ocean...absolutely makes it so hard to draw the curtains and fall asleep...but we finally did about 1 AM.

I don't know exactly what we're doing today....the kids are all still sleeping. But we may head out for some family fun type places with the kids for the afternoon and then head back here after dinner. This is supposed to be the hottest day here but we know all those family fun places will be even busier over the holiday weekend, so we think we will just hang at the condo those days.

I hope all of you have a blessed Friday.
May our dear Lord grant all of you His peace and joy...