My 29th Birthday Surprise

Sometime around the middle of last week, Matthew told me that on Saturday morning (my birthday), I needed to have my bags packed and be ready to go.  He was taking me and Kyndall on a surprise get-away for my 29th birthday!  Knowing me like he does, Matthew decided that telling me and giving me some advanced notice would make it a lot less stressful for me.  (Unfortunately, my controlling, perfectionist, type A personality makes big surprises like this pretty hard to pull off)  He wouldn't give me any hints as to where we were going, so I knew it would still be a great surprise.  Besides, he's never done anything like this for me, so it was nice to just relax and know that he was taking care of all the details. 

My birthday arrived and Kyndall and I were super excited and ready to go!

Just for comparison's sake, here's a picture of me and my girl last year, on my 28th birthday.  Where did my baby go??  (Definitely going back to blonde in the Spring, by the way!)

I wasn't sure how long we would be in the car, so I came up with creative ways to keep Miss Priss entertained.  At this point, I resorted to letting her tear apart read one of my magazines.

I was pleasantly surprised when after only two hours, we had arrived at our destination!  SAVANNAH!  I've never been to Savannah, so I was very excited to see what all the hype is about.  We couldn't check into our hotel until a little later, but we dropped our bags off with the front desk before doing some sight-seeing.  Here was my first look at our Bed and Breakfast---the Olde Harbour Inn.

This B&B was full of history and as you can see, it's on the national historic registry---more on that later!

Our B&B overlooked River Street, which is the prime spot for sights, sounds and entertainment in Savannah.  Here we are exploring the area, while waiting to check in.

Standing on River Street, looking at the back side of our B&B

Strolling through the market.  Sort of reminded me of our market in downtown Charleston, but on a much smaller scale.......

Their suspension bridge even reminded me of ours, but again, a little smaller

Finally, it was time to check out our place!  I was so surprised when I walked in and saw all of this.....

Our room

Sorry for the overload of pictures, but this place was gorgeous and you need to see it!

Yes, they came too........

The loft was really cute!

The original ceilings and beams are still in the building

The view from our bedroom

Ok, so now a little bit of history on this gorgeous place.  It was built in 1890 for only $2,500.  Originally, it was home to the Tide Water Oil Company, and housed a high-tech kerosene oil.  The oil was stored in barrels throughout the building.  Today, the wooden beams inside the Inn are re-painted frequently to cover oil stains that saturated the beams more than a century ago.  When the oil company  left the building in 1907, it sat vacant more than 20 years.  In 1930, Alexander Brothers Company, a blue jeans and overall factory, moved in and conducted business from the building until 1980.  In 1985, the building underwent a complete renovation and was re-opened as the Olde Harbour Inn in 1987.  Pretty interesting, if you ask me! 

I made the mistake of reading the guest book right after we walked in, and found some very chilling entries by prior visitors.  Many of them talked of seeing white figures, hearing strange noises, and other unexplainable things happening during their stay in our suite.  I immediately turned to Matthew and told him we were sleeping with the lights on----which we did!!!  I don't even believe in ghosts and never have, but reading those stories definitely cost me some sleep that night!  Although we didn't see any unexpected visitors during our stay, there were several times during the night that our dogs jumped off the bed and started growling and barking for seemingly no reason.  Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep that night.

Now back to our adventure.  After checking out our place, we went back down to River Street for more sight-seeing.

I've always heard about this place, so we HAD to make a stop here.....

This girl knows a good thing when she sees it!  Picking out a treat!

See those things on the right that look like cupcakes?  Um, yeah.....those are peanut butter cups!!!  Gi-normous peanut butter cups!

It just so happened that Saturday night was the light parade on River Street.  We knew Kyndall would love it, so we sat for a while and watched......

We had dinner reservations at 7:45, so we went back to the room to change.  A few minutes later, a member of the staff knocked on our door and gave us this.  How cool!

Ready for my birthday dinner at PAULA DEEN'S!!!!!!!!

 3 stories of yummy goodness!

Matthew and I both chose the buffet, which was OUT. OF. THIS. WORLD!!!!  I don't typically get excited about food, cooking and the like.  It's just not my thing.  If it looks decent, I usually eat it.  To be honest, I've never even really watched her show.  But after eating at her restaurant, I have seen the light!!!  I cannot even begin to tell you how yummy it was---You MUST try it for yourself!!  I loaded up on fried chicken, mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, catfish, corn bread, banana pudding and sweet tea, just to name a few.  If Heaven is anything like eating at Paula Deen's, I'm ready to go!  It was that good!!!

"Have some more buddah, ya'll!"

This is what a sleepy baby looks like!  Although, I must brag on her for a bit.  She went ALL DAY with no nap!  Literally, from 8:30 am until 10:00 pm---NO NAP!  She was such a trooper and made my birthday so pleasant.

Somebody is getting a good Christmas present!!  =)

As if we hadn't gotten enough to eat, Matthew made a quick run down to that yummy candy store to get us a late night treat whle I got Kyndall ready for bed.  Chocolate dipped marshmallows and a Coke was my request!

We woke up this morning to a foggy, but peaceful view of the river from our room

I've never stayed at a Bed and Breakfast before, so I was pleasantly surprised at the delicious spread of food they had for us to choose from this morning.  They didn't have a high chair, so we improvised, and Kyndall ate her breakfast big-girl style!

After breakfast, we took a few more pictures around the Olde Harbour Inn, before packing up and saying goodbye.

As you can tell from all the pictures, we had a GREAT time!  Savannah is such a neat city and it reminded me a lot of our own Charleston.  I hope to go back soon, when we can stay longer.  Big thanks to Matthew for planning such a thoughtful, memorable weekend for us!  This was by far the best birthday I've ever had!  I am blessed in so many ways---Thank you God for another year of this wonderful life!