South Carolina in the Rain

Greetings again from rainy South Carolina. A sub tropical wave low pressure system has come in from the Carolina coast and dropped several inches of rain on Charleston and at least a couple of inches here in the Midlands.

Alexander is feeling much better. We went and purchased him some nasal decongestant and he seems to be doing great. No more upset stomach since yesterday morning.

We went out shopping this morning in the driving rain. After dropping off Rachel and Meredith's mother at a women's store, the rest of us drove around a bit and ended up at a South Carolina foods store and then to Toys R Us. To our knowledge, Alexander had never been inside a TRU before and went completely nuts. He was only cajoled out of the store with the promise of a couple of gummy bears in the car.

After returning to the house I cooked the brined turkey from the night before and it is now waiting for me to finish the blog and go and cut it up for tomorrow.

Meredith's maternal grandfather, John C. Young, is her only remaining grandparent. A WWII infantry veteran, he continues to live in the town where he grew up, married, and raised a family in Greenwood, South Carolina. His family, including us, are going to visit him at his assisted living residence in Greenwood for Thanksgiving dinner. I will be taking our camera with us for some photos of the event.

Meredith is mapping out a strategy for Black Friday shopping. She thinks that she may get what she wants to get at Wal-Mart at 7:00am rather than attempting to get going at 5:00am with the rest of the consumer-crazy nation.

I did the early Friday morning once a couple of years ago. I spent 2 hours in line at Best Buy purchasing a copy of a DVD to save a mere $15. If I had spent those 2 hours doing something for work, I would have been paid much more than that. I'm not doing it again. Even for that kind of a sale. If I can't afford it on Monday morning, I really didn't need the item anyway.

I'm a little tired of spending money on things I need for the house. With new furniture, repairs to the garage, some car repairs this fall, and a new set of teeth for Alexander coming in the new year (5 of his baby molars have been affected by some genetic softness and perhaps softness from his small bout with pneumonia a couple of years ago), I'm feeling a little tapped out. The Mustang is going to start needing regular large part repair and I need to seriously look into purchasing a new family-size vehicle in the coming year. I'm leaning towards the Ford Freestyle or the Honda CR-V.

So come back for the photos tomorrow and don't hesitate to leave me feedback on these messages.

One other thing, I have been really enjoying working on this trip blog and I intend to continue to use it as a diary of things I'm thinking about and life as it happens and how I make it happen. I'm hoping that my two sons Alexander and a player to be named later will read it and enjoy some of the musings of their father.

See ya tomorrow.