January is the month we celebrate the birth of the wonderful Carl Schmidt. This year to celebrate we had a delicious dinner at Coda del Pesce here on IOP on Friday night, did a scuba class then grabbed some beers with our friends Allison and Jon at Frothy Beard on Saturday, and did a walking tour of Charleston that ended in a wine-paired lunch on Sunday. To say fun was had is an understatement.
Carl’s been interested in getting scuba certified for quite some time so the class we took was just a kick-off to see if we liked it enough to move forward with the certification. We got comfortable with the equipment and just swam around a rec center pool throwing toy torpedos at each other. It was a great day and although Carl is wanting to take certification classes, time just hasn’t allowed recently.
The walking tour we did was called Undiscovered Charleston and I highly recommend it! It was led by a chef who integrated culinary historical facts with the rest of Charleston history. The tour ended at a little bistro where the chef prepared us lunch and the wine was flowing. It was weirdly chilly in Charleston that day, but we dressed appropriately and had a wonderful time.
In addition to celebrating Carl’s birthday, I also was able to visit my grandpa in Florida for his 91st birthday with all my siblings and my dad. It’s rare these days to get that many of our family members together so it was awesome that we were all able to make it. The 4 of us Ritchie sibs actually got to spend one whole night together just ourselves and that honestly never happens anymore (since we all have wonderful significant others) so that was pretty cool. Grandpa’s doing pretty well considering he’s 91 and my grandma’s been gone for just over 1 year. We actually got him out and about in his neighborhood and enjoyed drinks and lunch as the golf course clubhouse one day.
To continue the awesomeness of seeing my family in early January, Amanda drove back to SC with me and stayed at our house for the rest of the week. I’ve loved that she has a work-from-home job now and can spend longer periods of time visiting! We got to hang out, see her BFF Lindsey (who now lives in Charleston), and eat a delicious dinner at Rappahannock while she was here. I will always enjoy every minute she can spend here.