We day-tripped to Savannah, GA on the 4th to visit our friend, Sarah, who was there from Louisiana to visit her brother and sister-in-law, Dave and Georgia. We had a lovely day catching up with the 3 of them as well as getting to checkout the space where Dave and Georgia will be opening a new restaurant there next spring. Can’t wait to visit again when the restaurant is complete!
For the first time in what felt like forever, we attended a wedding reception on the 10th. Our friends, Alli and Jon, got married back in June 2020, but had a family only wedding due to COVID so planned a reception for September 2021 to finally get to celebrate with everyone! The venue was beautiful and we ended up reuniting with other friends, Erin and Laura, who we didn’t know knew Jon and Alli as well so all in all a great night!
Carl’s mom visited for a few days at the end of September which also overlapped with the rescheduled Cooper River Bridge Run. The run was originally supposed to take place in April 2020, but got moved several times (thanks COVID) before they felt it was possible to hold it again. Carl and I both got course PRs and got to grab some beers with our friends Becca, Jason, and Kelly afterwards at Bay Street Biergarten.
Carl went shark fishing with our friend, Ethan, and brought home more shark meat than we knew what to do with. Tried it fried into fingers, made into jerky, and just straight-up filets. Consensus was that some parts were tender and tasty and some parts were tough and a little weird. The jerky overall was a hit.
I had dinner with my friend, Helen, at Coda Del Pesce on August 13th and it was soooo tasty. I was excited to actually do my hair and make-up for our dinner since that happens so rarely these days and got a little overzealous about curling my hair. Apparently I held the straightener (which I use to curl my hair) on a few strands for too long and fried the crap out of it so now I’ve been working on repairing it and am so mad at myself for this.
Mom visited from August 20th through 26th to not only visit, but also see me participate in the She Tris Hamlin Plantation Sprint Triathlon. The triathlon was a big success due to finally getting to see some fellow triathletes and friends again and taking 3rd overall which is my first overall finish! I was super surprised and very happy! This win qualifies me for the USAT Age Group Nationals race next year which was really the whole point of doing this race so super stoked!
Mom’s visit was lovely and we got in some beach time, watched a Bears preseason game at Mac’s (a Chicago bar in downtown Charleston), and visited the Angel Oak Tree and Deep Water Vineyard out on Wadmalaw Island.
Carl and I also snuck in a last minute trip to Hilton Head when a room in one of the Hilton timeshare properties there opened up. We brought our bikes down and rode for miles. We hit what has come to be known as the “trifecta” one day visiting a brewery, a winery, and a distillery all in one day. The mini vacay was wonderful and we’re both agreed there will be more Hilton Head trips in our future!
Amanda and Trevor were still staying with us for the first week of July which meant they were around for the 4th and we had a blast. When Amanda and I finished up work on Friday the 2nd, we motivated ourselves enough to do a station workout outside and then went across the street to our neighbor’s dock to check on Carl and Trevor’s fishing adventures. Our other neighbor, Ed, had stopped by to chat with the boys and offered to let us use some of his paddle boards so we could get out on the water. We hesitated at first (not sure why), but SO glad we finally said yes as we had a wonderful paddle and saw a beautiful sunset. I was convinced to jump in the water before getting off the board as I’d never swam in Hamlin Creek before and it turned out to be pretty nice.
Saturday the 3rd included an Orangetheory workout and a stop at The Flying Cupid to get some to go brunch that turned out super tasty. I’m not going to lie, I don’t totally remember what we did the rest of the day after that.
On Sunday the 4th we watched the IOP golf cart parade, got in a little fishing, then headed to the Windjammer to watch the 4th of July flyovers. Our nextdoor neighbors had mentioned that we were free to use their pool for the day as they’d be out and about so we took them up on it and lounged in their backyard all afternoon. Our neighbors ended up coming back to their house while we were still there so joined us in the pool and busted out what seemed like 100 jello shots in many flavors that were all delicious and tasted exactly like the various flavors they were labeled as (pb&j, bubble gum, caramel apple, etc.).
The night ended with our new friends, Whitney and Pete, coming by for a cookout and attempting to watch the fireworks from our neighbor’s dock. Unfortunately IOP had cancelled their fireworks and we couldn’t quite see the ones from downtown above the tree-line across the water so it wasn’t as exciting as we’d hoped, but still a nice night.
Amanda and Trevor left super early in the morning on Monday the 5th to head back to IL and I spent my entire day off spontaneously bursting into tears because I missed them so much already. I think this indicates the love I have for my sister and how much fun we had while her and Trevor were visiting.
Accountfully officially reopened the office on the 13th so I started going back in Tuesday through Thursday of each week at that point. I got in a few weekly swims with Helen which was great. Then the month culminated in a much overdue trip to Minnesota to visit Melissa and Will. As usual, they were the best hosts and planned a whole weekend of showing us around where they live both on foot and on bikes. We also got to see other friends, Jora and Adam, for a little bit one day which was an added treat. Overall, we had the best weekend and left talking about when we’d get together again.
June started out pretty low key and included meandering through the IOP sand sculpture contest, doing a Thursday night 5K inspired by our friend, Helen, and attending a surprise graduation party for our friend Chris. The 5K was incredibly rough because of the extreme humidity and all 4 of us (Carl, Helen, David, and myself) questioned why we’d signed up in the first place. The answer was Helen asked if we wanted to and we didn’t have a good reason not to so we did. Helen said she signed-up because of her friend Carly so ultimately it was Carly’s fault. Despite the pain and suffering and a far-from-my-best 5K time, I won my age group and earned a koozie.
The rest of June (and the highlight) was Amanda and Trevor coming to stay for several weeks. Amanda’s best friend from childhood, Lindsey, was having her bachelorette party in Savannah in mid-June and her wedding in Charlotte, NC in late June so we decided it only made sense for Amanda to just stay with us in between and for Trevor to join as well. These two are two of the only people I think we could live with for so long and not want to never see again so our time together was fabulous. I attended one night of Lindsey’s bachelorette party that included a nice dinner and a dueling piano bar which was super fun. Amanda drove back to Charleston with me and our time as roomies officially began. It was great getting to work from home side-by-side with my sissy and see her in action at her job. Trevor arrived later that week and we had a fabulous Saturday floating down the Edisto River for one of Carl’s co-worker’s birthdays and then hitting up a pool party for our friends, Courtney & Zack. Amanda and Trevor got to do normal life stuff with us like Orangetheory which was really cool. During the second week of their time with us, the rest of the family (except Mom) descended on IOP for a 2 day blitz before heading to NC all together for Lindsey’s wedding. This, of course, included an outdoor concert at the Windjammer that ended in some of us closing the bar down and wandering to our neighbor’s dock at like 2 a.m. watching sticks float by that looked like manatees. Dad and Chris had headed back to the house a little earlier and Chris had made a ton of sandwiches which were clutch when we got back. Chris was on the couch asleep in 3 shirts for some reason.
Lindsey’s wedding was a success and we headed to a house on Lake Norman for a couple nights all together which was super fun and went by WAY too quickly. We played beer pong, air hockey, and used lifejackets as floaty diapers to hang out in the water. We definitely need to do this again sometime, but for longer. The family dispersed after the lake trip, but thankfully Amanda and Trevor headed back to IOP for one more week after that. I’m so glad they came back to SC after the wedding as it’s really hard to go from being surrounded by the entire gang for 6 days to them all being gone at once.
May 2021 brought us our first true vacation in over a year which lifted everyone’s spirits. When Carl originally threw out the idea of going to Utah, I was like “Utah?!?!?!”, but it turned out to be awesome and I’d recommend going there to anyone! It was originally planned around the use of some timeshare points as HGVC has a property in Park City. Carl did his magical vacation research and planning and an itinerary was made that included numerous state and national parks with lodging in Torrey, Moab, and Park City. There were daily hikes for the first 5 days, a stop to join in on Conquer 100 with the Iron Cowboy, and then some relaxation and wandering. Utah is a beautiful state with mountains and other rock formations as far as the eye can see. We drove about 1,000 miles total over 8 days (I drove every single one of them) and there were many car rides where you didn’t see a single house, just open land.
The trip included a stop at a random diner where you ordered your food from a phone in your booth that dialed the waitress standing about 5 feet from you. Super cheesy, but we’re all for some cheese. Thanks to Google not having the exactly correct location for one of the hikes we wanted to do, we ended up fording a river and driving on some of the scariest gravel roads I’ve ever been on. (Scary because there were tight turns on a narrow road around mountainous bends where you couldn’t really see as well as jagged rocks that you had to basically stair step the rental car down). There was a time on the drive that we thought we’d miss the trailhead for this hike and done all that treacherous driving for nothing, but thankfully we found it because it ended up being our favorite hike of the entire trip. Hilariously (I can say this now), the way we should’ve taken to get there was a lovely paved road directly to the trailhead.
While in Utah I had the realization that we’d be driving through the area where the Iron Cowboy was completing his Conquer 100 challenge and that people were allowed to join and participate. For those of you that don’t know, the Iron Cowboy (actual name James Lawrence) is an impressive human being who continues to test the limits of the human mind and body by creating all these crazy challenges for himself. The Conquer 100 was a challenge to do a full distance triathlon (2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run) every day for 100 days. I’d been following James’s journey after learning about him from an old co-worker a couple years ago. The idea of joining in on any part of this newest challenge sounded incredible so Carl and I added this to our itinerary and were able to join for part of the run (which had become a walk due to James having leg issues early on in the challenge) on Day 66.
Upon returning from Utah, Carl and I both fell ill which was a bit of a bummer. I had to take the first sick day from work of my entire career and Carl ended up home on the couch a couple days later. I was down for like 5 days and Carl for 2 then finally we were better!
For our 12th wedding anniversary we spent a night hopping around downtown Charleston getting a drink and apps at a couple places (82 Queen and The Watch Rooftop) while waiting for a table to open up at 167 Raw (expected wait time: 3 hours). Great time and great food had all around. Definitely wish we could have been more hungry by the time we got a table, but the food was good regardless.
On our actual anniversary I had my first in-person triathlon in over 1 1/2 years! She Tris Hobcaw was a super neat race and it was so great to see a bunch of familiar faces again. I was curious to see how this race would go as although I had kept up with biking and running, I hadn’t really “trained” for the race specifically and had only swam a time or two leading up to it. I got 7th place overall and an age group win so I’ll call that a successful day.
For Memorial Day weekend, our friends Pete & Christen came to visit from Illinois. We spent the whole weekend catching up and showing them around which was lovely. We wandered around downtown Charleston, hit up Ship’s Wheel for some cider, tried our hand at axe throwing at The Bearded Ax (so fun!), and got some beach time in.
April was a big month with things finally starting to feel like they were turning around as COVID vaccines became available to the general public in South Carolina. As a result our month consisted of Carl becoming fully vaccinated, me getting my first dose of the vaccine and starting to participate in some more typical life activities. We celebrated one of Carl’s co-workers (Vanessa) getting married, the 1st birthday of Prince Henry (our friends’ son), and started playing volleyball again after taking all of 2020 off. This was all much needed after both of us had been struggling with the monotony of COVID life at various times over the past several months. We even neutered 2 goats that belong to another of Carl’s co-workers and if neutering farm animals doesn’t scream normal Schmidt life, I don’t know what does, lol.
The month did go a bit awry when Roy (Carl’s dad) came to visit and ended up in the emergency room twice in one week with severe arm/neck pain. His one day visit turned into an entire week and his pain left him drugged and unable to drive himself anywhere which was an issue considering that he’d driven 16 hours here from IL so had both a van and a dog here with us. The result was Carl driving Roy and dog all the way back to IL on his day off at the end of the week. We’d previously decided we’d never be driving back to IL again after the drive to move here so this was in direct violation of the Schmidt code. Penalties still being determined. After some time in the hospital in IL, Roy’s pain is under control so that’s the good part of this story.
For my birthday we headed to Myrtle Beach for a long weekend and it was awesome! Carl had been looking into places within driving distance that we could use some of our timeshare points and Myrtle ended up being the best option by the time we were ready to commit. It was so nice to get a change of scenery. The weather forecast originally didn’t look very nice as it was supposed to be rainy and colder (especially on Friday when we’d scheduled an outdoor tour), but we ended up being blessed with an entire weekend of sunshine and awesome temperatures! We toured Hobcaw Barony in Georgetown, SC, on Friday before getting some lunch and meandering around downtown Georgetown for the afternoon. Hobcaw’s property is beautiful, we had a really knowledgable tour guide, and our fellow tourists were pleasant so the tour was wonderful! Downtown Georgetown is so cute and right along the water so it was a great place to spend a sunny afternoon. We got ice cream and a whole bunch of chocolate treats. For dinner we went to this Italian restaurant called Ciao since we rarely eat pasta and it was tasty. I slept for like 11 hours after a full day of outdoor adventure and it was glorious! Day 2 included pedicures then wine tasting at Dublin Winery which was really cool despite being along busy Route 17. We also hung out at Grand Strand Brewing for the evening and got in some good people watching in the bustling part of Myrtle Beach. Once we were back in IOP the bday weekend was capped off with watching a whole bunch of dolphins swimming around in Breach Inlet. Such a fantastic getaway and birthday celebration! I loved being reminded of what fun our adventures are and look forward to getting to do this more and more soon hopefully!
Carl got an oyster/shrimp boil pot and set-up for his 3-year anniversary at Park West and was really excited to put it to use! We hosted our friends Shannon and Nick and their baby, Henry, for our first oyster roast on March 6th and it was a success! We had such a great afternoon eating oysters, pimento cheese, and sipping cocktails and catching up!
Carl’s birthday celebration included massages at Woodhouse Day Spa, drinks and dinner at 5 Church, and Iris’s longest walk. We’d been talking about getting massages for almost a year, but I was holding out because of COVID. We finally pulled the trigger and it was lovely. The Woodhouse downtown location was really pretty and relaxing. We arrived early to enjoy some champagne in the lounge and had a great time. We tried to go to Hall’s to sit at the bar afterwards because Carl really wanted a burger, but it was packed and there weren’t any seats available. Billy Hall actually followed us out onto the sidewalk to try to keep us there, but there was nowhere to sit and we weren’t interested in having a drink standing up shoulder-to-shoulder with a bunch of people. We ended up at 5 Church for the first time and it was super cool. The building is so pretty inside and our drinks and dinners were delicious! The rest of the weekend included lounging and making Iris walk all the way to Breach Inlet and back which was officially her longest walk ever and she did awesome! She’s so strong and energetic now. At the end of the month I also got my hair cut short again because COVID has made me want to spend even less time getting ready and short hair seemed like the answer for lower maintenance.
We made it to Illinois for Christmas despite the pandemic and even got to bring Iris with us! It was so great to spend so much time with my mom and siblings and also get to see Roy. It was supposed to be our last hurrah as a family at Sanctuary as it’s set to close on January 22nd, but unfortunately my dad got called away to Florida just before we arrived so we were down a Ritchie for the festivities. Despite dad being away, we had lots of fun and spent must of the time in sweatpants lounging in one living room after the next. We also got to check out Ryan and Allison’s new place in the city which was pretty neat. Staying at Amanda and Trevor’s is always wonderful. Everyone loved Iris and it was nice to have her around. Introducing Charlie and Iris was a saga, but Carl was so patient and calm (which is NOT what I can say for Chris and Maya, lol), and in the end they could easily be around each other. We were hoping to see some friends while we were in town, but agreed with COVID 19 in full force it didn’t make sense so it was a family only trip.
Iris on the way to the airport all decked out in her Christmas sweater. Decided to be really awkward and lay on top of her carrier.Iris about to board the plane!
In other exciting news, right before we left for Illinois I hit my personal mileage goals for biking and running in 2020! I had set a 500 running miles goal early in the year while the biking 1,000 miles didn’t get added until July. It was a struggle at the end as it got a bit chilly (I know, I know, nothing like Illinois) and I hadn’t really accounted for the lack of daylight and an indoor facility to use since we quit our gym earlier in the year, but I DID IT!
New Year’s Eve was anticlimactic, but we did have a delicious dinner thanks to a gift card to the New York Butcher!
