We started off the SC visit right ...

... by staying with our friend Charleen and her husband Mason just outside of Aiken. They have this wonderful house in the middle of the woods and the barred owls were calling in the middle of the day when we got there. Mason made us a fire the second night we were there so we toasted (some might say "chargrilled") marshmallows. And Mason treated Chooj to his favorite activity: riding on a tractor!

Earlier in the day there had been the corn maze, which we gave up on in about 10 minutes. We opted to play in dried corn and have duck races, feed goats and whup up on the tire maze (only because I studied the picture prior).


Whenever we're at Charleen's, Hayes usually flushes out millions of chameleons and anoles. She and Charleen found a black snake that had just eaten a squirrel or something and then they found a tree frog. I wish we had a picture of when it jumped on Hayes' head, but these do just fine.