Live Lightly Tour

We arrived in Charleston just in time for Matt to take off for the church to meet Eric for a young adult worship night. Eric is the worship pastor at East Cooper Baptist Church…so he and Matt had a lot to talk about! Kristi and I stayed at home with the kiddos and enjoyed getting to know each other “in real life”. She and I have exchanged many, many emails and it was so fun seeing her face to face. She is a stay at home mama and web designer….among other things. You can see her blog here and her business, Poco Creative, here.Eric and Kristi’s home is delightful and their kids are so fun! The oldest, Lydia, is just a little older than Bella…so as soon as we walked in the door, they were off playing. Steven, their middle child, is possibly the biggest sweetie ever…check out the photos and you’ll agree! I loved how he called Matt “Mr. Matt”. That is something new to us … in the Midwest we don’t call people Mr. and Miss the way they do in the South. We’ve caught on quickly though! Mr. Matt and Miss Sara in the house! Hee hee. Their youngest, Meredith followed the kids around all weekend yelling “Ella!!….Ella!!”. She wanted so badly to be a part of the big kid’s action!

There was never a dull moment with so many young kids running around all the time! They especially loved to come into the RV and just “be”. The RV is especially attractive to children…I think because it’s a small home and it’s the perfect size for them. It almost feels like a playhouse! Steven would head straight for the driver’s seat every time he walked in…he felt so big and grown up in that spot! Our bed is often turned into a “playroom” and the girls were quick to find the Polly Pockets and dress up clothes and had a party going on back there much of the time. Eric and Kristi have a great yard too…and the kids spent time running and playing in the sun. It’s so nice to finally be in warm weather…sunshine makes everything better!

On Saturday, we had a demo at Earth Fare. We were located in a really busy parking lot with lots of surrounding businesses, so we had a great flow of people and interesting conversations. A young lady named Sarah brought her mom and friends to see the RV…Sarah had interviewed us a few days prior for a newspaper she writes. We enjoyed chatting about all kinds of green things, and also how our faith and environmental concerns mesh together. She’s just one of the many cool people we had the chance to interact with that day…I wish I could write about them all!

We headed to downtown Charleston, where they took us out for an AMAZING dinner of Thai food at Basil Thai Restaurant. If you’ve been following along on this blog for awhile, then you know of my obsession with Thai food. Oooooh how I love it…Matt loves it too, so I’m lucky! If I’m going to eat cooked foods; I want it to be Thai!! The green curry with tofu is my favorite…although the traditional pad thai is a close second. Oooh…I get hungry just thinking about it. Eric ordered some mango sticky rice to go…and we all nibbled on that as the kids played outside. We had never had sticky rice before, and it was very tasty!

After supper, we explored the downtown a bit and then headed down to Folly Beach. We had been told by several people that Folly Beach was the BEST beach on the east coast. We got there just at sunset and it was, of course, GORGEOUS. And COLD! We’ve been freezing cold during all of our ocean experiences…someday we’ll actually get to be in some warm water. Despite being cold, the HUGENESS of the ocean is always sobering and awe-inspiring and brings to mind how vast the hand of God is and how far He reaches. Throughout our tour, we have been reminded over and over of His artistic creations in nature. Amazing.

On Sunday, we brought the RV to Eric and Kristi’s church and had a demo there after each of the services. East Cooper is a fabulous church, and if you like to listen to online sermons, be sure to check out their pastor, Buster. He’s passionate about what he does…and is a dynamic speaker. The weekend we were there the sermon was called “A Life of Abundance”. Check out their sermons here.

On Monday night, we did demo for their small group that meets at their home…we had a great time sharing with them about the tour and our thoughts on green living, possessions, Christianity and how they all mix. We also had some great discussion about healthy eating and raw foods.

On Tuesday, on our way out of town…we all went to The Sprout, a raw restaurant in Charleston. It was totally random that we even found out about it…I saw it announced as “Best Burger Made of Seeds” in The Best of Charleston issue of an alternative newspaper. The Sprout is owned by Chef Mickey and his lovely wife Caroline. They moved to Charleston from California…Mickey worked at Café Gratitude while there, and Caroline was a yoga instructor and had her own business as well. You can read more about them here. I’ve read a lot about Cafe Gratitude…we will definitely be stopping there when we get to San Francisco! I’m excited to get their cookbook as well. When we walked into The Sprout, I knew it was going to be a great experience! It was bright and spacious and I could just smell the deliciousness! Mickey greeted us and after we told him what we were doing (the tour, raw foods, etc)…he brought us back for a little tour of their operations. Have you ever seen a dehydrator this big? Wow.

We met all of their friendly staff…including Aaron (who has a sweet tattoo)…he and his wife, and their 2 kids just got back from WWOOF’ing in Hawaii. Talk about a dream! We’ve looked into WWOOF’ing and it was fun to talk to him a bit about it. His wife has an Etsy store called Myopic Visions selling her felted wool goodies…she has a buy one, get one free sale, so be sure to go check out her stuff!

Our meals were predictably amazing and we enjoyed them thoroughly! Their nut burgers are out of this world. Yum. I had the pad thai…and it inspired me to get my own spiralizer for squash/zucchini so we can have pad thai noodles too! Wow. After we ate, the whole crew came out to the RV for an impromptu demo … along with the team from Dwell Smart, a green living store just next door. They have a huge variety of all kinds of green goodies. I could get lost in there for hours!

Mickey surprised us as we were leaving with a HUGE box of organic produce (apples, oranges, kale, celery, ginger, cucumbers, and more) and every kind of raw cookie, burger, desserts, crackers etc. that you can imagine. We are still eating the giant bin of flax crackers that he gave us…what an amazing blessing! To top it off, he gave us 2 travel mugs that are made from corn! We were so blown away by their generosity and kindness. Thank you to The Sprout team for fueling our bodies with delicious raw goodness and for spreading the raw love around the Charleston area. If you are nearby…go in and see them today!

Charleston was a blessing of abundance for us…abundant fellowship, abundant fun, and abundant FOOD! Thank you Eric, Kristi, and kiddos (and everyone else we met!) for being our “temporary neighbors”…and friends for life!

A rather large photo album here.