Our "Spring Break" Outing

Well, this week is Spring Break in our town but it really doesn't apply to us. However, since my mom was visiting her sister in Atlanta for the week, I thought it would be fun to spend some time with my dad on Wednesday (his day off during the week since he works on Saturdays).

Philip and I drove over to his house at 4:00pm to pick him up and head to our park. I thoroughly appreciated my dad being there! I sat my 8-month pregnant self down on the bench and watched Philip and Papa explore the playground equipment. I think they both had a lot of fun and Dad even encouraged Philip to go down the really big twisty slide only to slide down it himself too.

After about an hour at the park, we drove back to my house to meet Matthew before heading to the world famous Beacon for dinner. The Beacon is a Spartanburg landmark which Dad had mentioned wanting to try sometime. As it's a restaurant known for greasy food, I thought this would be a great time to take him as I don't know if Mom's system could handle it just yet.

The Beacon has been featured on Food Network before because it's a diner-type place that has been open for more than 50 years. Other than the huge amount of food you get (chili cheese hamburgers covered over by piles of french fries and onion rings!), the place is known for J.C., the man who stands at the counter and calls out every order to the people getting the food together. There's no way to describe his voice other than I have no idea what he is saying and no idea how he can scream out orders all day like that and he's been doing it for 50+ years! Philip kept looking down the counter at him with a very curious look on his face.

After we moved on down the counter to the man who hands you the food, he said to me, "I'm mad at you." All I said was, "What did I do?" He said, "You didn't order that baby anything," and slide a small plate of dill pickle slices on my tray. I discovered another of The Beacon's traditions that day -- a plate of pickles for all pregnant women! Funny. Philip and I enjoyed them.