Gooood morning! (or afternoon or evening- whenever you may be reading this).

It’s a rainy day here, and my favorite days to blog are for sure rainy mornings. I’m ignoring my to-do list that is longer than it’s ever been, and giving myself one solid hour to write about & share our final day in Charleston, SC!

The morning of February 26th, Rach sent us a picture of Moose and Trotter. So cute how sleepy they both look. We were reassured knowing Moose was in the best of hands with her & I know he loved having his friend Trotter there.

We headed out right away to soak up the sunny morning.

We immediately went to Miller’s All Day for breakfast knowing there would be a heckuvah wait. It was about an hour and a half, so we decided to just walk around town and stop in shops to pass the time.

First stop- a Christmas store!

We usually don’t get souvenirs from the places we travel to, but we decided it would be fun to start collecting an ornament from each place we visit. This is the one we ended up getting!

The place the ghost tour started the night prior seemed like a neat little area of town, so we decided to explore it a little more in the daylight.

At Historic Charleston City Market, there were many vendors selling a sundry of artistic DIY creations. You could also find benne wafers just about every few feet!

When we were on our ghost tour, we noted Byrd’s had a sign displaying free cookie samples. As much as we were tempted to ditch the ghosts for some free samples, we resisted, but thankfully we made it back to enjoy some the following morning!

I tried a lemon one and a chocolate one. Since they are more crunchy cookies versus doughy, they would go wonderfully with some coffee! They had great flavor.

We were about due back for our reservation, so we started the walk back to Miller’s. I was ready to CHOW DOWN.

And we’re back!

We were seated immediately once we checked back in. How cute is this place.

I ordered a decaf coffee, and DJ had the nitro cold brew.

Now for the foooood. This was a brunch we will not forget!!

I had their frittata with eggs, grits, roasted veggies, whipped feta and mixed greens. I have stayed away from feta most of my pregnancy since it can be a risky cheese for listeria, but I made sure this was pasteurized- and the fact that it was heated up on top of the eggs made me feel better. It was phenYUMenal!

DJ had their signature fried chicken biscuit. I had one bite and was blown away by how good this was!! A must try. 

And we could not resist sharing a side of their waffle with sorghum, caramel and meringue. Every bite was heavenly. 

10/10 brunch!

Our big tourist stop on the agenda this day was visiting Magnolia Plantation & Gardens. Magnolia houses the oldest public gardens in America. I like this quote from their website to sum it up, “Unlike most of America’s gardens, which are formal and seek to control nature, Magnolia cooperates with nature to create a tranquil landscape like Eden where humanity and nature are in harmony”.

It was stunning & truly peaceful. We enjoyed every moment being out there. I only interrupted the tranquility about three times for a bladder break, but besides that it was wonderful in every way!

There was a Japanese garden with bamboo, many beautiful flowers on the different trails, quaint bridges, a garden maze and even a Biblical Garden amongst much more. I’ll just let the pictures tell the story here 🙂

And ya know I had to sneak in a bump pic somewhere!

DJ took the picture above with the bee-have to give him photo cred for that one!

I don’t even think we were there in peak blooming season, and it was still breathtaking. Of course, the pics cannot do justice!

After Magnolia, we decided to drive around to different areas of Charleston from Mount Pleasant to Sullivan’s Island to the beaches along Isle of Palms.

We then headed back to the Mansion to rest our feet a minute before dinner.

On the porch in the mansion around 5 pm, they serve hors d’oeuvres and wine for guests. I sampled a little bit of everything (minus the wine), but made sure to save my appetite for a great dinner we had planned.

We popped up to the Cupola one last time and then went back to the room to get ready for dinner.

We snagged a picture in front of the glorious stained glass mansion doors and then headed across the lawn to the restaurant on site, Circa 1886.

This meal was included in our babymoon package, and we wanted to make sure to save this for our last meal because we knew it was going to be a real treat.

This is one of the best meals we have ever had beginning to end – from the service to the food itself to all the creativity in between. It was a fun, romantic and delicious meal!

First, since the waitress knew we were on a babymoon, she immediately brought out a “Spirit Less Sippers” menu. I ordered the Faux-jito and DJ thought the menu looked so good, he ordered their Baby Burro. These were some yummy drinks to start out the evening!

We then enjoyed the bread and crystal salted butter- the best butter! Also, it was extremely dim in here (I loved it for the romantic atmosphere), but the quality of these pics leaves much to be desired, lol. Now the quality of the food did not.

Our waitress brought out this dish below as an amuse-bouche before we started our first course. I don’t remember exactly what it was, but I think some type of tasty potato puff and refreshing gazpacho.

The menu was quite unique in how it was set up. It had four categories to choose from: Tastes of Native Tribes, Influences from Europe, Flavors brought from Africa and South Carolina today. You could mix and match selections from each too. We tried a little bit from each section.

We started with the shrimp n’ rice grits- yum!

Next up we had their southern grilled cheese which included pimento cheese mousse, grilled brioche, surryano ham (I just took off the ham & gave it to DJ since I can’t have deli meat), paddlefish caviar and cured yolk powder. Probably needless to say, this was a grilled cheese unlike any we’ve had before.

We also tried the preserved rabbit. Neither of us have tried rabbit, so we thought why not give it a go. I very much enjoyed the flavor of this! It was flavorful and savory, not gamey like I had expected.

DJ had their venison, which was cooked to perfection. He raved about it.

I had their scallops which… as I sound like a broken record.. were very good.

I think my favorite part may have been the dessert. To start out dessert, they surprised us with alcohol-free champagne to toast one last time on our babymoon. It actually tasted like champagne too and was crisp and light- not too sugary at all.

While we sipped on our non-champagne-champagne, we indulged in the apple soufflé with hot toffee sauce and candied praline ice cream.  Divine. 

And a beautiful contrast to the rich soufflé was this west African milk tart with ginger sable, coconut cream sauce, pineapple mango sorbet and banana mousse. Each bite was an explosion of flavor.

I could not have imagined a better babymoon! This trip was a dream. I am so grateful we were able to find time to go & were able to make it happen.

We went back to the hotel, packed up for an early flight the next morning and grabbed as many z’s as we could before the alarm went off.

When we made it through security, it was about 6:30 AM. Priority number one- you guessed it, find some food. We passed a Cinnabon and DJ grabbed one for breakfast. I was excited about his selection because it meant I got to have a bite.

I stopped into Caviar & Bananas and grabbed a decaf coffee, a banana, a Siggi’s yogurt and a Go Macro bar for my breakfast.

I was focused on loading up the protein since I knew we probably wouldn’t get to stop for food again at our short layover- also I was somehow ravenous despite the big meal seemingly hours prior. Although, we did calculate that we had walked 16 miles in the two full days we were in Charleston- yes, 16! No wonder I was extra hungry that morning.

We could not wait to get back to see Moose. It was tough being away from him for a whole weekend. When we walked through the door he gave us all the love, kisses and cuddles and stayed by our sides the rest of the day. He does this usually though, so it’s hard to gauge just how much he really missed us, hah.

Thank you for reading & following along on our Charleston babymoon! If you want to read part one and part two, I’ve linked them here 🙂

Question for you: 

• Do you collect anything from the places you travel?

Have a great weekend, friends!

<3,

Mackenzie