Funky Town Part I

I am ILL.  I posted a lengthy blog two days ago and Blogger deleted it when I tried to save it.  UGH!!!!

Instead of rewriting the blog immediately, I started visiting my some of my favorite other blogs and realized 2 things:

1.  Their blogs are really popular.

2.  Their blog posts are really short.  (compared to mine)

So, realizing fully that our blog is not interesting enough to become 'popular', but also realizing that our sweet family members do take the time to read it, I'll try to keep things short and sweet. 

And maybe a little more frequent. 

So, moving on...

Today's topic is....

Bluffton is the name of the town we live in.  It's in South Carolina.  It's small.  And outside of an occasional "Man I wish we had a Bojangles" comment here or there, we feel that Bluffton really offers so much for our little family.  For some reason (we know the reason, it's just too long to tell), our boys refer to the downtown area of Bluffton as "Funky Town".  I understand you may not care to learn about Bluffton, but for those who read this blog and want to know what we enjoy doing, it would be a crime to leave Funky Town off of the list.  

Downtown Bluffton is about 3 minutes from our house.  I don't know where it technically begins or ends, but the good stuff is on about 2 or 3 streets.  There are several stores: gift shops, art galleries, restaurants, thrift stores, a clothing store, children's book stores, the most beautiful little church you've ever seen that sits on the May River and other a few other random places.  We usually park at John's office and walk the length of Calhoun Street, browsing, buying and hopefully not stealing. (another story for another blog)

I'll start with one store and see how it goes...

First up:

SPROUTS

Sprouts falls into the gift store category.  It's near and dear to my heart because the owner, Dana, (yes, it's like Cheers around here...everybody knows your name) took a chance on me and has some of my artwork in there!  The Bluffton sign above is one of several different things she has in there.  Thanks, Dana!  Sprouts carries awesome jewelry, housewares and enough fun children's items to keep the boys busy while I spend more money than what I just made from my sold art piece.

Here's a peek inside:

Another view.  See that window there in the center?  Just on the other side of it....

was this little boy.  I found him one day and took him home with me.

Finley+Tire Swing = Happy Finley

Put this in your memory bank.  If you know Finn, then you're aware that he has earned his nickname as 'Grumpy Gus'.  If you ever have to babysit Finley, it would be in your best interest to have a tire swing near by.  In fact, buy one.  Or buy two in case the first one goes out.  Don't worry about Finn.  We know it's a phase of three year old crankies.  But until this blessed phase ends, we're living in this jungle gym outside of Sprouts.

And this is just a cool old truck that stays parked outside of Sprouts on occasion.  It's very near the location where the New Year's Eve crab dropping was.  No, not a large pile of celebratory crab dung, but think Times Square ball drop minus the thousands of people, huge Diddy billboards, and police officers.  And instead of the ball, picture a much smaller crab cut out dropping from a 20 foot metal pole.  

And that's Funky Town!

More on Funky Town later.