Hilton Head Island, SC - Vacation

This year we went to Hilton Head Island, SC for vacation...very spur of the moment I might add (we decided to go 4 weeks ago). We had a good time but not impressed enough to go back again. I had been before but Duffer hadn't and after going to the Gulf last year it was disappointing. I waited until the final day we were there to do our family pictures and had the PERFECT spot picked out and of course it rained all day! So our family pictures were taken inside by the pool area. :(

The tri-pod I have had for years definitely comes in handy though!

Here is our one good family photo we got...there is a water fountain behind us although you can't tell in the picture.

Another self portrait of us taken by Duffer from the top of the lighthouse.

All of us back in Harbourtown...we went back in the daytime (on one of the chilly windy days) so we could go up in the lighthouse. If you look closely, you can see that Rylee is sound asleep but I still made sure she was included in the picture!

Duffer took this of us all at Rita's Lemonade stand (it actually sells ice cream) but we went there about 4 times because I was addicted to the Italian ices they had in a zillion flavors!

Even Rylee had some fun on the boogie board.

WIPEOUT!!!!

The boys had hours of fun on their boogie boards.

If you click on this picture and make it bigger you can see all the thousands (and I am not eggagerating) of baby crabs that were under the boardwalk. They were everywhere! It was the CUTEST thing to hear Rylee say "Baby Crabs!"

This is the 'short' boardwalk that the condo advertised as the walk to the beach and only half of it was showing! It was about a half a mile walk to the beach everyday! We borrowed Cassie's beach cart but we had so much junk by the end of the week (sand toys, boogie boards, etc.) that we bought our own cart so we were trotting down through there with TWO carts!

We had just gotten back in the vehicle from eating dinner at the Wild Wing Cafe. We couldn't figure out why Rylee wouldn't eat anything and then as soon as she stood up, she threw up all over herself! Typical beach trip...remember last year?? She threw up once a day for the first five days!!! She was fine after that and was never sick again so who knows...

Since everyone was cold, we headed to the indoor pool.

This was another hazy day and when we were eating, it was so breezy that the kids were cold!

We ate lunch at Coco's on the Beach at the end of the boardwalk leading to our resort. It was good but expensive but it was just too far to go back to the condo.

Here is Rylee and me - can you guess what she had for dinner? Spaghetti!

Davis and Jett eating at the Salty Dog Cafe. This was the night of the hellacious thunderstorm that killed the 22-year-old son that was walking back from the beach with his mom. It happened not far from our resort...SCARY!!!

Here are our collection of starfishes that we found. That is the coolest thing I learned to do on this vacation was to find starfish and dive for them. I never knew you could find so many like that. Also I had NO clue those suckers were alive either!! I have to be the most sheltered human on the planet. Duffer gave me one and it was wiggling all around and I almost died. So I found them and Duffer dove for them and held them! I finally started doing it myself but I wouldn't hold them for long at all. Don't care for things that wiggle! We collected and brought home about 14 of these and they are smelling great right about now but we are going to bleach them out and save them. Oh yeah and that is Davis' crab he found in there. He mysteriously got left behind. ;)

Here is Rylee playing with the starfish I found. I picked it up and took it to Duffer and then I realized it was wiggling! Yuck! He was shocked that I even picked it up!

We saw this little guy while we waited by the lagoon for the shuttle to the beach. There were more swimming in the lagoon and they were so cute because only their little heads stuck up out of the water! As most of you know this trip was all about turtles!

When Rylee decided to sit down in the water and sand in her clothes we decided to call it a night. The next day I read that it is the state law of SC that all artificial light is banned after 10pm until morning because Loggerhead turtles (which are endangered species) come up on the beach at night and lay their eggs. If we had been caught with our flashlights we could have been issued some major fines!! Oops!!

When we went crab hunting this little fellow was the only one we saw. (If you click on this picture also you will see him better.)

Shopping around in Harbourtown...

This was our first full day at the beach and the weather was hazy and over cast all day. The kids didn't seem to mind but it did nothing for my sunbathing effort!