Hilton Head 2011

Corey

Nate

Uncle Jason's castle

Aly and Grandpa

Aly and Maddy

Auntie Lola, Aly and Meme

Aly and Daddy

Some things never change

All the Grand Kids

Maddy and Aly in there matching shirts

All the kids at the boat house for brunch

As usual, all the planning and excitement and the week of vacation flys by. We had a blast though. This year we were at Hilton Head Island. I personally like Hilton head the most, its close and its so pretty.

Aly did really well in the car. We left Friday morning around 10:00 am hoping that she would nap around 12 and then when she woke up we would only have an hour or so left. Well that didn’t happen, she only slept for about 45 mins but she did really well.

We went to the beach Saturday morning and I was amazed at how much Aly loved it. She was a little weirded out by the sand at first but as long as she had her beach shoes on she was good to go (which we lost one in the ocean on the last day). She loved standing in the waves and letting them crash into her. I think by the 3^rd day she was sitting in the sand playing with buckets and shovels just like a pro. Maddy made her several swimming pools closer up to the “camp” which I think she really enjoyed. We only made it to the pool one afternoon and she wasn’t thrilled at first and wanted to go back to the beach but after a little bit of encouragement from Maddy, Austin and Ebit she did just fine. She appears to have no fear when it comes to water. One afternoon when the tide was coming in JV took Aly out in the waves in her pink fish tube and she was loving it. So the next day we tried it again. The waves were a good bit rougher and the Lifeguard wasn’t a big fan of us having her out there in that so we came in, she wasn’t happy about that. She also really enjoyed putting sand in the buckets and dumping it out again, she found that really entertaining.

We ate lots of great food. My favorite was the crab cakes and creamy grits at Low country back yard. I’m pretty sure JV”s was the brunch at the boat house. We always enjoy watching them move the boats in and out of the boat house and Aly really did this year too!!!

On Saturday we attempted to take Aly up to the room for a nap around 2:00 and quickly realized that wasn’t going to happen so we quit trying. She didn’t seem to miss a beat when we were at the beach so we just put her to bed a little early and all enjoyed the beach time.

On Wednesday night JV and I went to dinner with John and Alice and all the kids stayed home with the other adults and they put Aly to bed for us so we could have some quite time. We quickly realized that vacation with a 2 year old was not at all what vacation use to be, so it was nice to have a break for a bit. All the siblings went out for dinner one night as well, and Grammy and Grandpa kept all the kids. We tried to go to 3 different places and ended up at a Mexican restaurant, but it was really good. We are so lucky to have all the wonderful help with Aly that we do and lucky that they don't mind watching the same 4 episodes of Dora the explorer every day!

The week went by really fast like it always does but we packed up and headed home Friday morning. It was really nice to have the rest of the weekend to recover at home. The ride home was a little rougher with peanut. About 10 mins down the road she started wanting out. I ended up sitting the back with her most of the time, but luckily it’s only about a 5 hour drive. Overall it was a great trip. I think this might be the first year I didn’t get crazy sunburned, yeah me!!! We are already excited about beach vacation next year!