Hilton Head, SC

We started our vacation with 3 days in beautiful Hilton Head, SC.

Actually we started the road trip 2 days before. We took our time going out there mainly because we have been extremely tired and worn out, plus Ken was working while I was driving. I love that he has all sorts of technology to keep him connected while we were on the road, it sure does beat wasting a vacation day.

You can't beat unlimited hot cocoa from Denny's for breakfast. Especially when you want a whip cream mustache!


It was a nice, relaxing few days on the road. It was actually kind of fun to all be cramped together in the car again after all of the different camps and activities in June. My children really do travel well!

We stayed at a Marriott Vacation Club in Hilton Head. I forgot how much I loved these timeshare/hotels for vacationing with the kids. Every time we stay at one we always want to buy a timeshare. Then I realize that the cost of it plus the yearly maintenance fee would mean we needed to go every single year for the next 20 years to break even. But they really are nice.
We had a full kitchen. I bought pre-made cookie dough from the store and every night baked a few dozen, that was such a delicious treat to snack on as we played games.
We also had a living room and dining room.
Master Bedroom with a jacuzzi for two. Ken and I are still kicking ourselves for not slipping into that bathtub. Instead we read in bed. Still relaxing but we should have realized, when do we ever have a bath built for two??? It doesn't look like it in the picture, but we could literally sit side by side and stretch our legs completely out.
There was also a laundry and another bedroom with two bed for the kids. The room has a pull-out couch too, so really you can sleep 8 comfortably.
Sooooo, we broke yet another camera. We go through one every 12-18 months. We don't really mind replacing them so frequently but I was very disappointed because we had a ton of pictures on it from June. That was sad to lose. Anyway all the pictures from our Hilton Head trip are from my iphone.

After taking a break from the beach and swimming everyone came in hungry. I just had to take a picture of Rose because she devoured 3 servings of Cheerios just while she was waiting for us to get ready to go grocery shopping.
She was a hungry, but happy girl.
Ginger and everyone else went straight for the watermelon.

It was so nice to have the kitchen and eat a home cooked meal. It happened to be a Friday Night Dinner too, so it seemed more special. I don't know why because I make spaghetti and meatballs any day of the week when we were at home. Then again it was probably the first Friday we were all together in the last 4 weeks.

Ready to head out to the beach! Within hours of being at this resort the kids and Ken (me reluctantly too) all decided that they would rather go to the beach for a week for vacation then experience New York City like we had planned. We are totally beach bums! But for a busy family, like ours, it is nice to stay at a resort and just relax for a week.
Rose was acting a little different then normally. She spend most of our time there playing in the sand. Usually you can't drag that girl from the water.
It's like her and Ginger swapped places because Ginger couldn't get enough of the ocean or swimming in general. She loved it!
Especially the Boogie Boarding with Daddy and brothers!
This isn't a picture of it, but our last night in Hilton Head there was a storm coming in so there were alot more waves. The boys loved that last night a ton! They would have stayed out until midnight if we let them. As it was we didn't get back to the room until 10:30pm because they wanted to check out every single pool on the hotel property before going in.

This is the pool that our 3 1/2 year old Ginger learned to swim in! That girl amazes me, she can now dive under and swim 10 feet across the pool. This moment is my favorite memory of our trip to Hilton Head.

Ken, Darin, Nathan, and me formed a diamond about 8-10 ft away from each other in the shallow beach area of the pool. The water was probably 2.5 feet deep. Ginger would swim back and forth between all of us (rather fast I might add) and we would all cheer her on! It was literally like when she was learning to walk by taking her first stumbley steps between us, except this time it was swimming. Everyone was super eager and calling for her to swim to them and pretty much the second she let us scoop her up, she was clamoring away to swim to the next person. Ken and I would just look and each other from across the pool with huge smiles, and expressions of pride mixed with "Can you believe this is happening?"

It was a beautiful day, and I sorely wish our camera wasn't broken. At least I could get a picture off the website of the hotel's pool.
Another fun memory we have is of the boys catching all sorts of sea critters. Nathan has turned into a master hunter of those kinds of things. It doesn't matter what beach we go to, he inevitably finds something squirmy. This time he found a hermit crab. So did I, but I was floating in the ocean with the girls, felt something underfoot and picked it up. I started shrieking that is was a hermit crab and threw it at Ken to hold. More like chucked it at him, those things are creepy. And of course he didn't quite catch it since he was too busy watching me freak out. But Nathan ended up finally catching one for us. To the tune of $15! Years ago when he was scared to touch those suckers I tried to tempt him with $25 to catch one to show Rose. Now whenever they catch something they try to get me to pay them for it. I don't really mind because it is souvenir money I would give them anyways:-)

The boys also dug up quite a few clams. We thought they would have been much larger given the size of their air holes. But they were only the size of a pencil eraser. It would take a thousand to make a batch of clam chowder.

I've decided I need to do an Ocean Review now on all the places we visit. So here it is:

Sand Feel: Soft
Sand Color: Light Brown
Sandcastle Quality: Kind of clayish. It compacts very hard when wet. Like so hard it is difficult to build a castle.
Beach Cleanliness: No seaweed, small broken reeds when you first step on to beach. Other then that completely shoe free
Beach Depth: 150-200ft
Water Depth: about 100-120 ft in it is up to an adults chest
Water Clarity: Can only see about 12-15 inches deep
Waves: Very Gentle, no undertow. Can still boogey board.
Water Temp: Pretty Warm. Takes less then a minute to get used to the water.
Water Color: When overcast (most of our stay) dark gray with hints of blue. When sunny, lighter greyish blue.
People: Mostly families and multi-generational families. We saw a few weddings.