Born in the SEC...Bred for UT: Beach Trip Continued

Hilton Head Island

August 1st - 8th

I should apologize in advance for this post because there are LOTS of pictures that look almost identical. I honestly couldn't pick my favorites...but sadly, this is extremely narrowed down from the ~~hundreds~~ thousands I took!

During our drive to Savannah we watched the sunset which led to a discussion about sunrise/sunset over the water on either side of Florida. We decided we would set an alarm and wake up one morning in time to watch the sunrise on the beach. Unfortunately, we picked an overcast morning so we didn't get to experience a true sunrise, however I love how the pictures turned out!

At one point the sunlight made a perfect line line down the water and the beach where it was peaking through the clouds. It was so beautiful! My photography leaves a lot to be desired, but you can see the line right at the horizon.

After the non-sunrise experience we hopped on our bikes and rode to breakfast.

Miller definitely had the best bike situation all week- he was in the trailer! Our initial plan was for Brent to pull the trailer, but he broke his wrist the second day at the beach and so I ended up pulling Miller most of the trip. Brent managed to ride his bike one armed. Between both of our handicaps (Miller only weighs 32 lbs, but that trailer must have been 100 lbs!), we struggled to keep up with Mary Grace who was on her own!

Breakfast view of the harbor

One night we went to Shelter Cove to check out the new ice cream shop and watch the fireworks.

Miller, Mary Grace and Linley

These two just adore each other!

Mary Grace and Blair

All of the kids got kazoos that night (Miller has his in his mouth in this picture)...that was REALLY fun the rest of the trip.

Mary Grace set up a manicure/pedicure station on the beach.

Mimzie was a good sport!

This picture makes me laugh for several reasons (plus it's a good memory!)-

Cole, Mary Grace and Blair tried a thousand times to get a picture of the 3 of them "dolphin diving" in the pool at the same time. This was the result. Every.Single.Time.

This picture is a perfect representation of their personalities-

Cole, the perfectionist. He's doing fabulous form and clearly on the exact right timing.

Mary Grace, the competitive one. First in the water, ahead of the group in EVERY picture.

Blair, the social one. She's still standing on the side talking about what they were going to do.

Heading to the beach!

Linley, Blair, Miller and Mary Grace

(Owen and Cole are in very few beach pictures because they never got out of the ocean! They had the best time riding the waves!)

This summer has been the summer of shark attacks up and down the Carolina coast. Most of our friends who have gone to the beach have had a no-ocean-swimming policy. Brent and I talked about it ahead of time and we decided that Mary Grace and Miller could play in the water between the sand and where the waves break (roughly mid-thigh deep), but if they wanted to go in any further they needed to be with Brent. This was really not that big of a deal because they don't really care about ocean swimming anyways (and I have NEVER been a fan of being far out!)

Mary Grace is obsessed with sharks though. She watched every shark week show at least twice and she has absolutely no fear of them. I decided it would be a good idea to talk to the kids about the possibility of sharks- not to scare them, but so that they would be educated and act responsibly. I was honestly more afraid that Mary Grace would stay in the water if someone yelled "shark" because she'd want to see it!

Well, then Brent broke his wrist so it wasn't really possible for him to take the kids in the ocean. Neither Mary Grace nor Miller complained or even asked to go in. But on Thursday some of the other kids and adults talked them both into going out in the water past the waves. They rode a few waves and then went back to sandcastle building.

About 5 minutes later we heard a lifeguard frantically blowing his whistle and waving everyone out of the water. Assuming it was a shark, Mary Grace asked if we could go talk to the lifeguard to find out. We walked down the beach and the lifeguard said that he'd seen a 3 foot Blacktip shark swimming about 15 feet off shore near a group of people. Mary Grace looked at the lifeguard and said "well, blacktips like to hunt in packs so there's probably more than one." Ha!

Although that ended up being the only shark excitement for the week, I was very happy to have these two close to the shore. And they could not have been happier either!

We didn't take any official family beach pictures this year, but I tried to snap a few cute ones on our way out for a bike ride on the beach one evening.

We rode our bikes about 2 miles down the beach to the end of the island. It's a very deserted beach (human-wise), but apparently home to millions of seagulls!

I am NOT a big fan of birds, but Mary Grace thought it was so fun to run into the whole flock. It's a miracle she didn't get pooped on!

After we took this picture we hopped on our bikes to head home only to realize the strong wind made it impossible. Maybe if I wasn't pulling the trailer or if Brent had 2 arms we could have done it, but there was absolutely no way! Our only option was to ride further away from the house until we came to a path leading to houses and the main road.