Our Family

Our Family

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Hilton Head, SC – Labor Day weekend

For the labor day weekend – we enjoyed what has become an annual trip to Hilton Head Island in SC.  Ty was a little sad to miss his 3rd day of school (yes he is keeping track of his days), but was also very excited to return to Hilton Head and play on the beach.  The last time we were in Hilton Head he asked to get a “double decker” bike as he called it where he could ride behind one of us and pedal.  We planned to rent bikes when we arrived. 
This was our first visit where we stayed right on the beach.  It was very nice to just walk right out to the beach from our hotel.  We arrived early evening and after checking into the hotel, went out to get dinner.  We tried a new location called Remy’s.  We are not big fans of buffets, but we decided to try their seafood buffet which had a nice selection of shrimp prepared multiple ways as well as other seafood options.  Ty and Kylan ate down fried tilapa like it was chicken nuggets.  Kylan actually enjoyed visiting with our waitress and even went up to her and asked her to hold him.  Our little boy is beginning to take on Ty’s friendliness trait.
After dinner we returned to our hotel.  We had promised the boys we would see the beach that night, so we walked out to the beach to take an evening walk before bed.  We should have put the boys in swimsuits.  Both Ty and Kylan headed straight for the ocean and right into the water fully dressed.  They were both soaked in minutes and eventually, Ty just started to dive into the water.  Unfortunately, I did not have my camera with me on this occasion and missed documenting our soaking wet boys.  As we returned to our hotel room, Ty noted music coming out of fake rocks (speakers) along the side walk and exclaimed "Hey look, rock music!" 
Saturday, the boys woke us up requesting to go to the beach.  This time we got them prepared properly in swimsuits.  We were on the beach by 8:30 AM.   Oddly, Kylan was a little shy of the water that morning, but after about  30 minutes he finally warmed up and enjoyed playing in the wet sand and with the water. 
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Ty immediately found some shells and requested I take a picture of him with his seashell (which was thrown in the air and lost right after the picture).
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A sand dollar hit my foot as we were standing in the ocean, so I pulled it out to show Ty.  He wanted to take it to show dad. 
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On all of our morning visits to the beach, we came across many starfish on the beach. 
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The first one we found, Ty enjoyed observing the starfish move its tiny feet on the bottom and then setting it back on the beach to observe it’s movements as water came up on the sand. 
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Kylan even was interested in checking out the starfish and touching it. 
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After a few minutes of observation, Ty was ready to put the starfish in the ocean.  We explained that if the starfish didn’t get back to the water it would die.  So Ty’s mission was to make sure any starfish left on the beach got put back into the ocean.
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Kylan enjoyed sitting with Dad for a while at the edge of where the tide was coming in so that the water would just barely wash under him.
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Ty begin digging in the sand behind Kylan and Dad and eventually dug his own little water pool. 
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It was not big enough for the two of them, Ty proceeded to dig a larger area. 
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That is when I remembered our beach toys.  Ty walked with me to gather the beach tools to help him dig.
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Ty enjoyed making his pool bigger – into a dog bone shape as he observed.  Kylan enjoyed walking through it and Chris decided to pack sand to make a wall. 
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Kylan enjoys leading himself through his own little “sprints”.  He will coach himself to start by saying, “Ready, set (sometimes), Go” and then run a certain distance, turn around and start over again to return the same distance.  He decided to do his “sprints” at the beach as well.
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Eventually – we made it back into the water for some splash time before we left for the morning. 
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For lunch, we biked to Mellow Mushroom.  Ty was so excited about the tag along bike.  He enjoyed telling anyone we passed who would listen about his new bike.  We had to keep explaining that we were only borrowing the bike during our trip. 
Sunday, we planned a full morning – bike on the beach, play on the beach, bike to the lighthouse and lunch in Harbortown.  Ty thought biking on the beach was pretty cool.
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Kylan enjoyed standing where the waves would come and hit him.
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Ty enjoyed jumping/diving through the water as the waves came by. 
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Chris taught him how to jump with the waves – so he could body surf in.  Ty quickly caught on to this and loved it. 
After the boys had enough of the water, we climbed back on our bikes and headed into Sea Pines to Harbortown to see the Lighthouse.  Kylan insisted on climbing 108 of the 114 stairs  - he made it all the way, but the last 6 stairs at the top. 
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After enjoying the view from the top, the boys were ready for lunch.  We enjoyed lunch at Truffles Cafe – one of our favorites.  Even though we were full from lunch, we indulged in their oreo pie (oreo crust, oreo ice cream, oreos stuck on top with chocolate syrup).  It was quite good, and the four of us enjoyed it.  It was nice that we had a decent bike ride (~5-7  miles) back to our hotel. Ty enjoyed being "faster" than Dad and Kylan and encouraged me to make sure Dad did not catch us.  Ty did a great job pedaling for the majority of the time we biked.  Near our hotel is some large ponds with alligators.  As we passed them on this occassion we spotted an alligator sitting in the water.  We stopped to observe it for a few minutes.  Then continued toward our hotel.  We had gotten ahead of Chris and so he was out of view a few minutes later, Ty exclaimed, "See you later alligator."  When I commented that we had lost dad, he replied, "No mom, I was just saying goodbye to the aligator." 
After a couple hours rest, we returned to the beach for some evening play time. 
Here are some family pictures we got our last morning
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