June 29th, alarm goes off and we are up. No problem waking the kids up, I think they were sleeping with one eye open all night. They woke up full of smiles, grabbed their pillows, ran down the stairs, shoveled in their breakfast, went to the bathroom and were in the car buckled ready to go at 4:56am. I finished grabbing last minute things, phone chargers, my pillow, my book (like I would have time to read and relax), my laptop etc. I am in the car and ready at 4:59am. So we are all in the car ready to go, except Jacques. One would think that it wouldn't take long just to get yourself in the car, keep in mind I packed everything the night/day before. All he had to do was remember himself and get in the car. ( hehe sorry Jacques) Well, last minute he decided that he wanted to bring the fishing equipment. So we all sit in the car while he get's the fishing poles. Of course they need to be tied down on the top of the car, but where are those extra tie downs?? That wasn't so bad but then he forgot where he put the tackle box, so we wait again. . . no it didn't take "that" long but when the kids have been waiting for 98 days and in the car ready to go...the minutes seem like hours..... But finally at 5:11am we are ALL ready and pull out of the driveway..... and in the end it did not affect of ETA, we arrived at noon, right as scheduled.
We are lucky that we got our kids accustomed to road trips early on in life. They are all star road trippers. We made it over 5 hours for our first leg of the trip with out stopping. Made a quick stop for gas, potty break and back in the car. Next leg of the trip we made 3 1/2 hours, fueled up, pulled out their lunches, which I packed the day before, and we are off again. Point being, we are an efficient road tripping family- We made the 22 hour drive in 27 hours. That includes a 3 1/2 hour sleep break for myself and Jacques. Even though we are awesome road trippers and actually enjoy it we were still so excited to pull into our condo and see the ocean!!
We spent the majority of our trip at the pool and walking the beach looking for treasures, aka starfish, sand dollars, shells, crabs etc. We went crabbing a few times, got a lot on the lines but never was able to net any. Never did do any fishing, after all that last minute packing of the fishing stuff. Oh well. The kids loved the pool and made leaps and bounds with their swimming skills. We walked around Caligny Plaza, the shopping/dining/entertainment area on HHI. It was almost too hot to do anything but be in the water so some of our "other activities" were put aside. We enjoyed going out to dinner a few times (5 actually) since we rarely do that at home. Saw a band, magician and went alligator searching. Finding only one alligator in the water about 20 yards from us. Still pretty cool. The highlight of the trip for Jacques and myself was the dolphin cruise. We took a smaller boat with just 4 other people out for 2 hours in search of dolphins. We saw many dolphins, got a great tour and got a good speed ride at the end. Lucky we had a good captain. He let all the kids take a turn driving the boat. Best quote of the trip came from Tori on the cruise, "I don't' see what the big deal is about these dolphins." The entire boat and the captain all got a good laugh out of it. The kids' highlight was probably meeting new friends (who are now pen pals) and the pool time. The 7 nights, 8 days went by so so fast.
The ride home went as smoothly as the ride there. We actually managed to make better time. Kids were so excited to see the pets and Grandma (who was pet/house/garden sitting). We unpacked the car, checked the garden and updated Grandma on the trip!
The kids are ready to see where we pick to go next year- We are hoping to take the kids to the Florida Keys but we'll see.... another trip to Hilton Head Island isn't out the running either. Time to plan. And we all know, planning and anticipation can be one of the best parts of the trip!
~It's My Life~
