For our vacation this year, we went with Griff and Barb to a vacation house in Hilton Head. Making the trip with us were Scott, Gwen and Brayden and also Justin. Our first flight was to Charlotte, North Carolina. We then we got on a smaller plane to Hilton Head Island.
Eating lunch in Charlotte while we waited for our next flight.
After renting cars, we headed for our beach house. At the beach house, the first thing we did was walk out the back door to check out our private beach. When we turned around, we saw the outside of our house. It was AWESOME. To see the YouTube Vacation Home Walkthrough video of the vacation house, click on the link.
Every day, the family swam in the swimming pool. Brayden loved swimming in the pool with his raft.
One day we were visited by a dolphin who allowed us to feed her. She also did a few tricks.
Occasionally Jay would make up a pool game. However, since no one else is really a game person, they usually ended badly.
We went for a bike ride several days throughout our vacation.
One day while riding our bikes along a trail, we came across an area where there were thousands of small crabs. It was fun watching them scurry across the ground and hide in the holes when we got close.
Our family likes to eat. Almost every night we checked out different restaurants in the area. The food was so good!
As a family we did do a few activities together. One night we played mini golf and had a lot of fun. The ladies had a hard time playing because Brayden would chase down the balls with his plastic club and also put them in his pocket.
Another day the men went to the disc golf course that they played at least year. However, this year it was being renovated so they had to make up their own holes. They still had a lot of fun.
Jay’s highlight of the vacation was swimming in a 50 foot wide canal as the tide went out. It is a bit hard to explain so Jay took a video.
The family dropped their doughnuts and boogie boards upstream and coasted out with the tide. Most of the family got bored of doing this after about an hour and a half. However, Jay and Griff continued to enjoy themselves until the water got so low that they could not do it anymore. They probably spent about 4-5 hours in the water. They came back to the house sunburned and tired, but they had a blast.
Like last year, Jay would walk out along the ocean and look for stingrays in the water. One day he came back and said that he saw a couple of stingrays. Barb did not believe him so they went out together to look for some more. They came back about an hour later with a funny story. Jay was looking for stingrays about 15 feet in the ocean and Barb was looking for them on the shore. After about 10 minutes of looking and Jay telling Barb what she should be looking for, she saw a stingray, pointed into the water and yelled out, “JAY LOOK!” Since Jay is TERRIFIED of the ocean, he immediately ran high stepping back onto the shore. Barb said that he made it back on shore in about 1 second. When Jay was safe on the shore, he explained to Barb that when she yelled, he instantly thought that she had seen a shark. Jay told Barb that if she did see a stingray she just needed to calmly point and tell him. With their communication cleared up, they looked for about a half an hour more and spotted 5 stingrays.
Our vacation was very relaxing and we really enjoyed ourselves. Our only disappointment was that we did not get a photo of all the family together. Justin and Scott left two days before the rest of us (lack of vacation days), and the only family photo that we have was taken after they left. However, with the magic of Photoshop, Jay added them to this photo.
Thanks Griff and Barb for another wonderful vacation!