Off to Florida!

It was a busy weekend getting ready to leave South Carolina! We really liked our home here and are feeling kinda sad to leave it!

Friday was the last day of school here and immediately after, school tubs were packed up. Saturday was packing day for all as well as some initial cleaning. Sunday was church day, the Sabbath, and then Monday was clean clean clean! I loaded up the van and we be tired, but ready to go.

Tuesday. Oh what a long day today has been! A long, 8.5 hour drive that took an extra hour or so due to rush hour traffic through Orlando! But we made it!

The sign next to the road also had a sign that said "No stopping. You may take pictures at the Welcome Center." So, that's what we did! ...after we stopped to read the sign that said "No stopping." Oops! One cool thing -- we got free tastes of Florida Orange Juice at the welcome center!

The most amazing feature of our new place! Sliding doors that open wide. ...oh, and yeah, there's a swimming pool too.

Our Final South Carolina Field Trip

The girls had their final Young Women / Activity Days church activities yesterday. The younger girls had a manners dinner. They claimed they knew all that stuff already. ....mmmm hmmm. Iiiinteresting that. I told them I hope to see them use it at home! 😂 Actually, they're pretty good mannered girls at the table... mostly.

A candid moment around the table.

While our Utah friends are getting pounded with snow. I thought it was a good time to share how balmy Surfside Beach suddenly feels. Brutal, I know!

For our last field trip here, we made it again to the Columbia temple. It's a little over 2.5 hours one way, but way worth the trip! Amy did baptisms for the dead again. I had the chance to do some sealing ordinances while Bonnie did some initiatory ordinances.

Dunno why it turned out blurry, but otherwise it's a good pic of us all!

And this picture of Eliza is just gorgeous to me!

Oldtown Bluffton and Hilton Head

Today (Mon 4-Feb) was a vacation day. I know, that seems weird because aren't we already on a massive vacation?! But today we wanted the feel of a vacation day, not a normal life day. So we did!

We had discovered this cute bookstore online and found they did a story time at 10am, so that was the first item on the list.

A charming children's bookstore that we loved! Wendy who we met works both here and at the local library. We quickly became friends--I wish I had a pic of her to post here, but she's the one leading the activity in the Youtube video.

From there we wanted to see Bluffton a little, but we were also getting hungry! We... spent a good while in that bookstore. :-) To our delight as we began driving, we found that we were already right in the middle of downtown old-town Bluffton! We parked only a couple blocks away from the book shop and began walking around looking for a place to eat.

This BBQ place looked good, but as you can see "What dis mean is, we ain't open on Sunny, Muny, or Tewsday!"

We found a taco / burrito place that was delicious and not exorbitantly priced. 

Then we found an ice cream shop that was delicious and was exorbitantly priced! While we enjoyed our scoops, Bonnie drove around a little more to see a bit more of Bluffton.

It was a nice day, a little chili but not bad, and the kids were eager to get back so we could have some pool and beach time! 

It's a lovely pool, but it's not heated and was quite cold. It didn't stop them, but it did slow them down. They weren't frolicking and playing in the pool as they often do.

Soon we were on to the beach.

Hilton Head beach is gorgeous! Lots of long, flat, unobstructed sand!

Burying themselves in the sand

No idea what this is. Dead jellyfish? Sting-ray? It looked like a big gloop of clear sliminess. A bird pulled at it a little but didn't pierce it. Any guesses?

The Super Bowl...Sundae?

After church today we took a stroll around a park the Dixons told us about where we might see some alligators.

We found one! Can you see it?

It was a beautiful lake and park with a variety of wildlife.

Alligator meat, anyone? We didn't see anything near this large.

Our Airbnb here on Hilton head is a one bed, one bath, rather cramped little studio apartment. We were beginning to go crazy! So we went out for another walk on the beach. It's a bit chili, but I can see how appealing this beach would be! Soft sand, long and shallow. Mmmmhmmmm! Yummy!

I think Rebekah kinda looks like a penguin in this pic! If only she'd have worn a black dress!

And of course, today is the Super Bowl, so we celebrated in style. A shout-out thanks to our friends the Durrans who introduced us to this wonderful tradition!

A half gallon anyone? Now that's a Super Bowl!

Unfortunately we didn't bring or think to get toppings so it wasn't a complete Super Bowl Sundae, but we're good with it!

A Spontaneous Trip

Today is the first Saturday in February. Do you know what that means?! I'll tell you. National Ice Cream For Breakfast Day!!!! And surprisingly to all, I'm sure, we decided to celebrate it in full!

The kids didn't seem to mind

Nope, didn't mind at all!

After breakfast it was work, work, work! We needed to get ready! We arranged to visit some dear friends that live in Bluffton, about four hours south and right near Hilton Head. 

These cuties "working" to get ready to go

Knowing we'd want to spend as much time as we could, we weren't--well, okay, Bonnie especially wasn't--excited about a four hour drive back late at night. So we decided to get an Airbnb and stay for church. Then as we thought about it, we decided to stay all of Sunday so we could drive around and see the area a little... then we decided we'd want to play a bit too, so we extended it through Monday as well! All of a sudden, we're staying at a condo on the beach in Hilton Head for a three day weekend!

We arrived at Craig & Trisha Dixon's home around 4:30 in the afternoon and quickly headed out to their community lake for some kayaking! It turns out, swimming is discouraged in this lake as it is wild alligator territory. You know, no biggie. We'll just kayak on it instead! Unfortunately, we saw no alligators. 

Look which cuties I got to share my kayak with!

The community beach--fenced to keep the gators out!

Heading back to their home, the sunset coming through the trees was stunning!

The Dixons prepared a fantastic, low-country dinner for us!

They took the pot and dumped it out right onto the table: a marvelous dinner of crab legs, shrimp, corn on the cob, potatoes, and sausage.

Selfie of a selfie, anyone? Thought I got away with it, but Rebekah busted me!

We chatted for a good while this evening. I challenged Craig to a game of Ping Pong and had my hat handed to me twice! The kids played and played. They were sad when it was time to go.

Ben & Ben playing.

Our kids loved theirs. In the car on the way to our Airbnb, we asked them what they liked about Ben & Nat and if that's the kind of teens they wanted to be when they grew older. They emphatically said yes! So we talked about what decisions they'd need to make to become like that.

Thank you Dixons for your friendship, your hospitality, and the wonderful example of your children! We appreciate you so very much!

An Unexpected Trip to Raleigh

Our plans changed today (Thu, 31-Jan). We intended to get ourselves down to Charleston to hit a last couple places on our Museum Mile passes. Unfortunately, we realized our passes are in our diaper bag which I accidentally left at the church building. Doh! What to do?

We originally had planned to go to Raleigh to visit the temple there. As per usual, we planned to take turns at the temple while the other was with the kids at a fun, and hopefully free with our passes, children's museum. However, we learned that the temple there is closed for renovation and thus decided to nix a trip up to Raleigh altogether.

Well, with our Charleston plans foiled, we decided to head north to Raleigh anyway because Bonnie said the children's museum she found there looked really good. Boy was she right!

It's called the Marlbes Museum. Their website is here: https://www.marbleskidsmuseum.org/

Bonnie found the rules for Sjoelbak online and we played around. We tied!

 

We also played around of Mancala and Giant Connect 4. Bonnie toasted me in Mancala, and we each won one round of Connect 4.

You're upside down. No, you're upside down!

Eliza and Mom playing in the Lego house they built

Hula-hoop around the world, anyone?

If you're ever in the Raleigh area, I highly recommend this museum! It wasn't quite as large or impressive as the McWane science center in AL, but it's still a place to easily and enjoyably spend an entire day!

A Fun Recess

Wed, 30-Jan. Yesterday we planned to go to Charleston but we got to bed late the night before and multiple kids had us up in the night. When we woke up to our alarms, we decided no thanks! Then going to bed last night, Bonnie felt impressed not to go today either, as we had planned. So we had a regular school day and after, I took the girls out for some play.

We learned from our friends the Dykes that many resorts don't care right now if people use their swimming pools. It's off season and it's not really a concern. So we went to one that highly advertised their pools and had a great time. At first we were the only one's there. In time, a Mom with her 3yo son arrived and Benjo found a playmate. A few others came later, but that was it. We played for a couple hours!

Amy playing in the lazy river

The largest pool with a big cool fountain

Beach Sunset as we were leaving

We went straight from swimming to drop of Amy at the church for her weekly Young Women's activity. Crazy that she's that age now, but I'm proud of her growth and development.

I dropped the other kids off back at home, scarfed some dinner, went back and picked up Amy, and got some Bluebell on the way home. Because ice cream. Obviously.

Medieval Times

When I looked into ideas for my birthday, I planned an evening at Medieval times. I've only been once, in California, when I was young--maybe 8 or 9? I still remember we were cheering for the Red & Yellow Knight when I went! (Assigned by seating.) It's... not cheap! But what a great show! The kids loved it as did I. Bonnie spent the time texting on her phone--she couldn't have been more bored. LoL!

At the castle entrance

A pre-activity for kids. They got to do some knight-training.

The Knights in their horses. This time we were cheering the Blue Knight

Our Blue Knight after the show.

The Queen. Look at Noel's smile! She was so excited to meet the queen.

And is it just me, or does Noel have a little crush on the hero of the show, the Green Knight?

The show was excellent, including jousting and sword fighting. My favorite part was that sparks would fly when swords would clash. I wonder if that's normal, or if the swords were designed to do that for the show. Either way, it was cool!