HHI

The annual family vacation to Hilton Head just wasn't the same this year. Kelli had to work and couldn't come, and no one brought a friend - which is unusual. Just having six people seemed wrong and so, so small. Everyone had a bed. There were extra seats in the cars. We never had to wait for a table at restaurants. While of course we mourned, naturally we still had to have a blast :)

We enjoyed the sun. I am the tannest I think I have ever been in my whole entire life - look at all those freckles! Love it.


We ate. After eating the DQ Thin Mint Blizzard Sam said, "This is the best thing I have ever eaten in my whole entire life." And then she devoured it in about 30 seconds.


We shopped.

We watched some spectacular thunderstorms. While some people may think thunderstorms at the beach are a bad thing, when they happen after 6pm they are great! On Thursday and Friday night we watched the dark clouds roll in, the rain move its way down the beach, funnels form in the ocean and lightening strike. The whole family is kind of obsessed, so we all just stared out the windows in pure delight.



We went crabbing. Wait? We did what? That's right crabbing. Some friends of ours have a boating company where they run dolphin cruises, and they invited us to go on their Tuesday Night Firework Cruise. We usually skip the Tuesday night fireworks at Shelter Cove because (truth be told) they are kind of lame and the traffic is horrible. But we figured why not, this could be fun. Well, we showed up and went to Dock C like we were instructed and found the boat: Crabber J II. I should have taken a picture, but it was a little boat set-up with fishing lines all around with raw chicken throats on the lines as bait. It was disgusting. Here we are all showered and cute ready to go on our Sunset Dolphin Sighting Fireworks Watching Cruise, and instead we see the Crabber J II.






It actually turned out to be a hysterical few hours. We were instructed that the key to catching crabs is patience . . . opps, well we knew our whole family was never going to enjoy this. But then we were told there was a prize for the person who caught the most crabs . . . ummm, competitiveness turned on. Drop the line in the water, wait at least two minutes, check your line, repeat.









Dad cheated and kept catching the same crab. After being accused of this crime, he started dropping the crabs back in the water on the other side of the boat where Sam and Shannan were so then they caught those crabs. Rude. Final scores:

Dad: 3
Mom: 1
Caisa: 1
Shannan: 2
Samantha: 2
Kristan: 0

That's right nada, zip, zero. Just proving that patience isn't my thing - and animals don't like me. Dolphins, Crabs, Fireworks, Fun.



It was a great week. Oh how I love the beach.