Hilton Head

After Charleston, we made the short trip to Hilton Head. This was our first trip to the island and we were excited to stay at the Sea Pines Resort. The resort had over 15 miles of running/biking trails, a beach club, swimming pools, harbor, and numerous restaurants and shops.

When we first arrived we began our alligator watch. I think that Joe had the most sitings with 7 but we all had our fair share. We were the classic tourists and when we would see an alligator we would all pile out of the car to go stare at it. Most of the time the alligator would just ignore you or turn and swim away. One alligator decided that he didn't like being the object of our attention and turned toward me and chomped and growled. I was carrying Jackson at the time, I jumped 3 feet and started screaming. Jackson thought my reaction was hilarious and for the rest of the trip he would make the "alligator chomping" sound behind me to see if I would jump!

The beaches in Hilton Head were stunning. Growing up, I always traveled to the Gulf to visit the beach and considered myself a bit of a sand/beach snob. I have always thought that there were no beaches that could compare to the beauty of our beaches; however, Hilton Head proved me wrong. The beaches had soft white sand and was compacted enough close to the ocean that you could easily ride a bike or run with no difficulty.We even saw couples with strollers out on the beach. The boys enjoyed searching for sea shells and even saw a crab running around. Charlie enjoyed watching the pelicans diving for fish and Jackson thought that the beach was an excellent place to try out his new water gun. Jackson and Charlie enjoyed the coastal breezes to fly their kite; Jackson did a much better job of holding on to his kite than Charlie. Most of Charlie's kite flying resulted in me running down the beach trying to catch the handle of the kite. Jackson also liked supervising me building sand castles and eating chips. When we later asked him what his favorite part of the beach he said "eating chips". Guess maybe we should keep chips at the house more.

The resort also had a stable where you could take riding lessons and feed the horses. Charlie loved the horses especially a brown and white stallion that was boarded at the stable. The horse was the biggest horse I had ever seen. The stable was also home to a petting zoo. The zoo had numerous animals: deer, turtles, billy goats, and pygmy goats. The pygmy goats tried to eat Charlie's shirt several times but he was unfazed.

Our favorite place to eat while in Hilton Head was a place named Marley's. Marley's was just outside the resort and had a great atmosphere for kids and good food, but our favorite part was the outside entertainer that was there nightly. Jackson and Charlie both love music; Jackson loves to sit and listen, Charlie loves to cut a rug! The entertainer performed based off request mainly and so Joe got a list of songs. Jackson was so excited that Beach Boys were on the list of possible requests. Joe gave him a couple of dollars and Jackson went and requested Beach Boys "Fun, Fun, Fun". While he played Jackson kept saying, "He is singing to me."

Overall the Hilton Head trip was a huge success. We had a fantastic time and although we left extremely relaxed; we were a little sad not to have a couple more days to enjoy.