Hunting Island Vacation

We're back from vacation, and I have a new computer! Yea! This may be a long post since it's been awhile since the last and the vacation news. There will be lots of pictures too. Consider yourself warned. : )

Where to start, where to start? I'll start with a Josephine Update (which may be incomplete because it's been so long since my last update).

• Crawling, crawling, crawling. Josephine is crawling all over the place now. She can crawl on her knees, but sometimes uses the insides of her feet to crawl. I'm not sure why, it may hurt her knees, or maybe it's a shortcut to walking. : )
• Pulling up, standing up, walking around. Josephine has no problem pulling up on whatever's handy and walking alongside it. She can lean up against the coffee table and play with whatever is on the table with both hands. Her favorite is to hold a piece of paper and pull it out of one hand with the other then do it again and again. Eventually she puts it in her mouth and rips it.
• She knows who Daddy is. If you ask her "Where is Daddy?" she'll turn around and look at him. Daddy is so proud.
• Josephine can feed herself Veggie and Fruit Puffs (bite-sized food that dissolve in her mouth). She has her own seat that she adores. We opted for a travel chair rather than a high chair. She loves it so much that she'll cry to get in it.
• I'm sure there's more, but I'll move on to our vacation . . . .

Hunting Island, South Carolina ... August 2006

http://www.huntingisland.com/navigator.htm

This is my favorite picture of Josephine from our vacation. Aunt Leah made her the hat. Naomi has one just like it. : )

I won't bother to write a day-by-day account of our trip, mainly because I don't remember one day from the next. I'll write a summary and some highlights from the trip.

This is a map of Hunter's Island. I copied it from the website. If you go to the website, the words are links for more info on that topic.

We stayed in a rental house on the beach across the road from Cabin 3 (if you look on the left side of the map). There were 17 of us in all. There were three families: the Gourley's, the Hamdallah's, and the Anderson's (I'm very sorry if I spelled any of the names wrong). This group has been going to the beach together for many years, although this is the first time I have been able to go. This was also the first year anyone had been to Hunting Island.

Having an infant really changes your vacations. Normally, Nathan and I would have been on the beach most of the day. However, with temperatures in the upper 90's all week, and the intense, August sun, we went out mostly in the early morning or late afternoon. Usually late afternoon.

Josephine enjoyed the beach. She would crawl into the water then sit down in it. When the waves came up she would splash and splash. When the waves went down she would put her hands in the soft sand, sometimes patting it, sometimes eating it. The black and white picture above was taken one morning earlier in the week. If we were holding Josephine she would stare at the waves with wide eyes. Our "swimming sessions" didn't usually last very long--maybe 30-45 minutes, but Josephine always enjoyed it. Of course, Nathan and I enjoyed spending that time with Josephine too.

So what did we do the rest of the day? We played with our niece/cousin Naomi and Aunt Moug! Josephine and Naomi really bonded over the week. It sounds kind of silly since neither of them are a year old yet, but they both smiled when they saw the other and were interested when the other was around. Josephine even gave Naomi kisses. Nice, closed-mouth kisses, not the open-mouthed attacks she does to Nathan and me. It was very sweet.

There was plenty of other things to do rather than play in the ocean (although, there weren't many waves to speak of this year). Nathan and I went on a bike ride one day through the park. I saw a blue heron in the lagoon. I was paying more attention to the road, though. I hadn't been on a bicycle in over 10 years! Several people went canoeing or kayaking around the island. If you didn't mind the bugs, it was nice to take a walk down the beach at sunset. Several of the guys fished during the week. Tom caught a whole bunch of sharks including a 3-foot-long shark. I missed that one, but did witness a 1-foot shark being caught. Don't worry, no shark attacks. One jellyfish sting that I know of, but that's it. Nathan and I tried skim boarding. It wasn't pretty. That lasted about 10 minutes and we decided to never do it again. Luckily there are no pictures of this.

The "younger" half of the group went to Savannah one night. We ate at the Shrimp Factory on the river and then went on a Ghost Tour. We all had a great time. It was sooo hot, though. Poor Josephine was stuck in the backpack during the 1.5 hour walking tour. She slept for most of it as long as I didn't stop walking. The history of Savannah is very interesting. I would like to go back during the daytime (instead of the 10pm tour) and see it. Probably during a cooler month, too. : ) I didn't take my camera on this trip so I don't have any pictures of Savannah, but it was dark anyway.

Here are some other pictures from the trip. I may add more later when other people send me the pics they took, but for now all I have are the ones I took.

These are pictures of the beach. 1. The southern view of the beach from in front of our house. 2. The southwest corner of the island at low tide. 3. Sunrise from the back porch. 4. Sunset from the southeast side of the island.

These are pictures of some of the wildlife at the park. Nathan and I found the sand dollar on the beach one evening. Karen found the four-legged (appendaged?) star fish in front of the house another evening. Tom caught the shark in the picture. I'm not sure what kind of shark it is, though.

These are pictures of the Anderson/Sandlin family. In order from top to bottom: 1. Naomi smiling at the camera. She smiles all the time. 2. Josephine being kissed by her daddy at the beach. 3. Josephine loved the sunset, although she's looking at the waves in this picture. 4. Granna had a fun time with the grandbabies this week. 5. Aunt Leah and Uncle Brian play with Josephine one night. 6. Josephine and her spider crawl. 6. Aunt Moug and sleepy Naomi.