Sweet Babies Kade and Mason: Vacation Part 1

The day after school got out we packed up our bags and headed south!

Bright and early Saturday morning (4:30 am, to be exact) my parents picked us up and we boarded a plane at the Rochester airport, flew into Atlanta, stayed at my brother's house in Sandy Springs (just north of Atlanta) Saturday night, then all 10 of us hopped into a 15 passenger van, packed to the brim with luggage and food, at 11:00 Sunday morning and made the 4+ hour drive to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.

So many firsts for the boys on this trip!! First time: in an airport, on a plane, visiting their cousin's new house and seeing the ocean.

The weather was perfect! Georgia and South Carolina did not disappoint these northerners--it was sunny, hot and humid, just the way we like it!

Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of the boys on the plane. Mason slept the whole time and Kade LOVED watching the clouds below us. I was a little nervous they'd get restless but it's only a 1 hour 40 minute flight and it was so early in the morning that they weren't their usual rambunctious selves.

Picture overload ahead...

The boys packed into the van at the start of the trip...

...and 20 minutes later.

Traveling is tiring!!

Our home away from home at Hilton Head.

(you can see the back end of our sweet ride for the week)

The backyard.

And the pool boy.

Behind our house was a river/lagoon/brackish waters/heart attack waiting to happen with small children from the north who have no fear/concept of alligators and sharks.

It was beautiful but my goodness did it give me more than a few gray hairs every time the kids went down to the dock.

First things first after arriving, unload the van and head to the beach!

Cousin Vivienne (6)

3/4 of the grandkids with Grandpa Ranger.

Noella (3) was having a moment and wanted nothing to do with pictures.

Our house was about a 7 minute walk to the beach. Here's the first of many trips down this road.

Unfortunately Kade was way ahead of us when he saw the beach and ocean for the first time, so we didn't get to see his reaction. My brother said he stood there for a second and said, "WHOA!!! IT'S HUGE!", then took off running. Mason said, "I want to swim in the deep end!!" Of course Mason said that.

I realize I have a lot of ocean pictures but it was their first time playing in it and I couldn't pick a favorite so I just included them all!

My brother, Jeremy and his wife, Evelyn

The water was so warm, it was like bath water every day!

As we were walking back to the house we stopped on a bridge to check out the scenery. Lo and behold what did we see? An alligator.

For months Mason had been saying when he sees an alligator he's going to shoot it, or punch it, or wrestle it, or any other thing boy thing he could think of. The trouble with Mason is 99% of the time he truly believes what he's saying. To say he's fearless is an understatement. So no matter how many times I told him the alligator would kill him he just countered with, "Nah ah, not if I shoot it with a gun first." So, imagine my delight when upon seeing the alligator in the water the first thing out of Mason's mouth was, "No way am I swimming with that thing!!" Whew.

You can see a tiny dot in the water in between Vivi and Mason's heads, that's the alligator's head.

Every morning Erik and I took advantage of sleeping boys and live-in babysitters and went for a walk/jog on the beach. Hopefully someday we'll be snow birds and retire near the ocean.