Vacation Highlights

We're home from a lovely vacation to beautiful Hilton Head Island, SC. We had a wonderful time. It seemed we did much more than ever before but still managed to rest more than usual, as well. I'm not quite sure how we pulled that off, but I think the ages of the children had something to do with it. They can all dress themselves now, including shoes, so getting ready to go is much easier.

We had several visitors to our Condo. A single friend of ours, Uncle Ken, went with us on Saturday and returned home Sunday night. He went swimming with us, to the Beach, took the kids for bike rides, and brought along two huge honeydew melons and a watermelon. He also had special treats for all the children, an anniversary card for Don and me, and a very large bottle of nice champagne as an anniversary present.

On Wednesday, my two sisters who live locally came for a visit together. They're both wonderfully fun and we had a great time. Again, we swam in the pool and went to the Beach. One of my sisters even fit a game of Cribbage with my parents into a very busy day. One of the absolute highlights, apart from everything that happened while they were there, was when my sister, Trina, who won't go swimming in the ocean because she's seen what her son and husband catch surf-fishing, took a plastic beach chair and put it in the surf so she could be close to the children while they worked on a sand castle. She talked my mom and I into joining her. The tide was coming in and soon the children moved on to other things, but the three of us were like a mountain, unwilling to be moved by the rising tide. As each new wave hit, a little more forcefully than the previous one, we'd all ooh and aah, and then break into peels of laughter. My mother, who's not a real good swimmer and doesn't venture very far into the ocean, commented that all we needed was a good wine cooler and that would be the perfect spot on earth at that moment. Finally, the tide got forceful enough to knock us and our chairs over, and we decided it was time to retire to higher ground.

Last, but not least, my grown niece, Amanda, and her best friend came down Friday night. I sat with them by the pool and visited until I was too tired to keep my eyes open. We left Saturday morning and they took off to spend the day at the beach.

Some of the highlights of our trip were me BEATING both my parents (card-sharks and competitive to the hilt) at Cribbage. Daelyn got lots of bike time and is beginning to pedal much better and be more comfortable going down hills. (Up till now, he's ridden his bike like Fred Flintstone, pushing off with his feet since his legs were too short to reach the pedals.) I lost several pounds from all the exercise. We took the kids crabbing and Dane got the bug - although we only pulled up one decent-sized blue crab (which we quickly gave away after our crab-eating fiasco). We did manage to catch a Rock Crab and saw lots of other interesting things like a jellyfish swimming by and several dolphin playing right off the pier. We also encountered a whole family of raccoons. We sat in the safety of the van with the lights shining right on them and watched them play and scrounge in the garbage can for dinner. Dane, Deanna, and I all found live sanddollars in the ocean and the children discovered hermit crab so small you could barely see the shells they were living in. Dane is beginning to learn the basics of ping-pong (I'm hoping he'll be able to keep the ball on the table by the time he's 15) and we ate LOTS of Moose Track's ice cream. My parents took us out to dinner one night and Dane got to have Shrimp Scampi, his favorite. He had so much, he couldn't eat it all and had to take a to-go plate home. Deanna found some beautiful oyster shells, Dane got a clam shell whose two sides are still attached, and I bought the children's winter wardrobes at the OshKosh Outlet for a song.

One last wonderful thing that happened - we met a delightful family who were staying at the same place where we own. The kids met their children at the pool and had a wonderful time playing. They have a daughter a year younger than Deanna, Theresa, and a son Dane's age, Danny. Rosa and Tony had Rosa's parents with them, just like us. We ran into them the next day at the beach and Rosa and I talked like two magpies. We missed out on the beach on Thursday because we were crabbing but, Friday, when we saw them again at the beach, Rosa told me that Theresa had spent the whole day Thursday watching for Deanna. It was one of those relationships that was just easy. Deanna and Theresa got along great, Dane and Danny were like best friends, and you would have thought Rosa and I had known each other our entire lives. Saturday morning, we went across the street to tell them goodbye. They're from New Jersey and had a 20-hr. drive home (made me feel a little guilty about our 2 1/2 hours) so I tried to be brief, but I couldn't get my children out of their condo. Their children finally followed us out the door to say goodbye. Getting to know them and having the fellowship time with them was definately a highlight of our trip. We exchanged addresses and, hopefully, we'll be able to schedule vacations together again in the future. Meeting them was like the cherry on the top of my ice cream sundae. Building friendships with delightful people who seem to have so much in common with you is not something to take lightly or to assume will happen easily. It is a great joy to find new friends and a bonus for my new friends to have children that get along so well with mine.

As usual, our vacation was blessed. It was a time of rest and recuperation, bonding and fun. The children start school on Tuesday - summer is almost officially over. I'm thankful that we had the opportunity for this last pleasure before we're back in the throes of the school year and business beyond belief.