Our trip began with a stop-over in Columbia, SC- home of Aunt Jennifer, Uncle Matt, Kate & Luke. We made the drive down on Friday, in record time at just around 7 hours. Hannah was awesome in the car! On Saturday morning we went to the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia. Hannah loved it, especially the koala bears, which she is still talking about. She also loved seeing the fish. After the zoo, we made the short 2-hour drive to the beach. Since we couldn't get into our condo until 4pm, we killed some time at the Memorial Waterfront Park in Mount Pleasant. Hannah loved walking on the pier hand-in-hand with her cousins!
I've heard that some kids don't like the beach, so we kind of took a risk taking Hannah for a whole week, but luckily she loved it right away! She had a blast playing in the sand, jumping over waves with her Daddy, and wandering around looking for seashells. A beach trip with a kiddo is definitely a different experience- we worked hard, and played hard, and got up early... every... single... day, but I have to say- I loved watching the gorgeous sunrises every morning, and playing in the sand with Hannah by 8am. Also, doesn't that early morning sunlight make for some awesome pictures?!
Sometimes when you're out on the beach early, there are crazies fishing for SHARKS. Some guy caught a shark, and needless to say, we didn't venture out very far into the waves after that. Later in the afternoon, Oma & Opa came down to our end of the beach to hang out in our tent and play with Hannah. It was so much fun having my family there too!
For a little change of scenery we met the Wheeler fam at the Isle of Palms playground. Later in the day we headed back out to the beach. Hannah loved playing with her beach toys and having us draw things in the sand, like hearts, diamonds, and ovals, haha! She also liked to pretend that she was making "soup" in her little bucket with salt water. Too cute!
We had one rainy day, but it gave us the opportunity to drive to Charleston and go to the South Carolina Aquarium. We got there right as it opened at 9, which was wonderful because there were hardly any people there yet, so Hannah got to roam around freely. She got to pet a turtle, and touch a starfish! She had a blast. Her favorite thing was crawling in the tunnel at the otter exhibit. My favorite thing was watching the dolphins in the harbor right outside the aquarium!
I introduced Hannah to the art of making a drip tower sandcastle. I think she was impressed ;) Later in the day we took some family pictures and then we went out to dinner with the Wheelers. The pictures on the beach crack me up- here we are in perfect 'golden hour' sunlight, and Hannah refused to take pictures unless she was wearing Stephen's sunglasses. Haha! She looks like an old blind lady!!
Ugh, Hurricane Irma. Our trip got cut short because of this dumb hurricane. We decided to leave on Friday afternoon instead of Saturday morning, to get ahead of the evacuation traffic, but not before one last wonderful beach morning with Hannah and her cousins! Hannah loves them SO much and I'm so glad she got so much time with them this week. So back to the evacuation traffic... we did NOT get ahead of it, we got stuck right in the middle of it. It took us almost 5 hours just to get to Columbia in bumper to bumper traffic. It was unreal. Stephen was a champ and kept calm the entire time. He also took care of us and booked us an awesome hotel in North Carolina when we realized that there was no way we were going to make it all the way back to Kentucky that night. What an adventure! The next day our drive went much smoother and we got home to a nice sunny, cool fall day in Kentucky. What a wonderful week it was!! It was just the best being with Hannah all day, every day! Love you Hannah bug!!
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