Our annual Isle of Palms trip

Yay! It's time for our spring trip to the beach! What a blessing to have an aunt and uncle with friends who let us use their beach house...

We had an extra challenge this year, since mom and her sisters were not having their "sisters retreat" and since we have a new dog. Usually, the three sisters go down for the first half of the week, then the rest of their families join them for the last half. Well, this year things were different. Peggy couldn't make it for the sisters retreat, so we were all going at once. Well, this left our animals alone for too many days. So, we had to find the perfect person that would be willing to stay at our house and take care of our pets.

Peggy had suggested a good friend of hers and we had met her and thought she would do very well, if she was available and willing. Thank you Lord, she was! She came out the day before we left and made friends with Adrian, our skittish 1 year old terrier mix, and Misty, my grumpy, unfriendly 8 year old chihuahua. (You can just imagine) The chickens and cockatiel couldn't have cared less who it was feeding them, but I'm sure they even liked her too.

It felt so good when we left Monday morning to know she was going to be taking good care of our animals. Made the vacation that much more enjoyable, because I didn't feel worried or guilty. : )

So we left Monday, April 26th, around 10:30. We thought we would wait to have lunch when we got to Columbia, but we were all hungry before we got out of Asheville, so we stopped at Chik-fil-a.

The drive seemed to go on forever! I guess I am used to being able to sleep or tune out, but miss Natalie-Rose likes interaction. She didn't sleep one wink! But finally, we started seeing the signs, then we started seeing marshes, and bridges and then the ocean! Down went the windows, and, ah, smell the wonderfully salty sea air. We were giddy with excitement!

Stopped in at the store to get things for our dinner. And then, to the beach house!

We put some things on the grill, unpacked, had dinner, and then took Natalie-Rose down to the beach for the first time! I was concerned she might be afraid of the big waves coming at her, but she went, a little hesitatingly, towards the water.

Ever after that, she stayed in the waves.

We saw the moon coming up as the sun was going down.

Nathan really loved it too!

There were jellyfish, but we avoided being stung.

So, once the sun went down we headed back to the house to get the puzzle started, Natalie played with Karen and Tony, and we just soaked in the sea air.

Day 2, next post...