We kicked off our summer with a week long trip to Kiawah Island with my family. We had SUCH a great time. The house we stay at is right across from the beach and has a pool in the backyard so we pretty much spend most of our waking hours in the water!
Ben and Ruth drove got to our house from Mississippi on Friday and spent the night with us. The kids were SO excited that Uncle Ben and Aunt Ruth were spending the night...they LOVE to have people sleep over!
The girls LOVE to read with Aunt Ruth! They were really excited that she brought a big box of books to read with them at the beach.
JP was quite attached to Uncle Ben! We FaceTime with Ben and Ruth about once a week so even though JP probably doesn't remember seeing them at Christmas, he still knows who they are!
Franklin was glad to get some cuddle time with Uncle Ben.
Friday we had hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner and then took Ben and Ruth to get Pelican's. So I should preface this next part of the story (and our whole vacation trip) by saying that a week before I had a stomach virus (and so did Paul's dad...they had been at our house and had gone home about 12 hours before we both got sick so pretty sure we had the same virus). Then Thursday morning Ruthie threw up a few times. But the last time she threw up was 11am Thursday so I warned Ben and Ruth but everyone was still fine Friday morning when they left Mississippi to drive to our house. Well Saturday at 4am Ellie threw up ALL OVER the carpet in her room. Paul, being the best husband ever, heard her and got up and cleaned it up (hint: if you can't find the carpet cleaner DON'T dump Lysol on puke smelling carpet...the smell is atrocious) and I woke up about the time he had everything cleaned up and got Ellie bathed real quick and helped rearrange beds since she had been sleeping on the top bunk. Saturday morning, after the excitement of 4am, Paul and Ellie slept in and the rest of us headed out to Famous Toastery for a super yummy breakfast! Everyone played outside for a bit after breakfast (Ben and Ruth were trying to stay out of the germy house!) and Paul packed up the car. By lunch Emmie was starting to feel bad so I gave Emmie and Ellie some Zofran and we headed out to the beach and hoped nobody else got sick!
Monday, Fred and Gin-g came and celebrated Ellie and JP's birthdays with us. (Yes, I know JP isn't until September but we do family parties twice a year so the summer babies and the winter babies get grouped together whenever that may be.) JP was mostly oblivious to the whole birthday thing but Ellie was SO excited. She LOVES her family party. She plans for it all year long! We opened presents, ate a delicious dinner, had chocolate cake with chocolate icing (Ellie's request) and my dad's homemade cookies and cream ice cream. We finished off our birthday celebration with Ellie wanting to ride her bike...and of course it was pouring rain. Mom of the year (that would be me) went out in the pouring rain and rode around with her. I told her that she should never doubt that I love her!
Birthday Hat!
Ellie was very excited to get a Baby Alive doll like her sisters! (They got them for their birthdays this past year.)
My mom made JP gingerbread cookies since he's not a big cake fan.
ice cream!
Grandparents with the grandbabies.
The Rainey side of the family. Ruthie was NOT happy about taking pictures!
Our days fell into a nice routine. We would head out to the beach in the morning, head back to the house around lunchtime, eat lunch and play in the pool, put JP down for a nap, continue playing in the pool, ride bikes or have some inside time. We would often head back to the beach for a bit after JP's nap and then get back to the house in time for dinner. While we were at Kiawah Ben, Paul, and my dad managed to get in 2 rounds of golf which Paul always thoroughly enjoys!
hanging out at the beach with Aunt Ruth
Ellie LOVES to roll in the sand!
JP's favorite part of the beach was smashing sandcastles!
GiGi and PaPa brought new bathing suits for everyone....they were quite excited!
JP wasn't so sure about the ocean at the beginning of the week but by halfway through he thought it was great!
We had some cooler, rainy days and so we headed to the park one morning which was fun. Usually it's too hot to go play at the park and there's generally not anyone there. Because of the cool weather there were lots of other kids at the park so my kiddos had a great time playing!
The park is a short ride down the bike path and it was very doable with all 3 kiddos on wheels. Emmie and Ellie on bikes and Ruthie on the scooter. Ruthie was FLYING on the scooter...she has definitely mastered the scooter much better than her sisters every did!
Emmie was really excited to ride her bike all over the island this year. We tried to convince Ellie to give up the training wheels while we were at the beach this year but she wasn't quite ready. I'm pretty sure next year she'll be riding around the island with us!
We rode to the Marsh Tower a few times while we were at the beach. It's Emmie's favorite place to go!
I also got in some bike rides. I rode to the Ocean Course with my dad and then again with Paul and Ruth.
Early on in the week the girls (and JP) found some friends at the beach. There were 2 families staying in a house just down from us and they had 3 little girls around Ellie and Ruthie's ages and a little boy around JP's age. The kids had a great time playing at the beach together!
Emmie holding court.
The kids put the dads to work making mermaid tails!
Ben and Ruth had a BIG surprise for us at the beach. They brought their cotton candy machine and many different flavors of cotton candy! The kids were SO excited! Ruth made cotton candy for us a few times during the week. Ruthie wasn't a fan but everybody else loved it. We were really surprised that JP, who doesn't eat too many sweets, thought it was delicious!
We had some lovely walks on the beach.
Gran and JP on the beach.
Evening walk with a full moon.
We took a quick afternoon trip to see Angel Oak.
(Ellie opted to stay at the house with Gran...she went and saw Angel Oak when she visited GiGi and PaPa)
And of course we had lots of fun just hanging out together!
We played games most nights after the kids went to bed. Cranium was quite entertaining...especially since 3 out of the 4 of us are seriously lacking in the pop culture category.
Ellie had been looking forward to ribs for dinner for weeks before we went to the beach! They didn't disappoint.
Franklin getting snuggles from Aunt Ruth.
Franklin had so much fun at the beach but it was exhausting!
(Emmie clearly took notes when watching the competition company dance at the recital!)
(Oh, and the saga of the stomach virus wasn't quite over. When the Zofran wore off Saturday Ellie was back to normal but Emmie was still feeling pretty bad. She never threw up but she was quite miserable. Thursday night by dad was sick. Sunday, after they got back to Mississippi fortunately, Ben and Ruth were both sick. I think we have FINALLY purged it from the family!)
We had SO much fun at Kiawah...it was a great way to kick off the summer!
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