Vacation Part 3: Sand Castles, Petting Zoo, Coligny Beach and Stoney-Baynard Ruins!

Have I mentioned how much I loved Hilton Head? It is a wonderful place! The beach time never got old any of the days we were there! Every morning when we got to the beach, my dad and Jeff would start to dig a big sand castle pit for Boone to play in.

The white balance is a little off on this one, but here they are working 

away on Boone's fortress.

We spent most of our beach time at Sea Pines Beach Club, but one evening after dinner, we decided to ride drown to Coligny Beach. It had an awesome deck with swings and a little splash park. 

Dad and Mom at Coligny Beach

The neat boardwalk area. It seemed like a nice place to sit in the evenings. Lots of 

couples and families hanging out.

There was a stables area inside of Sea Pines where you could go and ride horses, but there was also a free petting zoo. We decided to go check it out one afternoon and it was so great!

Boone found this rooster early on and followed him around a lot.

Buddies.

Checking out the goats.

Cute signs warned the kiddos not to jump inside the animal areas.

These beautiful hydrangeas were right at the entrance of the stables. I wish I could have cut some off for a bouquet, but I didn't! Those things would cost a fortune at the store and they were beautiful!

After busy days at the beach and running around the island, Boone loved book time with Nana and Papa. It was so nice to be with them for a whole week.

As we would ride around Sea Pines, we kept seeing a sign for a ruins area in Sea Pines. My interest got the best of me and my parents and I decided to bike over there and check it out one afternoon. The ruins were the remaining pieces of the plantation from the island. 

This is what is remaining of the plantation house after a fire.

If you look closely, you can see the oyster shells they used to create the walls of the plantation house. How neat is that? So interesting to see that they used the resources around them, no matter how different, to build the home. It is so neat that you can still see the oyster shells in the walls that remain.

It was sort of an eerie feeling to be back in the ruins. It was such a contrast to the other areas of the island with beautiful homes and pristine golf courses, but I think that it is neat that they have this area to see some of the history of the island. The plantation was on somewhat of a hill in what is a very flat island, so during the Civil War, it was taken over by the Union and they set up camp there for a time. 

One last picture... My parents watched Boone one night and let Jeff and I get away for a dinner out. We went to a restaurant on the island called A Lowcountry Backyard Restaurant. It was a really cute place! It did look like house and we sat in a backyard. We ate fried green tomatoes, pimento cheese and I ordered shrimp and grits! It was delicious and so fun to have a date night. Thanks Dad and Mom for watching Boone!

One more post still to come full of pictures!

Thanks for reading!

Vacation Part 1: Traveling, Chattanooga, and getting to Hilton Head

For the first time since our honeymoon, we planned a vacation, flew to a location far away from where we live and spent a whole week there. Jeff and I joke that we don't take vacations, we just move, but that really has been how our lives have looked the last five years. We have been blessed to move often enough that we always have something new to check out within driving distance to our home. But, when a wedding invitation of a friend from Tennessee came in the mail back in February, we decided to spend a little extra time after the wedding and head to the beach. Ever since we moved to Canada, I have been begging Jeff to take me to the beach, so when we finally booked a trip to spend a week in Hilton Head Island, SC, I was beyond excited.

We flew into Atlanta for our trip. Our friend, Ashley, lives there and was actually flying to St. Louis the same day. It was great to see her and eat lunch with her for a bit.

The wedding we were attending was in Chattanooga, so we arranged with our friends Matt and Jaclyn, who live outside of Nashville, to meet up Friday night, before the wedding on Saturday. It was so great to see them! Before our trip, Jaclyn and I were joking about staying at the Chattanooga Choo Choo, which is a hotel in the city that has actual train cars you can sleep in. We went through Priceline to get a hidden deal and funny enough, we ended up getting rooms at the Chattanooga Choo Choo! No train car rooms for us, but we walked around and checked them out.

All the car rooms outside. They didn't look too big, but we never got to see one inside.

Boone is big on the word "choo choo!" so he was saying it all the time!

Burning some energy after a 3 hour plane ride and 2 hour car ride! 

Boone was such a trooper the whole trip. He slept in 4 different places in a 

week and it didn't even phase him.

It was so fun to take Boone to Tennessee! So many good memories from that state.

This kid is obsessed with trucks, trains and cars. Obsessed.

A little Choo Choo history.

My guys.

There were nice gardens in the courtyard. I wouldn't say it is the nicest hotel, 

but with the deal we got, it was worth the experience.

The crew, which I now affectionately call The RoBeatys.

Downtown near the waterfront in Chattanooga.

Riding the free trolley through Chattanooga on Saturday morning. Matt and Jeff went to a local power plant to tour the area and we checked out a local market.

Before we headed to the wedding, we ate a delicious lunch at Mellow Mushroom! 

It's one of the many restaurants we miss from the south. It is so delicious.

Our wonderful small group from Tennessee. Miss these people so much. What a wonderful group! Congrats Bryan!

Boone fit right in with the boys from the group. Jonathan (on the far right) and 

Boone have both been born since we left Tennessee. 

Sunday morning we headed out towards Hilton Head. Boone enjoyed a little snack from the wedding. They gave out Moonpies as favors and he was a big fan.

Once we reached Hilton Head Island, it was about dinner time, so we all hopped on our bikes and rode to a local restaurant called Hot Mama's Bar-B-Que. It was delicious! And I absolutely loved our first bike ride. We were staying in the Sea Pines area of Hilton Head and it was gorgeous. Huge trees with Spanish moss hanging off of them and gorgeous golf courses line the area. 

We bought Boone a bike helmet a few weeks ago, but he has screamed every time we put it on him. I knew he was going to need to wear it while he rode on the bike with Jeff, so I was really worried he would just scream the entire time. Fortunately, he was so excited to ride with Jeff he was actually excited to put it on everyday.

After dinner, headed back home.

So, there's a bit about the beginning of our vacation. We have so many pictures, but it has been so fun to look through and remember how much fun we had.