Hilton Head 2012!

i was dead set and determined to get to the beach this summer. i couldnt imagine a summer without the beach...especially for asher's sake. before mayer arrived we agreed that we would go for a long weekend over labor day whether we had to stay in a hotel or at our friends beach house.

thankfully our family friends weren't renting out there house the week before or after labor day so we made the trek down to the beach on friday afternoon. with the car packed to the brim we departed from charlotte much later than we anticipated.... 4:30 pm. that would put us arriving sometime after 9 with dinner and bathroom stops. thankfully there was no traffic and mayer slept the first hour. we stopped for a quick dinner and so i could nurse mayer and then hit the road again.

neither boy slept the remainder of the ride till we got to the house at 10 pm. 

thankfully they both went right to sleep when we got there and mayer slept close to 8 hours after being wide awake the majority of the ride.

the next morning we hit the beach around 10 and stayed out till 1. we packed lunch, rented chairs and an umbrella and mayer slept almost the entire time we were out there in his baby tent. we realized when we arrived at the beach we were missing a memory card for our camera hence the reason for no pictures. 

after naps we hit the skull creek boat house for dinner. this was the very same spot we visited with asher 3 years earlier when we came to hilton head. he was 3 months old. we dined on the early bird special ad ate oysters and fresh seafood. it was delicious

asher finishing off my soup

lemon face

after we ate we went out to the pier for our annual family photo...

asher is working on mastering his "smile" for the camera... it either consists of a mouth wide open or a squint right now

thankfully we went to dinner early enough that we could get the boys home for a decent bedtime after such a late night the night before.

asher and mayer had a little love fest...i love this sequence of photos

we also threw the crab traps out in the morning before the beach and when we came home we found three crabs (that we later accidentally killed before eating and had to trash). asher loved catching crabs and fishing off the dock.

we got some crabs!

the big bad crabs, caught!

 fishing off the dock... looks like a pro to me!

im gonna catch a big one daddy!

on sunday we went down to the beach again around 10 am and snapped some photos, ate some sand and soaked up the near perfect weather

asher and daddy spent move of their time at the beach making sandcastles and burying each other.

asher was a complete beach bum the entire time and couldve played out there for hours!

while mayer napped most of the time we were at the beach each morning in his pea pod

each day we would return from the beach, shower off the sand and nap. on sunday we invited our friends the rosens (Jen and Andrew) over for dinner. we found out on our way down to the beach they were also in hilton head staying in a hotel and figured we could all get together and enjoy each others company away from home! 

mayer was in la la land....

thanks jen and andrew for visiting us and taking our pictures! we enjoyed a great night with the two of them and we know the kids enjoyed having them there too!

monday morning was our final beach day and asher really hammed it up

mayer in 2012

asher in 2009

this was our beach set up each day....

and prior to leaving the beach we would hose down the sand...

asher enjoyed sticking the hose down his pants hahaha

sweet mayer 

our final night we decided to go to harbour town in sea pines where we were staying to check out the boats, shops and play on the playground before dinner

mayer in 2012

asher in 2009...

asher got to play on the playground for a little bit, but our tummies were growling!

we headed home to find two new crabs in the crab trap! 

this crab was gripping the tongs fearing for his life...

asher thought they were going to "scream" because someone said lobsters scream when you put them in the steamer...

for our final meal we feasted on the crabs and grilled chicken.

we ate all of our meals in except for one dinner and one lunch at the sea shack.

between my dietary restrictions and the kids this was the best option

we had the most fabulous trip. we came home well rested and sun kissed.

so thankful for our friends the adelsons for letting us stay at their beach house and for the break from home life. it was great to get away and soak up the sun and play in the sand. 

summer is now complete!