HIlton Head 2012 (long post/picture dump)

As you know if you've been reading my blog long, my family and I vacation in Hilton Head Island, SC every summer. It is truly my favorite place to be. This year was our first year going with Sawyer (since I couldn't go last year) and man was it an experience.

Sadly, Tropical Storm Beryl came through while we were there and we didn't really get to enjoy the beach Sunday through Tuesday, so we hung out by our pool.

sawyer hitting John John on the head

splashing with Daddy

blowing bubbles

such a littler water bug

showing us his lunch

Then on Tuesday when it REALLY rained, we visited The Sandbox, an interactive children's museum that Sawyer LOVED.

Each room had a little theme to it such as pirates, construction, safari and marketplace. Sawyer really liked the fun "magic sand" and the Under Two section where there were just fun toys for the smaller kids.

Sawyer on top of the Pirate ship

..where he found two "Nemos" that he didn't want to let go

too close, too fast.

They had the COOLEST lights at the Sandbox, they're shaped like flying bugs!

Sawyer really liked the room with just toys in it, which was weird considering most of the toys are like those he has at home that he doesn't have anything to do with.

I will say that I had to control my temper several times with parents letting their kids run wild, knocking my kid down and snatching his toys away. Grrr, mama bear wanted to kill.

And now I bring you, the "Harrell" face, apparently someone inherited my temper....

try to ignore his Baby Mullet

When the weather improved we enjoyed our usual schedule of beach before lunch followed by a nap and then the pool.

Laying out on the beach isn't much of an option anymore with a 16 mo. old running around throwing sand, stealing other children's sand toys and wanting to eat seashells. Luckily, husband isn't much for laying out anyway so he enjoyed a lot of the sand play time.

love how wide the beach is in HHI

loving the water

the Harrell compound

Sawyer with his Papa

 Poor John John was so patient with Sawyer, he climbed all over him while he laid on the beach until finally John gave up and tugged Sawyer around on his boogie board (on the sand).

The boys tried to play tailgate golf, but Sawyer decided he needed to "help" them... tailgate golf didn't last too long.

Sawyer LOVED the sand, and played with it forever. He also enjoyed eating it.

my daddy took these, aren't they precious?

me and Sawyer enjoying a snack of goldfish and sun chips.

napping with Daddy

On Thursday night, mama, daddy & mema kept the Bug so the "young people" could go get some dinner. We headed to the Kingfisher at Shelter Cove and enjoyed some great seafood and an even better view.

Then we had to have a photo shoot the last night (my dad is quite the photographer).

Mema insisted on a "four generations" picture

me & husband

how cute is this?

Euro Adventure - The Final Day

Our last day abroad was one of my favorite days. We began our day with a bus tour of Paris. Sadly most of us were still so exhausted from the train day and the previous days activities that we kept falling asleep on the bus! Seriously, I had a giant goose egg on my head from where I fell asleep so hard I hit the bus window with my forehead.

I did wake up in time to see the famous shopping street Ave des Champs-Elysées and the Arc de Triomphe. 

the Arc

another view, wish we could have gotten out to see it!

a better picture of the Alexander III bridge horses

the Louis store on the Aves des Champs-Elysees

we stopped long enough to see the very scenic view of the Tower

Our tour ended so we got some free time while the other group went to Versailles. We enjoyed it by hanging out near the Notre Dame Cathedral, shopping and EATING.

Our first stop was for lunch, which was not a super pleasant experience. We ate at the Metro Cafe and I just wanted a nice omelet with some coffee. Welllll, we had an extraordinarily rude waiter who got angry when I asked what came inside my omelet and got even angrier when we discovered we needed to divide the check. Now, I realize separating the check per person might be difficult, but come on dude, we're paying customers. 

lunch at the Metro Cafe.

After lunch we shopped around got some snacks. 

Dustin modeling a risque apron with boobies.

yes, in the market there was raw meat just hanging out in the open. bleh.

yummy looking veggies in the market

those are GIANT hunks of meat on rotating spits

We saw a guy making crepes on the street outside an ice cream shop and decided it was WAY past time to enjoy the delicacy. Of course all I could think about was Ricky Bobby and Cal Naughton Jr. talking about how crepes are like sweet pancakes (if you don't understand this reference you should rent "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" you'll thank me later). They were absolutely delicious though.

everyone enjoying the yumminess

mine was nutella & chocolate, I figured I deserved one after all our walking

Morgan got ice cream shapped like a rose

We also walked around to enjoy a few more sites such as one of the district (called arrondissiments)  administrative buildings (which look NOTHING like your typical southern Town Hall trust me)

see? nothing like the little building we have at home that is connected to the police station serving as our "administrative building" 

yep, that's a Rolls Royce.

After a little more touring we went back to Notre Dame to wait for the rest of our tour group. We didn't get to go inside because the line was crazy long so we just hung out and watched people.

yeah, that's a line there to the left.

 I tried to zoom in close enough to see the gargoyles because I LOVED the Disney movie "Hunchback of Notre Dame" and wanted to see how much they looked like the cartoon version... they didn't.

as close as I could get to the gargoyles

this is how I wanted them to look.

I really wanted to pose in front of the cathedral like a hunchback and be Quasimodo, but nobody would do it with me. So here is a generic pose with me & Vivian.

When our group returned they turned us loose once again, so the adults went to get a glass of wine. Sadly, a lot of the places around were either crazy expensive or crazy busy, so we found a Chinese restaurant where we could sit and relax. I figured, hey who can else can say they enjoyed a glass of wine at a Parisian Chinese place?

our Chinese place

they had some awesome little salty rice cake things with the wine

Our final day of the European Adventure ended with dinner at a really good restaurant whose name I cannot remember. 

We had quite the eventful metro ride back to the hotel though. We had 28 stops to go from our restaurant to the hotel and boy did we meet some characters. First a pair of young ladies obviously on their way to the club climbed aboard and managed to sit in each others laps, make-out, make all kinds of interesting noises and say some rather provocative things in English. After they got off the metro a strong smell of weed took OVER the car we were on. At first I thought the girls had just left a smell in their wake, but it kept getting stronger and stronger, finally we realized a group of guys had climbed on and were smoking a blunt, passing it between them. 

I just realized that I forgot to tell you about a lady from one of the other groups in our tour almost got pick-pocketed on the first day in Paris! She was standing by the door on the metro and a man was chatting with her about our trip when she noticed a lady was getting closer and closer to her. All of a sudden she looked down and the lady had managed to unzip her purse and was starting to reach for her wallet. It was crazy, luckily she hollered out and the man and the lady ran off before snatching anything.

Despite a few little hiccups, this trip was truly the experience of a lifetime and I know I will never again get the opportunity to go for free. The kids were great and despite my nasty ankle, it was a wonderful time. 

However.... on our way home, a man slammed into my bad ankle with his suitcase, therefore I took two Percocet. By the time we got on the plane I wasn't really sleepy so I decided to take a muscle relaxer to get me through the 9 hour flight. Well, both doses hit me at the same time and I fell asleep so hard I face-slammed into the little tv-screen on the back of the seat in front of me. Lindsey, who sat next to me, got a great laugh out of it, as did the stranger on my other side. 

And so sends my posts on my trip, promise to catch you up with how my normal life is going lately, soon!