OK

OK, I have been on a blogging strike, no reason, just not in the mood.

OK, I missed posting Danielle's 22nd month birthday. It was two days ago...

OK, is Danielle's new favorite word. If you ask her to do something, she says, OK, it's really quite cute. This summer we have discovered that she is a water baby, and has no fear, jumps right in the pool, her head goes underwater, and she doesn't even care. She tells us when she is poopy. Brian is still her idol, and she copies everything he does, including hitting head with her hand when she is mad about something, I almost have to laugh when she does it. She wants to do everything the big kids do, she takes her backpack to summer camp, takes off her shoes and puts them in the cubby just like them.

OK, Brian just informed me that his pee is red, I guess we now know that the kidney stone is still there, darn! We haven't seen any signs in 5 years, and we had hoped that he had passed the stone

OK, the big kids jumped of the diving board without any floaties today, Brian did a good job at swimming to the edge, Emily is doing pretty well, but needs some help, and reassurance.

OK, hopefully I will get back on track, posting regular updates about our lives.

Let Freedom Ring

The 4th of July was on a Sunday, and while I tried to convince Eddie that it would be fun to go down to the River with thousands of other people and not be able to find a place to park, to watch the fireworks, it is just as fun that we didn't.

We had our own mini fireworks in the street at dark and then we were able to see a few aerial fireworks that were not too far away. The kids had fun, but Danielle thought they were a little noisy and scary.




Danielle made this cute flag in nursery, and the flag and this blog title are reminders of why we celebrate today.

A Little Bit Of Everything

Since today was our last day on Fripp, we decided to make the most of the day and do everything at least once.

Our day started out early, we had gotten a tip earlier in the week about seashell hunting on the tip of a point only accessible at low tide. We checked the tide tables, and low tide on Hunting Island was at 8:45am. It turned out to be somewhat of a wild goose chase. It was a very long walk out to the "point" and we didn't find the promised big shells. We did see some interesting sea life and it was a beautiful morning, so all was not wasted.

Here are some pictures of the sea life we encountered. We saw horseshoe crabs, hermit crabs, sea pork, birds, and many other little critters. We did find some bigger shells as well.

Low tide

Horseshoe crabs, they look very intimidating.

The beautiful blue crab, he is underwater, and hard to get a clear picture.


Our shell finds

We checked out some cabins on the remote side of Hunting Island. It looked like a deserted island, and it had some old hurricane damage.

We also got in trouble from the park ranger, since we were in the camping section of the island, and we only had a 20 minute pass. We were issued a warning ticket, they may never let us come back.

After heading back over to Fripp Island, we went to the marina to fill up the golf cart with gas. On our way back to the condo, we drove by one of the familiar alligator ponds. I had become an expert alligator spotter over the last week, and although we had never seen an alligator in this particular pond, I spied this one in the shade of a big tree.

I think he is bigger than the one guarding the 11th tee.

We went to the gift shop, and the kids got a gecko, a snake and a mermaid.

We also managed another dip in the pool, and the last visit to the beach. Then we finally conquered the BIG one.






We made our final evening golf cart tour driving around the island, looking at deer, hunting alligators, and enjoying the evening breeze. This time Danielle took the wheel.

We also got a close up of bambi.

At the end of the island was the perfect sunset picture spot over the water, I took a dozen pictures of the kids...this was the best one.

I thought I was tired a couple of days ago...

Lighthouse

We started early today to avoid the heat. The first stop on today's agenda was climbing the Lighthouse on Hunting Island. I had done my homework and knew that Emily was not tall enough to climb the lighthouse, but that wouldn't stop me from trying. I put Danielle on Eddie's back in the Mei Tei, pleaded for Emily to climb, got our tickets and we headed up the steps to enter the lighthouse as a group. Caught in the act..."um sir, the baby can't go." OK, divide and conquer. My mom, Emily and I headed up first. Emily did great, I don't even think she got winded, and we had to tell her to slow down and wait for us. The view from the top was incredible, and we could look down and see how small Eddie and Brian were. We could holler down and they could hear us, so that was pretty cool. Brian was waiting for us at the bottom, anxious for his turn. We took Danielle and wandered around the grounds, learning about the early days of the lighthouse keepers. It was definitely worth the 167 steps, I'm glad I didn't have to carry 50lbs of oil up those steps, I would have made a terrible lighthouse keeper.

Emily enjoying being on top of the world.

Brian gets to feel the cool air way up there.

Look how little everyone is compared to the lighthouse.

The front steps, and entrance to the lighthouse.

We walked down to the beach on Hunting Island, to let the kids play in the sand, collect some seashells, and stick their feet in the water.

This was a jellyfish lying on the beach, I was afraid that one of the kids would step on it and get stung.

After lunch we went to the Nature Center, were they had Gotaku fish printing class. We brought our white t-shirts and the kids had lots of fun designing and printing their t-shirts.

Brian makes a camo gecko,

and a stingray

Emily wants a princess dress,

and a sea turtle.

Danielle thinks her starfish is super cute.

The whole group with their printed t-shirts, (Eddie's is on the back).

Later we cooled of with a dip in the pool. It was so convenient to have a pool outside our back porch.

We made a yummy dinner of steak oscar, asparagus, baked potato, and garlic bread.

Earlier in the day, Curt had called us to see how things were going and to see if we needed anything. I had told him about our alligator hunting and that Eddie was still looking for the big one. He gave us the inside scoop that the big one hangs out on the 11th tee of the golf course. And that after 7pm, when the golf course closed, it was fine for us to drive our golf cart on the course. Great to have friends with insider information.

The big gator guarding the 11th hole sandtrap.

Yikes! He's heading right for us, lets get out of here, I have had enough gator hunting.

Let's take pictures of sunsets instead.


or deer.