Hilton Head Holidays

We are back from Hilton Head and I’m ready for a productive week at home. Emerson had her first day of camp today, and although she was very nervous at drop-off, she was squealing with excitement when I picked her up.  After two weeks of back to back travel, I was so thankful for some time at home to get my life together. I’m also looking forward to some healthy eating, as there’s not much room in my stomach these days and giant meals have been making me feel terrible.

Rewind to Wednesday – we arrived on the island after an easy 4 hour drive. Well, the driving/traffic was easy. Emerson refusing to nap in the back was frustrating, but she did pretty well all things considered.  Matt’s birthday is on the 3rd, so we headed straight to Skull Creek Boathouse for an early birthday dinner.  Although the wait in the heat was horrible, the restaurant had a beautiful view, live music, and plenty of activities for kids. I really want to go back in the fall when the weather is 70 and breezy!

The food was delicious – Matt had a giant seafood combination platter (and a few birthday drinks) and I had this blackened catfish topped with pimento cheese.  This is pretty much my dream lowcountry meal.

We swung by Sweet Carolina Cupcakes on the way to the hotel to pick up a gf bday cake. We sang to Matt and gave Emerson a slice and then waited for our friends to arrive from Boston after Em was asleep. When they arrived we sang to him again and enjoyed big slices of cake.

The fourth was our first full day and we took it easy at the pool.  We stayed at the Hilton Ocean Oak vacation club which I would highly recommend!! It was brand new and we had a huge 2 bedroom condo.  The pool was zero entry with a splash area and there were tons of toys for everyone to use.  We could relax a bit since the kids end was roped off and was only about 2 ft.  They also had drink service, a huge container of fruit water, and plenty of umbrellas.  And given how packed the island was, the pool was never too crowded for us to find a chair.  The girls actually loved the pool so much that we only went down to the beach once.

Our friends’ daughter is only 6 months younger than Emerson and they were just adorable together. It was so wonderful to be on the exact same schedule, feeding the girls the same things, and giving them baths together.  It made the parenting part of the trip a lot easier:)

We had dinner at Poseidon (for any gf people reading this – they use cornmeal for all fried items and I had both fried green tomatoes and fried oysters!!). The restaurant was in a somewhat random shopping center (kind of a thing on Hilton Head), but the food was good and we knew they were having a big kids party across the street in the community park.  Emerson was in bounce house heaven! Although there were fireworks that we could see from the balcony, I was too busy trying to convince Emerson not to climb out of the pack ‘n play to see them:(

Our other days were spent at the pool in the morning with lunch back in the condo and nap time on the big balcony.  One evening we ventured to the beach and then cooked shrimp tacos at the hotel. And the other night we had dinner at the highly recommended Lowcountry Backyard (amazing shrimp and grits!)

We also discovered an amazing gf bakery at Coligny Plaza called the G-Free spot. We tried the key lime pie, carrot cake, snickerdoodle, and salted caramel scone while we were there and I’d recommend all of them – definitely a reason to go back!!

It was a fabulous trip and soo wonderful to spend it with old friends from grad school.  Although Hilton Head doesn’t have the character of other beach towns we’ve been to, it’s convenient for us and we found restaurants and a hotel that we love – I’m hoping we can go back in the off season sometime!

This week, I’m exited to take a break from the sunscreen and heat this week and get some rest at home.  Happy Monday.