HHI - Part II

Part II is coming a little late. I intended to write it either at the end of vacation or soon after we arrived home, but here I am a week later, just now writing it. Of course, there is a reason - the trip home was horrible! We flew through Myrtle Beach and then drove to HHI. We likely will not do that again. We were delayed on the trip home in Myrtle Beach for nine hours. But let me back up, because the fun really didn't start there. It started as we pulled into the airport to turn in our rental car. As we are pulling up to Enterprise, it was very chaotic. They were hurrying people along; they had a large line of customers. And several of them were screaming already at the attendants. So Matt pulls up our van in line, and Laura promptly pukes everywhere in the rental and all over the rented car seat. Then as we begin to unload and I am starting to clean Laura, my mom falls. (Thankfully, she was OK.) So dropping the van off was chaotic and gross. By the time we cleaned everything and managed to get everything up to the airport entrance, we were dripping with sweat and stressed to the max. And - we had not even entered the airport yet.

We walk through the doors to the airport, and right in line with Murphy's law, there was the line for security. Yes, it was backed up all the way to the front doors. Lovely. So we made our way to check in and then through the security line and finally up to our gate. That is where the majority of the fun happened. We arrived at about 10:00am that morning. We were supposed to depart at 12:30 for Columbus and arrive at approximately 2:00pm. As you now know, that didn't happen. We sat in the airport until 8:15pm. The kids did pretty well surprisingly. But there was a lady that was continually rousing the crowd and attempting to incite a riot. She yelled several times that the airline wasn't adequately communicating the situation and then she started to chant. The airline counter lady told her to be quiet or they would call the police. Security came up anyway just to monitor her. There was another flight at 6:15pm that left on time from our gate from our airline. So I think they were concerned the people on our flight might get upset, but it went smoothly. Crazy day.

That was a long-winded explanation for why I didn't write last weekend. I was exhausted from that fiasco.

The remainder of vacation was extremely relaxing. On Tuesday when it rained, we took the kids to a bounce house on the mainland. It was a good way for them to release some energy. On the way there we saw a seven foot alligator crawling across the bike path. That made me re-think my morning walk I was taking with Hannah in the stroller. Yikes! We could have been breakfast! Wednesday it rained again, so we took a day trip to Savannah. I was a little disappointed by it. I thought it would be this very formal, polished southern town. But it only has pockets of that. It has poverty and dirtiness throughout it. It was also super hot that day, making it extra comfortable. :)

Thursday we spent at the beach, and Friday we spent at the pool. Laura much preferred the pool, and Hannah liked the beach. Hannah, even without her nap, played in the sand for hours. As expected, she tasted it. She didn't cry though, just made a funny face. Much to my surprise, Hannah absolutely loved the ocean too. I thought she wouldn't like the salt and waves, but she loved. She ran right into it! Friday morning as we were walking along the beach, she kept edging her way towards the water. I had to keep leading her away from it (she didn't have on her bathing suit). Laura was just the opposite. She didn't like the waves at all. They didn't lend here enough control. We couldn't get her out of the pool. Right before vacation we bought her a Dora life vest, which she loves. It keeps her afloat; so she can "swim" by herself. She is on top of the world when she is swimming all over the pool all by herself. She actually threw a temper tantrum when she had to get out to go home.

Although Laura loved the pool, she says her favorite part of vacation was fishing with Papa. Thursday morning, dad went down to the beach to fish. They went all the way to the end of the inlet area, and it was more muddy and less populated. There were tons of shells and snails, and crabs all over the area from high tide. Laura was in heaven! As I've mentioned in previous posts, she loves hunting things. Well she hunted to her heart's content. She caught starfish, crabs, and snails. Later Papa caught her another crab, that wasn't in a shell. I don't think that my dad had much luck fishing. Laura told him, "Next time, I'll show you how, Papa." She still remembers her fishing trip with Uncle Alan when she dropped her line in the water, and a fish bit her hook. So now she thinks she's an expert fisherman. We ended our last night at HHI with Jake's Pizza from the Salty Dog. It was awesome. I'm sad that vacation is over, and I have to face reality. I'm still in denial. Oh well....back to the grind.