Posts Tagged ‘kiawah island’

Kiawah 2016 (Part 1)

Thursday, June 2nd, 2016

Once I got to 80 pictures, I decided maybe this year desereved 2 posts. Theese are straight chronological, so there are some random food photos thrown in between actually intentional sessions between pool photos between snapshots.

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Waiting for cookies, because there is ALWAYS something baking at the beach house.

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I hate when people wander wander into my beach photos. Obvious I should get the WHOLE BEACH to myself.

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My college roommate and I (we went to college here in Charleston) took our girls into the city for “shopping and lunch’…but mostly to take pictures. You can tell, because I bought them matching dresses for pictures.

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This is the fence for the church where I got married.

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This is the theater across from the church. I havea beautiful painting of it in the entryway of my house.

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Our church.

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Chocolate cake for breakfast, because vacation.

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Erin and I took the boys to the Angel Oak for their photo opp. It was SO crowded, even at 9 am. It’s a miracle there aren’t tourists in every single photo.

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He’s winking, in case you couldn’t tell what that face was.

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We take turns cooking at the beach, usually the same menu every year (because we’ve almost perfected cooking for 13) but Erin added these AMAZING shrimp and grits this year. They’re extra good because the local shrimp came from a only *slightly* sketchy cooler at the farm stand down the street.

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We went through 6 pounds of strawberries in 5 days.  Also, these babies think they are big kids who can sit on stools. Next year we’ll have actual babies again (mine PLUS another!) for a total of 8 children, so maybe it’s ok that these toddlers will be a little more self-sufficient.

Part 2 will include both our first, mostly failed family photo session and our second, much better photo session. Our stupid photographer (me) messed up her settings on the first one with a stupid rookie mistake. Thank goodness the weather cooperated for a do-over.

I miss you already, Kiawah.

My Week(291) in iPhone Photos

Monday, May 30th, 2016

Oh, today isn’t Sunday? I have no idea. I’m at the beach and all I can keep track of is “can I eat another piece of cake right now?” When I started looking through my photos for the week I got confused that the first part of the week was in some strange, boring, non-professionally decorated place that didn’t have constant cake. I don’t want to go back there.

Sunday:

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Watermelon on the porch = summer

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Shirtless naps = summer

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Happy, peaceful children = almost never

Monday:

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IT’S THE FINAL COUNTDOOOOOOOWN

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Skeptical baby is skeptical

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Taking pictures like mommy

Tuesday:

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Important vacation prep

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I suppose cleaning is also important

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This is Linc’s favorite game: Face-Smash Selfie

Wednesday:

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Sunrise in the car – we’d already been driving for 3 hours

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In and out and in and out

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Bedtime stories with Mormor

Thursday:

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Absolutely worth the 2 days of driving

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Basically a private beach

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There are NINE decorative pillows on this bed

Friday:

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There’s pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew…

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There was also shrimp in the low country boil I made for dinner

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Oh ok, that’s perfect

Saturday:

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A very french baby breakfast

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Would you like some bait with your frozen pie?

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That’s a virgin Pina Colada in a shot glass

Now I’m going to go work on the second thousand pictures I’ve taken so far (not an exaggeration). The first thousand have been edited so I’ll have a ridiculous photo post up probably tonight. If I can get out of the pool long enough.

Kiawah Island 2015

Tuesday, August 11th, 2015

This is our fifth year in this borrowed beach house, but only the second time E has been able to come. Technically he was there for 24 hours last year, but I did the 2 day drive by myself so that doesn’t count as being there. He drove this year, the whole way, and I got to sleep and hand stuff to the kids in the back which is the perfect start to vacation. It turns out Linc is an amazing road tripper and his presence barely slowed us down, so the driving was well worth the end result.

Kiawah is amazing. It’s an incredible vacation just because of the setting, but the key to a true dream vacation is to have more bathrooms than you have adults. Never having to wait for a bathroom or use a bathroom on the same floor where everyone is eating or worry someone is hearing you in the bathroom or having to take a cold shower because everyone else used up the hot water is an amazing luxury. It’s why rich people are so much happier than regular people. Bathrooms.

Bathrooms are especially key when the main sources of beach house entertainment are eating and drinking and drinking. We’ve gotten pretty good at our menu and consolidating our shopping down to two big trips and then only a few smaller trips for emergency supplies (like limes, and another 5 pound bag of sugar since we managed to use the first one up in less than 36 hours). There was cake and more cake and an apple crisp and Lowcountry Boil, which is seafood and corn and sausage, and Bo Ssam, which is huge plates of pork with rice and lettuce and ginger sauce, and one thousand cocktails, which is the appropriate number of cocktails on vacation. We ate until we could barely move and then we played cards, because even though we were on vacation we are all responsible adults now and can’t get falling down drunk at 2 pm. I like cards better than throwing up anyway.

I took thousands and thousands of pictures, culled and edited them down to several hundred, and I uploaded exactly 100 photos for this post. I know that’s a ridiculous number and I ought to feel bad about my self-indulgence, especially because even though there were 7 adults and 6 kids at the beach house 99% of my pictures of just of my children. But I don’t. While we were in the kitchen, trying to remember specifics from previous years, one of my friends pulled up pictures from a previous year. I was surprised she still had them on her laptop, but she said actually she didn’t, she just looked at them on my blog. So it’s my duty to document this glorious vacation for posterity. Or at least so I can show the kids in a couple months and remind them that they are some very lucky children.

Previous years: 2011 2012 2013 2014

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There is a hair in my lens. It makes that shadow in the top right and the line just left and below center. If I print anything I will take the time to clone it out, but for now I don’t care enough. It ONLY shows when I photograph landscapes/sky at 28mm.

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My Week(248) in iPhone Photos

Monday, August 3rd, 2015

I am at the beach, where time means nothing, so I totes forgot to do this post yesterday. I’m not even sorry.

Sunday:

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Grandpas are popular

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My vacation started early because I went to Target alooooooone

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That looks like poor choices

Monday:

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Evan and Caroline were REALLY excited about Linc’s birthday presents.

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Oil change

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Pizza crust is his favorite food

Tuesday:

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Soooooo much driving

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WHY DOESN’T MY TARGET SELL WINE?

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There are other beds, they insist on sharing

Wednesday:

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Bleeeeeh

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This is the church where I got married! Also, it’s very hot. 

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Charleston’s version of a splash park

Thursday:

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Caroline loves that the city is full of horses

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Mermaid

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My husband is very much enjoying his scotch…I mean…vacation

Friday:

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I love this house

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Lowcountry boil time

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Hot Mess

Saturday:

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Never leaving

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A picture of me in a bikini. Almost.

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Hanna Jams and reading time

I’m already late for a 10 am pool date with the kids where I am going to mostly ignore them while I float. Because the beach is amazing and you can do that here.

I’m slooooowly editing the 4000 photos I’ve already taken and will post way too many soon. And then next week I’ll repeat it all over for the lake. My life is not too bad right now.

Kiawah 2014

Wednesday, October 15th, 2014

Oh, the beach house. Why can’t real life be like the beach house?

If you haven’t been reading for years, the beach house belongs to the uncle of one of my friends. He allows us to borrow it once a year for a long weekend. It has 6 bedrooms, each with their own private bath, a huge kitchen, 3 wine fridges, a fully stocked (with alcohol) butler’s pantry, every TV channel ever, a deck and private pool, and beach access to an always deserted private beach. Everything about the beach house is nicer than my own house, including the dishes and beds and beach toys. There is a planter full of herbs that grows on the deck, so if you need fresh basil for dinner it’s right there. The towels and sheets are color coded to the bedrooms, so the cleaning service can put them all back in the right place when we leave. I imagine the beach house is what life is like for celebrities every day.

This year we went from three kids at the beach house to SIX kids at the beach house, ranging in age from 2 months (Linc!) to five years (Evan!). The number of adults actually fell. The weather wasn’t very good and I only made it down to the actual beach once and I drove alone for two days each way to get there AND my car broke down 10 miles from Kiawah…but it was still an amazing vacation.

The beach house is lucky. It turned out my car just had a dead battery, the baby slept through the night, and my often-missing husband even made it to the house for a very brief visit. It was so great to see my friends and talk about life and jobs and changes and babies. We’re already planning for next year’s trip (and saving up for a nanny, since we’ll have 6 actual kids, rather than 3 and 3 babies). I can’t wait.

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Having kids at the same time as your friends works out well.

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The pool was pretty cold. They did not care.

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We try to buy a gift for the owners every year. This year we bought a huge crab pot, so next year I can fit all the lowcountry boil in it.

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So much foooood.

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There’s an old fashioned pharmacy/soda fountain in the shopping center on Kiawah

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The beach was a little bleak without the sun, but it wasn’t too cold for the kids.

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He really wants to learn how to surf

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He was really good at boogie boarding though!

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Linc likes the beach for about 5 minutes.

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The “O” has a sad face in it, because Princess Sadface had a meltdown about…something. We still aren’t sure what.


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Then she cheered up.

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Couch naps, not just for babies!

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Caramel apple pie. Recipe coming soon.

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Caroline LOVED that there were lots of people who let her help in the kitchen.

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Eating cake in her jammies. It was both early for cake and late for jammies. Vacation!!

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He’s not actually that grumpy, he just makes that face.

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Helping with important work. Or maybe playing games.

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Reading to Baby Jesus.

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The appropriate way to eat chocolate ice cream.

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Linc is almost exactly the same size as his 4 month and 6 month old baby friends. FAT BABY, OLD MAN FACE.

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Last morning at the pool

 

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Goodbye beach house! See you next year!