Hilton Head

Cahl had a work conference in Hilton Head, South Carolina, and Brinley and I were lucky enough to get to tag along. We flew in to Savannah Georgia on Sunday, and made our way over to Hilton Head Island. The island is beautiful, with huge oak trees covered in Spanish Moss hanging over the roadways. Because the island is a Loggerhead turtle habitat, there are very few street lights anywhere, which makes driving at night kind of spooky but really cool too. The conference was held at a big resort right on the beach, so we had a great time playing and swimming in the surf, and finding sand dollars. 

 

Monday Brinley and I found a mini golf place, and had a great time golfing and playing games at the arcade, followed by lounging around the pool. 

Tuesday afternoon Cahl found a chartered shark fishing tour that we were pretty excited about. During our time, Brinley caught a hammerhead shark and Cahl caught 2 sharks and a sting ray! Unfortunately I caught a terrible case of stomach flu/ food poisoning/ sea sickness, and got super sick. So I spent the whole tour puking over the side of the boat, but I'm super happy that Cahl and Brinley had a good time and caught some cool things. 

Wednesday I was still feeling pretty crummy, but managed to pull myself together for a dinner cruise that Brinley and I had surprised Cahl with. We drove over to the other side of the island to check out the lighthouse and board the boat for dinner. It was a really pretty cruise up and down the intercoastal waterways. We even saw several dolphins, which is always fun!

Thursday was another pretty laid back day spent by the pool, and later in the day we checked out Fort Howell, which is a pentagonal earthworks fort built in 1864 during the Civil War, by the 32nd United States Colored Infantry Regiment. The fort's primary purpose was to protect the nearby village of Mitchelville, which was the nation's first freedman's community. It was really cool to walk along the pathways and see the fortifications while reading the incredible history. 

Friday we spent our last day on the beach and at the pools between rain storms.

Saturday we checked out of the hotel in the morning, and headed back to Savannah to do some sight seeing before it was time to head home. We had breakfast at Debi's Restaurant, which was amazing, then we walked down through the historic waterfront area, including walking up and down the Stone Stairs of Death! We also checked out the Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist and some of the historic parks and squares downtown before we had to start making our way toward the airport. We stopped at Bass Pro Shop to look for some things, and I ended up getting really sick in the bathroom. It was bad enough that I ended up in a nearby Emergency Room. After a few hours of testing, hydrating, and getting the sickness under control, we missed our flight home and poor Cahl had to scramble to get us a hotel for the night and flights home the next day. I hate that our trip was clouded by my getting sick, but I am still really thankful that Brinley and I got to have the opportunity to go and hang out with Cahl for the week and see so much cool new stuff! Hopefully we can go back someday and see even more!

Camping

Earlier this month Cahl and I made a day trip down to Utah, on the hunt for a new camp trailer. We had been looking here for a few weeks, but hadn't found what we were looking for. So we found several in Utah, and spent a day looking at them. We finally ended up finding the right one in Logan, and we're pretty excited about our new 5th wheel toy hauler. It's got plenty of room for the family, and the garage is big enough to haul our buggy, so it's going to be perfect! It was a little sad to clean out and sell our old camper- it has been so good to us for the last decade. But it was time for an upgrade, and it will make a new family happy.

We spent the first 3 weekends up in McCall with it, and it was great. We had plenty of room for everyone. We did a lot of swimming and paddle boarding, and we had a lot of fun hanging out. We're excited to spend more time camping like we used to!

Girl's Camp

This year, Brinley's Girls Camp was held at Camp Smokey, the same place we went last year. It is a beautiful camp, and we were pretty excited to get to go back. This year we had 38 girls and 16 adults. Monday we got there just after noon, and got to work getting our cabins moved into, setting up the outside games and activities, and getting the kitchen set up. After dinner, we held a flag retirement ceremony before free time and bed time. 

Tuesday morning  was pretty laid back, and the girls had some free time to do whatever they wanted. After lunch, we all packed up and headed over to Lake Alturas for the afternoon. They all had so much fun kayaking, paddleboarding, and playing at the beach. After we came back and had dinner, the girls had skit night.

 

 

Wednesday morning a group of girls and leaders got up with the sun to Polar Plunge. Some of the girls were really nervous and took a little longer to get in, but everyone did, and they did awesome! I'm so happy that Brinley and I did it together! 

After breakfast it was time for our hikes. There were 2 hike options available (one easy and one a little harder), and the girls got to choose which one they wanted to do. Brinley chose the harder hike (Yellow Belly trail), while Cahl and I led the easier hike (Fishhook Creek). Both turned out to be great hikes, and all of the girls enjoyed them. On the way back to camp, we took our group to Stanley for ice cream, and stopped at the fish hatchery. Once everyone got back to camp, the girls had some free time to work on their craft projects, or just hang out. After dinner, they also had a glass lantern activity, and learned about sharing their lights with the world.  

Thursday morning we divided the time between getting packed up and free time, then after lunch we held our Olympic Games. The girls were slit into teams, and had to work together for events like 3 legged race, tug of war, wood skis, stick pull, and sack races. After dinner, we had our testimony meeting, which was really sweet and powerful. 

Friday morning we finished packing up and cleaning the camp, before heading home. It was a great week, and everyone had a great time. I'll forever be grateful that Cahl and I are able to attend, and make these memories with Brinley!