Tybee Vacation

This spring for the kids track-out we planned a family vacation. It started with Kelley's mom taking them down to the lake for a weekend, then my mom picked them up on Monday to head for the coast. Kelley and I are always grateful for a few kid-free days! Tybee Island is outside of Savannah GA, and our story begins on Wednesday.

Funny Faces

Giant German Beer

and cookies & Innis & Gunn for St Patricks day

Ok, fine, we spent the kid free days enjoying ourselves a bit.

It's about a 6 hour drive from Raleigh down to Tybee. I took off W/T/F from work, so we headed down wednesday morning and got there in time for dinner at AJ's seafood. It was amazing as always, they really do have the best shrimp on Tybee.

The path from our house to the beach

Kids were happy to be at AJ's as well

After dinner we made it down to the beach for a bit before sunset. We saw some kind of strange sea ducks floating around, but it never flew away. Also I got a really cool picture of us with the Tybee lighthouse in the background.

Evil Genius loves those magnet earrings because she refuses to get her ears pierced

Thursday was a bit cold, so we opted to go to a nearby park instead of going to the beach first thing. Then we quickly realized that our kids are now too old to typically enjoy going to a park. ha! Didn't see that one coming. Every other kid there was half their size.

Ella's as long as the slide!

She still fits on the swings

This super-creepy tree was full of birds

Later we went into downtown Savannah. Sav is an incredibly beautiful city that's always a lot of fun. We did some shopping on Rivers street, played in the squares, and enjoyed the spanish moss in the huge oak trees. Amazing.

Ella stopping that ship from reaching the harbor

Savannah's waving girl statue

Those trees! This is downtown in a big city?

Playing in the historic squares

Ella loves all things pirate, and mom's birthday is coming up so we decided to take everyone to dinner at the Pirate's House. This is one of the oldest historic homes in Georgia. Supposedly there was a tunnel that Blackbeard the Pirate used to get from the water into the house where he kept some treasure. It was also heavily featured in Robert Louis Stevenson's book Treasure Island! So the atmosphere was unique and the food was amazing. We all had a blast in there. Ella was in her natural habitat.

she's too funny

a fireplace full of skulls! argh!

Friday was quite a bit warmer, so we ended up going down to the beach for a bit in the morning. The kids got in the water but it was a bit too cold for me. Still good to just walk around and get some time in the sun listening to the waves and talking to this beauty

and that was the last picture I took! Strange that I didn't get a single picture of my parents. Dad got a wild hair and came down on Friday afternoon. We went to his favorite place on the island for dinner, they pass out free shots to salute the sunset every day! We ate a bit early for that, but still got to enjoy a few cold beers with my old man, then watched the NCAA tournament games at the house afterwards with a few more. Dad's parkinsons disease is really starting to limit his mobility, it really makes me treasure the time we get to spend together just sitting around drinking beer and talking shit about sports.

My plan for Saturday was supposed to start with my running the Skidaway Island Marathon, but unfortunately my foot is still too busted so that didn't happen. It was also supposed to end with another massive platter of fried seafood, and that didn't happen either. The kids started back to school on monday, so we decided to head back to Raleigh on Saturday to save Sunday to recover from the road trip. The drive back was uneventful. Not being able to run the marathon thanks to an injury was really depressing. I want to be healthy and out there doing what I love to do! But overall missing the race did not put a damper on the overall vacation.

Turns out the wife of one of my fraternity brothers ran Skidaway, and I had no idea they were in town until we were almost back on the road home.  My friend Charlotte ran the Wrightsville Beach marathon, her 100th overall. There was a big party that we missed, but I'm super proud for both of them. Shanti had a nice PR in the skidaway half and Charlotte had a killer party with lots of running friends there.

Another fun trip to Tybee is in the books! We all had a blast. The kids didn't want to leave. Mom and Dad stuck around another night to get everything cleaned then headed back to Greenville. This is why I really enjoy the year-round school schedule. We get to do this kind of thing in the spring when it's actually pleasant to be there. Actually it could have been a bit warmer but everything else was really perfect.