Catchin' Up with the Carrigs: Hilton Head 2011

Warning: Picture Overload at the bottom!

The week after Christmas my parents took us to Hilton Head for the week. They headed out Christmas Eve and we planned on leaving Monday morning, but left on Christmas night around 9 and arrived at 2am. My oldest brother, Brad and his son Koltyn rode with us and my other brother, Brett came up after work Tuesday evening.

We were so excited because this is the first vacation in about 3 years that we had been on. We stayed at the Marriott Surf Watch resort, it was such a nice place! They have an indoor pool and 2 outdoor pools that are heated. Along with hot tubs. We saw all the pools at least once and visited a few times a day. The kids loved them, and Hayden thought the hot tub was the coolest thing. He would act almost drunk like when he was in it, it was so funny. (I didn't let him stay in for more than about 5-10 mins each time)

We spent a lot of time down at the beach, it was really windy most of the week, which was good because my parents got Travis and my brother kites for Christmas, so they had time to fly them.

I had been told that a lot of people rode bikes around Hilton Head, so one day we rented bikes from the resort to take a ride. WOW! Our legs were burning! What a great way to work out though. Travis' bike had a trailer on it so he could pull Kelsey and my nephew, Koltyn. My bike had a child seat on the back for Hayden. We had a great time!

One day we headed to the Sea Pines area of Hilton Head to see the light house and sight see. It is a pretty neat place, we really enjoyed looking at the boats and seeing the light house. There was also a barn in the area and of course we had to stop by! The kids( and the adults) really enjoyed the petting zoo. My dad asked me why the horses looked so sad though...they were waiting to go on a trail ride and they did look miserable. He isn't used to seeing horses like that because he always saw the ones I rode, which def weren't that calm! Since I have been around lesson horses and trail horses, I wasn't surprised but I still felt bad for them. After the petting zoo/barn my parents headed back to the resort with Kelsey, Koltyn and my brother Brad, while myself, Travis, Hayden and my other brother Brett went to the south beach to look around. We stopped at Salty dog to get some shirts and some pictures!

Hilton Head is an interesting place, everything is set off the road and my dad told us that they try to take down the least amount of trees when building something. So unlike around here where you can see strip malls/ shopping centers from the road, you have to look really hard to see what it behind the trees there. It would take some getting used to if I lived there.

There were so many memories made on this trip! We were all ready to go back home at the end of the week, but I am so glad we got to go! I took over 300 pictures, so I won't post all of them, but as a warning there are going to be a lot!