Hilton Head 2021

   Last year, when we were still living in West Orlando, we took a trip to Hilton Head in the Spring for our 10-year wedding anniversary. I wrote a blog post about it when we got back, but purely from a medical stand point, including how we carried all of Emma's heavy medical equipment onto the small boat for our dinner cruise since they didn't have a wheelchair ramp for her stroller! Now I want to write a second post about all the fun stuff and include a lot of the other pictures that are not in the first post. 

   Hilton Head sparked my interest again when I recently saw on Facebook that Julie, one of Emma's nurses from the NICU, was taking a trip to Hilton Head for two weeks!! Michael said he wanted to go for his birthday this year, but I already have a tiny house trip booked with my mom around that same time and he can't take a week off for both trips. (He'll have to stay home with Emma while I'm at the tiny house with my mom.) Plus, now we wouldn't go to Hilton Head at that time anyway since that will be shortly after we move into our house, since the closing date keeps getting pushed back.. so we are planning for another Spring trip! And this time I want to stay an extra day! Only three full days is not enough in such a fun, beautiful place.

   From our old house, the trip took us a little over five hours. Next time we go, coming from North of Sarasota, it will take us about seven hours, assuming we make at least one stop. Another reason to stay an extra day. ;) Michael did all the research to find the hotel where we stayed, the Sonesta Resort, which was very nice. They had a spa, and I immediately told him that I wanted to splurge and enjoy a massage at, which I did. They had an indoor restaurant, where we ate at every morning, and a pool side grill with yummy drinks and lunch items. But we have already talked about staying somewhere different next time in order to explore more of the island.**

   Wednesday, April 28th ~ Michael had a doctor appointment at 2pm in downtown Orlando, so Emma and I waited in the car during that time, and then we were off! We got to the Sonesta Resort and checked in at 9pm.

  Thursday, April 29th ~ We had a beautiful view from our second floor window looking out into the trees and all the greenery behind the pool. The second photo shows our patio (behind the palm tree on the right) taken from the sidewalk shown in the first photo. I took a lot of pictures of the trees from various angles while we were there, but I won't post all of those.

   Our first morning at Heyward's for breakfast (in the resort) and Michael helping Emma color a page of fish while we waited for our meal. It was sooo yummy. I loved those grits! I don't know if breakfast is so great to me because of all my memories of my Grandpa Narles taking me out years ago before Emma was born? I also liked that there weren't many people in the room so we didn't need to wear our masks. After that we walked around the grounds. They had hammocks and a covered area for wedding receptions.

Main lobby

 

Turtle Beach

    We all changed into our bathing suits and headed to the pool! I loved relaxing under the trees. Michael snagged us the perfect shady spot and enjoyed tacos and a pina colada. He bought and brought a new floaty with cover for her so she could lay in the water. She wasn't really a fan. I liked that there was another mom who was mindful of Emma (not sure if she saw that she had a trach?) but her kids were throwing toys in our direction and she was nicely telling them, "Honey, be careful where you are throwing that. There is a baby right there." At the time Emma was almost four years old, and she's five now, but she's still small- just over 20 pounds, and around 29 inches tall. According to Google, that's the average size of a 14 month old girl!! Ha!! Our teensy warrior princess. :)

     An hour later we were checking out the beach. The tide was out really far, which gave Emma a bunch of tide pools to play in. You can see a lot of those cute pictures in the other Hilton Head post. I don't want to post any repeats. This "fun post" is already going to have 71 different pictures! The weather was really nice because it was breezy, so we didn't notice the heat. But at that point we weren't out there too long and decided that Saturday would be our official beach day.

   At 4:30 we had all gotten showers (Emma got a bath to get the wet sand off) and we were almost ready to go to dinner at The Salty Dog Cafe. We had gone there seven years prior with Michael's family and I wanted to go back. Emma fell asleep on the way there, but I did not remember there being a fee to get into the Harbour Town area. Maybe that was newer? I wonder if the price will be more next year.

   We got a great table out on the dock. I was concerned about the sun being in our faces, but the waitress turned the umbrella for us. We ordered the hush puppies and OH MAN was that a good decision. If we had been able to stay an extra day, I definitely would have wanted to come back just to get another basket of those. "Hersh perps!!" I could not stop talking about them. I didn't see too much on the menu that I wanted, so I ordered a simple salad because I was saving room for ice cream that I read wonderful reviews about in Harbour Town.

   Off to dessert and exploring Harbour Town! I always have to look in the shops to see if I can find any souvenirs. A lot of the shops were high end, but from the more beachy style shops, I think I came home with two picture frames and a magnet? One of the picture frames was for Michael's parents for their anniversary in June, with that photo above of Michael and Emma with their heads together in front of the Salty Dog sign. I had trouble finding where the ice cream shop was (called Cinnamon Bear Country Store- it was behind the whole strip/building) until I saw a bunch of other people walking around with waffle cones. I definitely recommend that place too! I think I got an oatmeal cookie flavor with free added toppings of chopped nuts and Oreos. WOW! It definitely made a mess though, so grab lots of napkins on your way out. I walked around while eating and on my way back, heard what suddenly sounded like a swarm of bees. I kept looking up and around while walking and finally saw that it was a kid with a drone. I noticed that Michael was laughing at me and I later recorded a video of him doing the impression of me stumbling around, confused, as the ice cream dripped down my arm. Classic!

   Before we drove back to the resort, we walked around and looked at all the boats and yachts lit up by the moonlight. Also, (not pictured) there was a sign saying that an "All New Quarterdeck" was getting built and would be ready in Spring 2022, so that is something new we can check out next time we visit! Oh- another thing: the resort had a gift shop when your first walk in, and my purple Hilton Head shirt in these photos is from there. When I was texting my parents photos of our trip while we were there, my mom liked my shirt so much that she asked me to get a matching one for her as well! I got Emma a shirt too, (a different design, but also purple) the smallest size I could find, but it won't fit her well for a while.

  
   Friday, April 30th ~ This day started out with another yummy breakfast at Heyward's restaurant, but I was kind of in a hurry (maybe this morning it took them a little longer to bring us our breakfast or it took us longer to get Emma ready? I can't remember, but the picture of the food was taken at 10:22am) because I did not want to be late for my two-hour Sensory Journey massage at the Arum Spa at 11am! I was really looking forward to the mini cold stone facial at the end, but ended up not being able to get that because I had to wear a mask the whole time because of Covid. Bummer! It was still a fun and relaxing experience. 

   While I was in the massage, Michael and Emma were napping in the room. When I got back, we put on our bathing suits and went down to the pool. Our shady spot under the trees was taken, so I suggested we sit in the comfy chairs by the windows. It ended up being a great spot because it also got a lot of shade! We ordered lunch from the Sweet Cane bar and grill. Michael got a burger with fries and I got hummus and pita bread with a virgin pina colada. Michael may have enjoyed two or three alcoholic drinks, but he got an extra one "on accident" because the bar tender lady didn't hear me practically yelling "virgin!!" over the music on mine at first.

   I definitely feel like I am the planner in the relationship and Michael is more go with the flow, so I absolutely LOVE when he makes fun family plans for us. He booked a dinner cruise in advance for us this evening at 6:30pm. I was a little nervous about if I was going to feel nauseous. (We went on a tiny fishing boat with Michael's parents in Hilton Head last time and I did get sick because the waves were so rocky and I have gotten sick on big cruise ships before.) Luckily, I was perfectly fine on this boat! With Emma's two naps during the day, she sure had the silly bug by dinner time. Michael was so great with her- holding her or letting her lay on the chair. At one point she even trying to pull the table cloth off and had her cute little feet against the table! The dinner was very yummy and the cruise lasted about two hours.

  
   Saturday, May 1st ~ Beach day! But first, breakfast, of course! Also, if we had stayed another day I would have gotten french toast, but the originals cannot be beat- and again, those grits!! Fun fact about this picture of Michael pulling the wagon beneath the tall palm trees: I tagged the Sonesta Resort Instagram page (@sonestahhi) on my picture and then they used it on their own page, giving me photo credit! It has 99 likes. :)

  We spent four lovely hours at the beach. Michael was a sweetie and dug the umbrella into the sand for me so I could relax in the chair next to Emma's wagon. At one point I went back to the pool grill and got a sandwich and chips. Emma played with the plastic container the food came in for a while.

   Our last big event of the trip was dinner at Heyward's restaurant. Before the trip, I called to let them know that it was our 10-year anniversary and that we almost never get to go out on dates because our daughter has lots of medical issues. I asked if we could get anything special in our room, like rose petals on the bed or chocolate covered strawberries. The guy said he would make a note, yet I was disappointed to see nothing when we walked in on Wednesday night. However, as we were unpacking, I saw an envelope with our last name on it that said "Happy Anniversary!!" I opened it and it was two vouchers for adult dinner entrees, which included gratuity. Aww, yay!! We got to pick which night to reserve our spot and use our vouchers, and we picked Saturday night at 6pm.  

   Emma slept in the stroller next to Michael during most of the meal, and afterwards we walked around the grounds again, taking a few last fancy photos. It got pretty cool that evening, then we headed to bed. We did also order dessert -strawberry cheesecake and key lime pie- and paid for that ourselves.

   Sunday, May 2nd ~ It was time to head home already since I had to work again on Monday. And we had to leave early too because the pet boarding place where Sasha was closed around 2pm, so we had to get her before then, meaning we were leaving the Sonesta Resort parking lot at 8am. Michael got up around 5am (sheesh!) to start getting everything packed and loaded into the car. Another thing I wanted to do if we could have stayed an extra day was to go on a family walk along the long, winding, tree-covered sidewalks outside of the resort. It was about a mile to get out to the main road.

  For a few days before we left for this trip, I pulled out the Hilton Head book I made via Shutterfly from when Michael and I went with his parents in 2014. That was my first time; this 2021 trip was my second time. I showed it to Emma and let her carefully flip through it, pointing out the Harbour Town light house and the Salty Dog Cafe, telling her that those were some of the places we would be taking her. You can see a few pictures from the 2014 trip here. 

  **Now Michael is telling me that he liked the Sonesta Resort so much and he doesn't want to even look for a different place next time! We'll see. Maybe I also want our pictures to look different. I like to "travel the world", even if it's only two miles down the road. We'll see what we can find between now and April that is still very nice. Michael likes resorts that are right on the beach. That is convenient!