Sounds of the Ocean

As you know, our family headed on vacation last week.  We spent our week on a lovely little island off the coast of Georgia called Jekyll.  Now those of you from Georgia are probably thinking, WHAT?  You see, this little island is not really known for much, and actually it's a state park.  An unusual arrangement to say the least.  There are permanent residents on the island, as well as a 4-H camp, large camp ground, soccer complex, Sea turtle center, rather outdated conference center, one great Gatsby inspired hotel and about 5 oldish hotels (with doors that open to the outside if you get what I mean by oldish).  The island is about 14 miles from tip to tip with the Atlantic on one side, and river on the other.    We booked ourselves in a new hotel to the island, a Hampton Inn of all places.  And boy were we most pleasantly surprised.  It was one of the nicest hotels we've ever stayed!  So here's a photo story of our week:

Every morning we'd sleep in, grab breakfast from the lobby area and walk through this to get to the beach:

Seriously, this boardwalk was like a magic canopy tour.  One day we'd see a family of deer, including little bambi, the next the most unbelievable spiders spinning their webs.  At the end of the boardwalk we'd arrive here:

And yes, it was a isolated as it looks.  Very few people were on the beach.  What I really liked was that you could not see any hotels, restaurants, surf shops, etc from the beach.  There was so much natural area between the hotels and the beach that you felt like you were on a deserted island.  I do believe it was meant to be that we chose this area to vacation this summer.  Totally secluded, totally quiet, and totally magical.

Time on the beach was spent different ways for each of us.  This beach was covered in the tiny shells above.  So we all did our share of shell hunting.  William was the sand dollar hunter.  He spent hours walking up and down searching for the biggest one.  I read The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo, with the sound of the ocean as my music.  Billy loved just standing in the water, favorite coozie and beverage in hand for hours as the waves tap the back of his legs.  Mailey was the sand digger and castle builder.  We all moved about effortlessly on the beach......each in our own little world.

As soon as lunchtime hit our tummies we'd head to the lovely pool area for sandwiches and relaxing.  Everyone would interact then.....it was funny how at the beach we'd do our own thing, but at the pool it was all giggles, play and loudness!  Each late afternoon we'd get out and about somewhere on the island, or over to St. Simon's.  But mostly we just relaxed.  It was perfect.  sigh.

So now we are down to 7 days before school starts.  The kids are anxious to know who their teachers will be, buy the back to school new crayons and back packs and start a new year.  I'm not ready though.  I still hear the sound of the ocean and can't wait to go back and breath in the island air again.