This Year’s Vacation Brought to You By the Word “Sunburn”

The family and I just got back from a week’s vacation in Hilton Head Island. Our new tradition is to go to a different beach – a couple years ago we hit Myrtle Beach, SC for a long weekend, then last year the kids and I went to Topsail Beach, NC while Denis recuperated from knee surgery. This year we all went to Hilton Head Island for a full week of sun and fun. It was much needed and very much appreciated to get away for seven straight days.

We arrived at our 2-bedroom condo rental last Saturday afternoon and settled in for the night, and hit the beach on Sunday morning. Five hours later we all returned to the condo with sunburns. Denis was sunburned on his chest, CootieBoy on his face, CootieGirl on her lower back, and me on my upper back. We all won the sunburn lottery! But we definitely enjoyed the beach that day – the water was delightfully warm, and the beach was plain SAND (versus the painful broken shells of Topsail). We spent the rest of the week attempting to relieve the sunburns – by Thursday all of us but Denis were pretty much sunburn-free (but peeling like crazy). Denis still was red – almost a week later!

The island is relatively small, and we stayed in a residential resort called Palmetto Dunes which is centrally located on the island so that everything we wanted to go to was only 10-15 minutes away from our condo. During the week we hung at the beach and at one of the resort’s pools. Denis and CG played a round of putt putt and then we also played a game as a family. We went to a family-friendly mentalist comedy show (and all four of us got in on the act at some point during the show). CB and I went jetskiing (and did NOT fall in the water this time). WE went to the movies and also visited the lighthouse on the island. We ate some great food and also spent time hanging in the condo watching movies, taking naps, and just relaxing.

In three words: it was great.

In addition to all the beachy activities, CG and I decided to teach ourselves how to knit. Denis had gotten her a “how to knit zombies” book for her birthday, so the pressure was on to actually learn how to knit at all! I bought a couple pairs of knitting needles, she supplied the yarn (thanks to needing it for her home ec class at school), and thanks to a few basic YouTube videos, within minutes we were up and running. We quickly mastered the knit stitch, and then the next day we worked on the purl stitch. She’d lose interest after a few rows, but I kept plugging away. Unfortunately, after about 10-12 rows, I had a few rows come off the needle with no idea how to get them back on – it started unraveling quickly. So I cut my losses (and the yarn) and started over. This time, having perfected the knit and purl stitches, I tried to make them more uniform. I quickly caught up with my original progress, and it looks much nicer as well. I won’t say I’m a knitter, but I’m going to keep plugging away at the project until the yarn runs out, and see if I can end up with a modest scarf in the end. And if I’m pleased with the result, I could see trying to learn more advanced knitting stitches. But will it become a permanent hobby? I doubt it.

Anyway, if you haven’t been to Hilton Head Island, I recommend it. Lots of fun activities, but lots of ways to relax as well. I know Denis gets bored easily and doesn’t like sit-around-and-do-nothing vacations, but I enjoyed it tremendously and hope we get to do it again next year – even if it’s only for 4-5 days instead of a whole week.