Jekyll Island getaway

So we finally made it to the kiddos first Spring Break. We've been promising them an airplane ride at some point but airfare was too pricey, so we headed south in "red car" for a beach adventure. A search for a low-budget beach vacay quickly brought back memories of the early 90s when Sarah and I headed south, with little money looking for some sun. We ended up in Jekyll Island on the southern edge of Georgia, and this time it was the four of us. I must add that the kids were awesome in the car for the entire trip, chatting, singing, watching a couple non-scary movies, even writing love notes to each other (not exactly what either Sarah or I did as kids in the car with our sisters.....) Not more than 10 minutes after we got out of the car upon arrival we headed out to the ocean to check things out. The kids had never been to the ocean.



Somehow the ocean water was actually comfortable, and the kids spent a bunch of time messing around in the waves.




Spending time wandering the beach every morning and most evenings was total therapy thanks to a week empty of clocks and schedules and full of low key, at our-own-pace-adventures with plenty of chill time in between.

Henry neatly arranged two crab bodies that washed up in his "stadium" for a little battle, with sand dollars forming the goal posts.

The $9 boogie boards from the gas station were a huge hit.



Here's B Bop, who somehow figured out the "surfing" timeline after a few runs and was a natural.




She also amazed us with a few handstands in the pool.



Digging a lake to store our extra ocean water.

Henry , who never puts a pen, marker or crayon down for more than a minute, was inspired to spontaneously write "oshin rox" with his finger in the sand...

...and he displayed his crab-like body imitating an early morning sand crab that gave us a show.

We rented a "surrey" Flintstones-sized bicycle for the four of us. The kids rode in the backseat.


Along the bike trail we noticed a couple people had stopped to check out a pond, and found this...yikes.




Jekyll Island is also home to the Georgia Sea Turtle Center, that is home for dozens of sea turtles from all of the place that need to get fixed up and live in this hospital-like environment while guests can watch the vets working on the animals behind glass. It was pretty cool. Here H and B are checking out a shell.


We headed over to St. Simon's Island a couple times to eat, and saw a little array of ocean life caught by a fisherwoman on the pier, including a baby hammerhead shark and a stingray. Later that day we also got a free viewing of dolphins off the north tip of the island.

Here's a team photo on the campsite, or at least near the campsite, where we stayed 17 years ago.

Low tide left a huge sandbar that extended way out into the ocean, and Sarah took this pic of herself after running around with the kids.

Sunrises were amazing.

B Bop summed up the trip with this quote..."I love the bech"