a beautiful place + some R & R

So tonight instead of celebrating my beautiful, exuberant, soon-to-be-bride cousin Laura at her bachelorette/lingerie bash, I am home half-doped-up on cough medicine and doing saline "sniffs" as my doc prescribed this morning. Blah! I've had some kind of "viral" cold for two weeks now and can't seem to shake it. I've migrated through very sore throat, extreme hoarseness (Paul lovingly informed me I sounded like a 50 year old smoker), ridiculous coughing fits, fatigue, and now major chest and head/nose congestion. I am so bummed to miss out on this fun night with Laura! But I just wasn't up to driving the four hours to Jackson and definitely didn't want to risk infecting anybody else. Okay, I'll stop whining now. :) 

So since I'm home alone being BFF's with the couch and my kleenexes, (Paul had already made plans thinking I would be out of town) I decided to catch up on blogging some happenings from the last couple months.

So now my post title makes a bit more sense: As soon as I was done teaching school on May 25 (we didn't waste any time and left that night!), we hit the road to Hilton Head, South Carolina. My mom's cousin graciously let us stay in her beautiful "Sea Loft", and we just had the best time! Neither Paul or I had ever been to Hilton Head or even any part of the east coast, so we thoroughly enjoyed seeing new landscape and exploring such a gorgeous place. The island is developed but in such a way that preserved the integrity of the natural landscape. It was so refreshing not to be bombarded with billboards and other overt aspects of a commercialized "touristy" place.

We had no schedule (I LOVE that about a vacation!) and did lots resting, eating, beaching, biking, live music listening, wildlife admiring, reading, and just enjoying being together. This was a MUCH needed break for us as we had both been under lots of pressure in trying to finish our degrees. It was such a relief to be able to enjoy each other's company without having school assignments looming over our heads! (I've said it a million times, but I'll say it again: I am SO thankful to be DONE.)

We took lots of pics on the trip, but here are a few of my favorites...        



{stunning view out to the ocean}

{gorgeous sunset...I have lots of pics of ones throughout the week...
could.not.get.enough.of.this.beauty.}

{the bedroom in our lovely condo}

{taking a walk}

{pausing our game of mini golf for a quick pic! Oh, and I have to mention: I got a hole-in-one!}

{riding bikes...there are bike trails all over the island. so fun!}

{a little blurry...I'm not a master with the self-timer}

{overlooking the Harbourtown Marina}

{reading + the beach + my State chair = bliss} 

{Atlantic waves}

{the famous Harbourtown Lighthouse...lots of neat history}

{alligator! We saw several of these, one of which was just sun bathing on the bank of a pond very close to a house!} 

{Ol' Glory from the top of the Lighthouse}

{Our "Sea Loft" behind me and getting ready to bike to dinner!}

I'm super excited because I get to go back to this lovely place next week! My mom, sister, aunt, and I are taking a little girls trip and meeting our cousin Wanda, who owns the house, there. We have never taken a just a girls trip before, and we are all very much looking forward to it. Can't wait to spend some quality time with these special ladies!