Florence, SC Lifestyle Photographer: {Personal Post} Mak’s Birthday Weekend at Hunting Island

About three months ago we started asking Mak what he wanted to do for his birthday this year. The answer was always camping. That’s great and all, but the boy’s birthday is in January. Not necesarrily the best month for camping. We tried to dissuade him. We offered up Great Wolf Lodge. He responded with “Sure, we can go there as long as we can camp.” We realized that the boy would only be satisfied if the camper was involved. We took our chances on great weather and booked a weekend at Hunting Island State Park. I was terrified that we would be trapped in the camper all weekend due to cold weather. We took Tallon with us and our friends the Foxes (who have a 7 year old, Carter, one of Mak’s best friends) joined us as well. Turns out that the weather couldn’t have been more perfect and this weekend Hunting Island became one of our new favorite places on earth. This place is AMAZING!!!

We picked Tal up from school and headed straight for Beaufort. Colin and I LOVE this area of the state. SO Beautiful. By the way, this “Would you Rather” game has become our favorite way to pass time on long car trips. You haven’t seen laughter until you’ve seen Tal in that can’t catch your breath belly laugh. Awesome.

After we got there and got the camper all set up, we had just enough time for a quick sunset walk on the beach. It was breathtaking.

The is what you walk through to get to the beach. I love how everything feels untouched here.

Then it was back to the campsite to attempt a campfire. The first night’s fire was kinda wimpy. It was big enough to do hotdogs and s’mores but died down pretty quickly. Night #2 had the perfect campfire, though. =)

Saturday morning we rode bikes to the beach

Okay, so that’s what I had written of this blog post when Mak came up to me and told me he had a bump on his head. At first I thought he was trying to get out of creative writing, but after closer examination we found TWO blood-sucking ticks attached to my baby’s head! I freaked. Mak freaked. Collin grabbed the tweezers and tried to pull one out. As we had Mak’s hair pulled back to examine the ticks I was SO MAD at those stupid little bugs. How dare they attach themselves to my son’s head?!? I told Collin last night that I wanted to beat them for hurting my boy but since they were still attached to him that would have completely defeated the purpose in beating them. 😉 Never knew I could have so much rage toward a bug, ya know? Anyway, it’s all over and I have to say that Dr. Ben Elder is AWESOME at what he does.

Back to the beach on Saturday morning. Hunting Island has the coolest beach I’ve ever seen. All of these trees have fallen over with the root system still attached. It’s beautiful!

After breakfast we headed out to climb the lighthouse. We got sidetracked in the parking lot by a super awesome Tarzan branch.

Then we saw the lighthouse. Up until this point there had been a question as to whether or not Tal and CB would be tall enough to climb it. Tal kept insisting that they were tall enough. Then he saw this:

He wasn’t so sure he wanted to be tall enough anymore. 😉 They both made the height requirement, aided a little bit by standing on tippy-toes. You can see from Tal’s expression that he’s not sure if he’s happy that he made it.

It was a loooong and slightly terrifying hike up, but the view from the top was amazing. And the fact that my sweet nephew held tight to my hand the entire way was even better. Haven’t held this kid’s hand since he was two. =)

Definitely worth the climb. I loved the expressions of all of the kids after it was over.

Lots of learning about what it was like to be a lighthouse keeper. Made my teacher heart happy.

Then it was onto the Nature Center for even more learning. This time about the animals that make their home in this area of our state.

Back to the campground for a game of Sorry and a snack.

The rest of Saturday was full of bike-riding, sitting by the campfire and just having fun. We enjoyed a FABULOUS Sweetleigh’s punchbowl cake (YUM!) and chased foxes and raccoons. It was a fun night.

More playing before we headed out on Sunday…

The last “Would You Rather” card on the way home. Thought it was appropriate. =)

I realize that this was more than likely a pretty boring post for most of you. If you made it this far, thanks! Just recording our memories, ya know? I cannot believe that the four of us have turned into a camping family. Collin and I definitely do NOT come from camping families. It’s truly been the best thing our family has ever done, though. There’s no better stress relief for Collin and I love being together without the distractions of everyday life. Here’s a photo that Collin took at 10:00 on our first night that I am in love with! I think I’ll blow it up HUGE and stare at it every time life gets too busy. =)