So many memories from our first family vaca with our sailor girl in Hilton Head & Charleston, SC….

Sailor’s first time on a plane was a breeze… thank god. We had 2 flights so we planned it so she would sleep on the longer one and we would keep her awake, happy and entertained for the last flight! Sailor crawled a ton on this trip, practiced standing while holding on and practically lived on the beach. Her name is quite fitting considering how much this girl loves the water! We spent a lot of time in the pool & ocean (like to our knees because i’m terrified of sharks haha) she LOVED eating touching the sand and was (and still is) the most behaved baby at restaurants! We normally keep her day really scheduled with naps but we decided we were just going to go with the flow and let her nap when she wanted to on this trip- which meant a lot of car naps, sleeping on me on the beach and somehow she was so tired somedays she would fall asleep on andy while we were in the ocean getting hit with waves? I dressed Sails up like a shark on the beach for no reason other than my own entertainment (and everyone who walked by haha!) Andy threw sailor up in the air for the first time and she loved it (so we did it all vacation long), we went to the top of a lighthouse and found out that the first couple to ever get married there named their daughter Sailor and we (ok it was just me) thought we were all going to get eaten by an alligator the entire trip. We spent most of our time in Hilton Head but we rented a car and spent 2 full days in Charleston! I loved visiting The Middleton Place and learning about my family history but boy was it HOT!!! The gardens at the Middleton Place were breathtaking and the city itself has so much charm… there’s honestly not enough time in a day to see everything! While we were in Charleston we checked out a lot of shops on King Street, visited my Great Aunt Lane, walked around Battery Park and many other historical landmarks, stopped by my great grandparents old home and ate amazing food (our favorite place was Husk!) We learned that Sailor does great in the car until it’s been a little over an hour…. and then the happiest baby on the planet is no longer the happiest baby on the planet- wowza that girl can scream! The drive to Charleston was a little over 2 hours each way and every time we got in the car to go there or come back she would play, sleep and then she would just hit a point where she couldn’t take being in the car… we would stop, feed her, change her, play some more and she would just lose her mind when we put her back in the carseat….. so we won’t be roadtripping any time soon! Andy and I both agreed that our absolute favorite moment on the trip was when we were walking on King Street after dinner trying to find a candy shop and I came up from behind Sailor (Andy was holding her) and she burst out laughing. I kept popping up behind them and she was laughing harder than we have EVER heard and it went on for at least 10 minutes- she has NEVER sounded so happy and everyone who saw her instantly smiled or laughed, I wish I could bottle up that sound forever.

Towards the end of our trip this woman approached Andy and told him how she was apart of the photography workshop that was visiting at our resort (at the same time some people were talking to me about it because they saw me with my camera and thought I was part of the group haha) turns out they had all been eyeing Sailor and we were asked if she would be one of their models. We had to bring her to the beach at sunrise and she would wear her little pink swimsuit with the swimcap and they would all take pics of her playing in the sand by the ocean. Poor thing was FREEZING in the cold sand, no sun out and a million strangers taking her pic- thankfully they were able to get some but I’m thinking she doesn’t want to go down the modeling path, that or she has a favorite photographer named mommy.

Sailor returned home to MN with 2 teeth, a tan and learned how to say “rawr” (which we didn’t teach her haha) can’t wait for our next family trip and all the fun memories ahead!