Spring Break

I've gotten behind again!

Anyway.......our original plan for Spring Break 2013 was to drive up to Indiana and visit all the grandparents. With the death of my father-in-law the week before, we changed our plans. The kids wanted to stay at home, so we had a little "Stay-Cation".


We went to the Tellus Science Museum on Monday. James had been a couple of times on middle school field trips, but Hannah had never been before.

 

On Tuesday, Hannah & I went to Six Flags. We met up with some friends of hers. James opted to stay home.

We went and saw the movie Oz on Wednesday. James did go see the movie with us, he just didn't want to be in the picture.

We stayed home on Thursday. Hannah went back to Six Flags on Friday with her friends. It was a nice and fairly uneventful spring break. Not much longer until summer vacation!!!!

Campfires

After spending the day at Tybee, we returned to our little campsite. We cooked dinner on the camp stove. The kids had chosen "Tacos in a Bag" for our outdoor meal. (With the exception of breakfasts, we ate all of our meals out.) Tacos in a bag is a recipe we learned at Girl Scout camp. We did tweak it a bit. We chose to eat our tacos on a paper plate instead of a bag. For those not familiar with tacos in a bag, you take an individual bag of Doritos and crush it up. Then you put the taco meat and toppings right in the bag. Take a fork and eat directly out of the bag. When I was in Girl Scouts, we made something similar called "Sloppy Tacos". So we pretty much made a combination of the two.

Immediately after dinner, the kids wanted to make s'mores. Being the mean mom that I am, I made them wait for at least an hour. Besides, it wasn't dark yet and s'mores always taste better in the dark!

While the kids were roasting their marshmallows, my husband was playing on his phone. We had really good phone service while we were camping. We were checking email and FB a lot more frequently than one should while camping.

My 13 year old showing his marshmallow masterpiece.

The 9 year old eating her s'more.



One of the kids snapped a picture of me roasting a marshmallow. I like my marshmallows nice and golden. No burnt marshmallows for me!

Even my daughter's stuffed animals roasted marshmallows and ate s'mores!



My daughter was so excited to be able to bring her doll's camping supplies with us! I did talk her out of bringing her American Girl Dolls with us.

After s'mores, we played charades around the campfire. The kids thought that was a blast! And they didn't complain about having to turn off all electronics to do so.

After a few rounds of charades, we decided to pack up as much as we could. A storm was scheduled to come in during the early morning and we wanted to make things as easy as possible for us the next morning. The storm hit around 4am. Lots of thunder and lightening made it difficult to sleep. As soon as the rain let up later that morning, around 8 or so, we tore down the rest of camp. Since it was still raining, we chose to eat our final breakfast out rather than at the camp site. Of course, we had to set up the tent once we got home so it could dry out.

The kids are already looking forward to the next camping trip!

Tybee Island

On Monday, after our hike at Skidaway Island, we drove to Tybee Island. It took about 25 minutes to get there from the campground. We planned it so we would be arriving around lunch time. We went to one of our favorite places, The Crab Shack.

The slogan for The Crab Shack is "Where the Elite Eat in the Bare Feet". It's a very casual place. All the food is served on paper plates. Most of the dining is outside under some big 'ole oak trees. (At least that's what Rachel Ray called them on her $40 a Day Show).


The tables have large cut-out holes in the center with a wooden mini table over the hole for paper towels, ketchup, etc. Underneath the hole is a large trash can so you just throw away your trash as you eat. I ordered a low country boil and my husband ordered peel & eat shrimp with crab chowder. James had a chili dog. Our picky little vegetarian ate cole slaw and smashed taters.


One of the high-lights about the Crab Shack is the Gator Lagoon.


We bought the over priced "gator treats" and fed the gators. The treats looked a lot like the treats we give our dog!

After lunch, we drove over to the Tybee Light House.

While we were waiting our turn to enter the light house, I took this picture of my daughter. It was quite windy out and she was getting a kick out of having her hair blown everywhere.

We walked all 178 steps up to the top of the light house. Thankfully, there was a landing after every 25 steps. Let's just say that I was not the first one in my family to make it to the top!


I can say that I did make it up there, eventually! The view was breathtaking. Or maybe I was still out of breath from climbing those 178 steps! Surprisingly, my son would not come out on to the platform. He has developed a fear of heights he told us. He did climb up, just didn't go out once he got to the top.


Then we took the 178 steps back done. It was much easier this time. I didn't have to stop and rest at each landing.

After the lighthouse, we went over to Tybee North Beach. The water was a bit cold, but the kids had fun playing in the ocean anyway.


Here is a cool picture I took of the light house from the beach.


We spent a couple of hours at the beach. It wasn't very crowded and I even got to take a little nap! The kids and I all ended up with a little bit of sunburn, but it wasn't too bad. We did remember to put on some sunscreen.

Savannah

Once we set up our tent at our campsite and had a short rest, we drove into Savannah. Our first stop was to Leopold's Ice Cream. It was mid-afternoon and we required a snack. We had just learned about this place watching Georgia Traveler on PBS recently. The ice cream shop was originally opened in 1919. Leopold's invented the flavor "Tutti Frutti".




After our ice cream break, we walked down to River Street. We love the old cobblestone and brick street.


We took the free ferry across the Savannah River. The kids thought that was pretty cool. And free is always good!



The view of River Street from the other side of the river.


The ferry took us back to the other side of River Street which allowed us to walk by all the stores and restaurants.

We stopped to visit the famous Waving Girl. We didn't do much shopping, but we did go into the two candy stores on River Street and got our free samples of pralines! We had dinner at JJ Bonerez on Bay Street, which we are pretty sure wasn't there the last time we were in town. In fact we are pretty sure it was a New Orleans themed restaurant before. By the time we got back to the campsite, the we were too tired to build the traditional campfire. Flash lights were out by 9:00.

Skidaway Island State Park

We left for our little spring break trip shortly after 9 on Sunday morning. It was an uneventful, 4 1/2 hour drive down to our destination. I love driving south and watching the car thermometer go up as we drive south! By the time we arrived in Savannah, it was nearly 80 degrees!

Once we selected our campsite at Skidaway Island State Park, we set up our tent. Thankfully we still had the instructions! It had been a while since we had used it.



I was so excited to find a state park in Savannah. I think Savannah is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. I love the Spanish moss that hangs everywhere.


On Monday morning, we hiked on one of the trails at the park. The kids were excited to see the salt marshes and look for crabs.





We looked and looked for those little fiddler crabs. We found some anole lizards though.


And we saw the state flower of Georgia, the Cherokee Rose. Thank goodness for signs along the trail, or we may not have been able to identify this.


And at the end of our hike, we finally saw some tiny fiddler crabs. Once we saw one, we saw lots more. Either they were hiding earlier on our hike or we just missed seeing them.

All ready for bed.


This one is already out for the night.

Spring Break Trip

Recently we asked our kids where they wanted to go for Spring Break. We didn't set any limitations to this conversation and weren't really sure what they would come up with. I was prepared with back-up suggestions such as Charleston, Panama City, and Myrtle Beach because I anticipated their suggestions to be Hawaii, Paris, and California or other fly-to destinations. We really wanted to keep it a drive-to destination. I am not sure if they conspired together on this or not, but they both decided that they wanted to go camping for our trip. When they announced this, the visions of luxury linens, crystal clear pools, food served on china plates, and little bottles of new toiletries quickly dissolved. I am not at all opposed to camping. I am a Girl Scout leader! We go on camping trips a couple of times a year. Our son is a Boy Scout and my husband is an assistant Scoutmaster. We do quite a bit of camping in our family. But as our children pointed out, we hadn't been on a family camping trip in years. A friend told me about a beautiful state park in South Georgia. The great thing about this park was that it is just a short drive from Savannah, one of my favorite destinations. Suddenly the thought of camping didn't sound so bad. We leave for Skidaway Island State Park tomorrow morning. Our original plan was to leave this morning, but our 13 year old son received a last minute invitation to a friend's birthday party. Thankfully, the state parks will let you change your reservations if done 3 or more days in advance, so we just shifted things a day. We will only be camping for 2 nights - that's my limit for uncomfortable sleeping situations. We plan to spend one day at Tybee Island and dine at The Crab Shack and spend another day exploring Savannah. I may not be sleeping on those luxury sheets, but the thought of eating many of my meals on china plates makes me happy! (Mostly because that means I didn't do the cooking and I don't have to do the cleaning!)