Lake Keowee with Small Group

Let me start by saying that I went to a “seminar” about photography last week, so I actually learned how to manually change some of my settings on my camera.  I just had to try it out and what better time than at the lake?  I took hundreds of pictures and I love how they turned out.  So humor me as there are many photos included in this post!

 

This past weekend, we went to Lake Keowee with our small group.  The Peek family has a wonderful house there and were gracious enough to let us all go and hang out.  There were 6 adults and 5 children (all 2 and under – Riley and Ryan were the oldest ones there).  Sounds chaotic?  Not at all.  We had such a wonderful and relaxing time.  We took turns “hosting” meals and all 11 of us actually sat at the table together for most meals.  Miraculous, I know!

There were so many fun things about this weekend.  We fed ducks.

 
We went blueberry picking!  They had to wear their boots!





I think Ryan sampled his weight in blueberries.  He definitely put more in his mouth than he did the bucket.  (more on that later)

eating blueberries again…and again…

My photographic shots that turned out quite nice if I might say so myself!


Ryan definitely had to confess his sins and we contributed quite a bit to the sin bucket on behalf of all of our samples! 



After we got back from blueberry picking we spent ALL of the rest of the day in the water.  As the kids went up for naps, we just put them down and brought out the monitors!  It was so nice and relaxing to just lay in the water with good friends!  Kevin is ready to sell our house and move to the lake!  If I knew how to make an income living there, I would pack up tomorrow!  We just love life on a lake and hope to one day end up there every weekend, at least!

We went for a boat ride after dinner.
 
And these 2 couldn’t have been more excited!

Isn’t this a sight!  All 3 kiddos just checking out the scenery at the front of the boat!

This little guy was so patient – we barely heard a peep out of him!

Cutie Pie!
 
Sheer Joy!

Ready to hit the water!
 
Father & Son – priceless memories! 

Sweetest family around!
 
Love birds!  :)
 
Hunky Dude!  Doesn’t he look like he belongs in a magazine?  This is my new favorite of this little guy.

Jason let Ryan “drive the boat” – he kept honking the horn!
 
Hunky Dude #2!

I will dream of this view for quite some time…

Thank you to the Peek family for hosting us for such a wonderful weekend.  We enjoyed spending time with all of the Peeks and the Prances!  We look forward to many more great times together to come!

Web Album Added:
http://picasaweb.google.com/hutchinson.heidi/20100723LakeKeoweeWeekend#

Beach Trip! (part 2)

…continued

It was Thursday and we had yet to go to the beach so we decided to head out after a late breakfast.  There were a few issues…  1) it was 1 million degrees…no exaggeration! 2) we were in our regular clothes – no swimsuits or towels 3) we didn’t want to get in the water in case there were any issues with the oil so there was no option of cooling off – - - and the list goes on… get my drift?
We were sweating profusely immediately.  The sand was hot, but the kiddos were still SO EXCITED to see the sand and water!  They cried when it was time to leave, but we had had enough!  Do you know how hard it is to carry a 30 pound child across very hot sand in 1 million degree weather?  I could barely walk by the time we made it back to the car.  And then we all melted.  It is almost impossible to get sand off of a sweaty child – especially when you have no water or towels (we did have baby wipes, but that didn’t go very far since we were wiping them down from head to toe).  Ok – enough about that.  We got some great photos despite the heat.

On Thursday night we headed to Baytowne Wharf and the kids had a great time on the playground.  
 

Then we saw the carousel and we just had to ride!



Riley and Morgan (one of the sitters)

Morgan and Alex were troopers playing with all the kids!

We ate more ice cream! 
 
When we walked up to the guy on stilts that was making balloon art Riley asked if he was Jesus.  It was very cute, but I’m still baffled about what made Riley think this man looked like Jesus in any form or fashion?!?!?

 
 
We stayed there through the evening and there were more jumpies and face painting.  Riley got a brown horse balloon and Ryan got a red snake.  They were sweaty happy kids.  To end the night we watched fireworks!  It was a great show and I was surprised the kids weren’t scared by the loud booms.  They loved it!

We were supposed to leave to come back on Saturday, but my friend, Alice, was at the beach with her family and they invited us to stay over one more night with them.  We were thrilled because this gave us time to visit with them as well as have a great day at the beach – in our swim suits!  It rounded out the perfect vacation!













 

We cannot wait until we go back to Seacrest!  We have the same house booked for September with Mee Maw and Gran-daddy and I have to say that I’m counting the hours already! :)

Web Albums Added:
ALL of the hundreds of photos I took:
http://picasaweb.google.com/hutchinson.heidi/20100710SeacrestBeachALL
Only the highlights:
http://picasaweb.google.com/hutchinson.heidi/20100710SeacrestBeachHighlights