This is My Island Under the Sun!

The beach!
Where do I start? Well, this was the vacation highlight of the summer. My family and I try to go to Edisto Island, SC every year. It's a quiet little island about an hour south of Charleston. There's no big hotels or resorts anywhere in sight. 60s style beach houses, along with some more modern ones, line the beachfront and stretch back into the island to the salt marsh. There's a Piggly Wiggly on the corner, an ice cream shop down the street, several small businesses restaurants, shrimping boats harbored in the sound and fishing out on the ocean, and more. It's a great place to go to relax and get away from the rush of society.
Here's a link to a google map of the island:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=edisto+island+sc&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&split=0&gl=us&ei=rSRxSuH9OpLuMaKt9bAM&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1

Well, after that little blurb, it's time to get down to the beach fun.

Low tide - my favorite time of day. The afternoon of our first day we were all out there, swimming in the ocean, sitting on beach chairs, hunting for shark's teeth and sea shells. Low tide is my favorite time of the day because the water is calmer (while the tide goes out), the water trickling down to the sea makes amazing rivulets and patterns in the sand, and it's the best time for shell hunting!

This is the front of one of the breakers on the beach. The beach is broken up by 50 or so of these breakers in an effort to save it from erosion. It's in these breakers that you find larger shells trapped in the rocks, mussels, moss, and sea anemones clinging to the stones, and even a few crabs crawling about. They're fun to walk across as the tide comes in, but be careful that you don't slip!

Sand pipers! I love these guys! They tend to come out at low tide more as well. Their twigs of legs blur like a cartoon's as they scurry about the sand, sifting through the grains with it's stick beak to find it's supper.

Pelican alert! That's what my mom and I shout when we see a line of pelicans flying in the sky. My mom loves pelicans. She says they mean that she's at the beach.
My mom and I counted a line of pelicans 91 birds long on one of our beach walks. We were so excited! I made up a song and dance to it, a sort of victory dance. Our family had started an unofficial competition to see who could count the longest pelican chain. However, as soon as we got back to the house and I started to sing and dance, we were met with faces biting their lips. My dad had seen a chain 98 pelicans long while we were out. He'd beaten us!
The pelicans also like to fly low over the water sometimes, while scanning the water for fish. A few of us got within 10 feet of them as they glided by, just barely skimming the water with their wings. A couple of times we were even close to a pelican or two that dived straight into the water for a tasty fish dinner.

Sea turtles - Edisto Island is very special in that it is one of the nesting grounds for the loggerhead sea turtles. When it's egg laying time, the whole island is on the alert. Teams find and mark off turtle nests in order to protect them form getting stepping on. All the beach front houses must turn off their ocean facing lights. The baby sea turtles use the reflection of the moon and star light off the water to guide them to the sea. If the houses had their lights on, the poor little turtles would get confused and start heading inland. I've never yet seen a sea turtle, but you never know. I'll keep looking.

It's getting late, so I'll save more beach stories and pictures for later. Stay tuned!

Mom and Me

I promise beach pictures and stories are coming soon. First though, I have some pictures from two Thursdays ago, when my mom came down to visit with me on my day off.

While relaxing on the pontoon boat, my mom and I saw something floating by, pushed by the wind. It was an escapee beach ball! We watched it float toward the opposite side of the cove...
"Hey, let's go rescue it!" And so we did. I had to climb over a few tree branches to get it, but the little green and white ball was saved from the raging (well, maybe) waters of the lake. On the side was written "Cricket Wireless," and thus our new friend was dubbed Cricket.
Cricket became quite the traveler that day. He found his way to us, then we took him to South Carolina! I think he really loved the sand and the salty waves of the Atlantic. In fact, he loves it so much, he tried to escape again when the wind rolled him across the sand. Luckily my uncle saved him before a beach patrol man could pop the unclaimed ball.


After our adventure with Cricket and a dinner at Taggarts, my mom and I took out the pontoon for an evening ride. The lake was quiet, and the sunset beautiful. It was a good day. I was so glad that I could spend it with my mom.


[Sunset in our wake]











[Day lily]















[Dock Footprint]

[Dock Web]

[Sunset]

Frogger

I'm back from the beach! :) I had so much fun. I'm sorry I couldn't blogg about it all week, but there was no internet access at the house.
Still, the stories will have to wait for another night. I am very tired, and my pictures are not yet loaded onto my computer. Still, I have time for one little story that I thought of on the drive home from work.

One day while driving home at the beginning of this summer I noticed that the fallen leaves on the road were blowing across the road in quick little bursts. "Strange," I thought, "The wind isn't blowing very much tonight," but I kept driving. I was still wondering at the leaves, which seemed to me to be almost hopping across the road, when finally I got a good view of one in my headlights. I wasn't a leaf at all! It was a frog! A plethora of tiny frogs were leaping bravely across the road! It was like a real life frogger game! I only hope that all of the little frogs made it safely across and didn't get squished by my tires.
It was one of the prettiest and eeriest things I have ever seen. The frogs were pale white in my headlights. Small ghost frogs playing a dare devil game of frogger across my path. Little bouncing balls of courage, or stupidity, living on the edge. The night was teeming with life and spilling out onto my path.

[Photo found off Flickr - http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1414/1387971247_354da00251.jpg%3Fv%3D0&imgrefurl=http://flickr.com/photos/cncaster/1387971247/&usg=__t13sfN-qRIkSZEwc6JkMcSWTMEI=&h=500&w=375&sz=119&hl=en&start=14&um=1&tbnid=Ngv0BcGVtOW2bM:&tbnh=130&tbnw=98&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dohio%2Bfrog%2Bphoto%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DG%26um%3D1]

A Happy Visit

This past weekend's visit by my friends Natalie and her boyfriend CJ was a lot of fun. There was tubing, water skiing, wake boarding, and night boating. There were also several card and board games played, including the German board game Settlers (which is sooo much fun by the way).

Here are some pictures from the weekend.




[Natalie's first time water skiing! She did great. Here she pulls off a ski maneuver by accident!]

[Tubing. It was really rough that Sunday. I was impressed that Natalie and CJ did so well. It was their first time tubing as well.]





[Ice Rainbow]











[The Wake Boarder slides into the cove.]










I'll be at Edisto Island, South Carolina next week! :) I'll bring back plenty of pictures and stories of my little cousins and aunt and uncle from Georgia, who are coming along with us.

Come Sail Away

I think it's about time I talk about something I like to call the "Snarky Snark."
It's is a smaller mono hull sailboat that my Uncle Rick bought when he was a teenager. Its true model name is the SeaSnark. Before I took it out a few weeks ago, it hadn't been sailed in 10 years. My Uncle Bill helped me to find the pieces and pull the boat down into the water (which wasn't too hard to do, seeing as it's styrofoam covered in fiberglass). He was the last to sail it actually, before me.


I sailed her around our cove for several turns. It was a wonderful first sail. The wind was not too hard and not too soft. Just right in the middle for some easy sailing.

I impressed both my Grandma and my Uncle. I had a sailing boyfriend in the past and apparently I was paying attention. I think he'd be proud of me if he had been there.







It was a great first solo sail.

I've taken it out three more times after that first sail.


Once was for a father daughter sail! My dad came down for a day and we went out together. The wind wasn't too strong and so he worked the sail and I took to the rudder.











Thank you Snarky, for a wonderful few sails. I look forward to more.





*All photos are compliments of my sister and my friend Nellie. Thank you!

Ooo! Ahh!

4th of July Fireworks!
Here are some of my favorite firework pictures from the 4th.

Work Stories

Alright, lets talk about a few work stories.

Many of the interesting new people I met at work are the kids that come to the activities I put on. For instance, I met two sisters from Montreal Canada two weeks ago. They had come down to Atwood to attend the games of the International Football Championship that was held in Canton this year. The oldest sister could speak fluent French and the youngest spoke fluent German. They loved football, Canadian cheerleading and Uno.

Today I got to see Jack, a 7 year old boy staying at the hotel for a week and a half with his grandparents. He's turned into the activity boy. His first few days he insisted on coming to every single activity, so my co-workers and I got to know him pretty well. He's a funny kid. He likes to make people laugh and he does a hilarious valley-girl-cheerleader impression. I let him call out the bingo numbers one evening and he did all in his valley-girl voice, much to the amusement of me and two other guests. I'm going to miss him when he heads home.

I also had an interesting few encounters with a 23 or 24 year old guy, during all of which he was profusely hitting on me. It's hard to be the polite, friendly activities worker when you just want a guest to leave you alone but I think I pulled it off pretty well. He kept asking me if I was going to the bar later that night. I just kept telling him no, but he kept insisting I do later. Even if I did want to go to the bar though, I couldn't. Employees aren't served in the lounge. He wasn't really aggressive or threatening at all, but it was terribly awkward being hit on while working. Still, I guess the whole episode was flattering in a way. However, I'm not really terribly interested in a guy who just talks to you about the bar and walks around all day with a beer in his hand. I have nothing against alcohol unless it's done in excess, and his first few impressions seemed a bit excessive.

Ah well. I have a few pictures from work to post tonight.

[This is from one of the bonfires we have every Wednesday and Saturday night.
It looks a lot like a volcano!]





[...and later that night.]

[Sunset over the lake.]
To the left are the lights from the Lodge. The bright overhead lights are the lights of the driving range and the Par 3 golf course.

So Sleepy...But on the Sunny Side

Oh, I wanted to post tonight and talk all about my past week, but my brain is tired after work. This past week has been so busy. I've been running around outside in the sun with the kids at the hotel, doing my job, setting up, leading, and even participating in the activities along with the kids. It's a lot of fun, but it can be very exhausting. There's a new activity every hour and I work all day on the weekends. Still, I love this summer job. It's much more exciting and fun than some other jobs I could have gotten. I get to play outside all day, meet many new and interesting people, smile and laugh with some new friends at work, and that smile on my face stays for most of the day, making me feel bright and sunny inside and out. I'm really very lucky. I have a job, and I like it. :) It's a good summer.

[This is me, my sister, and my cousin leaping off the dock. Photo courtesy of my sis.]

I'll have to tell you more about work and the summer another night. I should get some sleep. It's another busy day tomorrow. I'll have some more visitors coming tomorrow night as well. My friend Nellie and her boyfriend. Their visit will give me even more blog material. And pictures. Horrah!

[Tubing. We're flying!]

Picture Preveiw from a Wonderful Week

There were many pictures to be taken this week. Because it was 4th of July week, there were many relatives coming down to the lake. Thus there was much time to visit and little time to blog. I promise I will try to make up for it slowly, in between working times.
Because I am short on time at the moment, I will post a few pictures to give you a glimpse of my fun and busy past week and a half.



The Lodge, Yacht Club, and Lake just before the fireworks.










Fireworks!
















Sailing the Snark.













Cousins at the Lake.

















Beauty at the Lake.



I'll post more another night. It's late and I should get to bed for work in the morning. It's going to be another busy day with the kiddos! Working in Activities is a lot of fun, but very draining. I'm way up past my bedtime.