It's Monday morning and the plan was to get up early and walk the beach, enjoy the sunrise, eat breakfast and then go Presidents day shopping. I heard the girls alarm but I think they both turned over and fell back asleep. So off I went by myself and enjoyed a sunrise and short walk. After I came back Ralph and I enjoyed a coffee together and then he started cooking breakfast. The beds must be comfortable as it took some coaching to get them to the breakfast table lol. Once we got to the mall (10:05) we separated with the promise of a text when they had finished their shopping. We walked slowly and went into many shops as we figured it would be a while. After we finished we found a bench and waited.....and waited. Finally we thought we would check to see how they were doing. With the promise of only "2" more stores, we agreed to meet up at the food court. By then it was almost 1:00 and we still had two other locations to go to. We opted to get lunch at the "Coastal Grand Mall" and it was really good.
We enjoyed a fun card game with Lawrence and Teresa and the four of us. It was nice to be all together playing the game of "Play Nine". We all all had a good time.
Tuesday morning Hailey was up bright and early and we walked the beach. We found lots of sharks teeth and she is a real natural at spotting them. I love times like this.
After breakfast we headed back to the "Mall" as there were a few things that the girls decided they still wanted to get. We also planned to go to Barnes and Noble, but would go there later in the afternoon. Hailey had a medical appointment at 1:00 and reported that the Diabetes team was really happy with her results and the new pump is working as it should. That was an awesome report to receive.
We spent a significant amount of time at Barnes and Noble as Hailey selected the books that she wanted to buy. 6 books later....we had a very happy girl. While she was selecting the books, Jordan and I walked down the road and explored the other shops. Jordan had fun trying on sunglasses and we saw lots of beautiful dresses. Afterwards we were to the art gallery as I thought Hailey would enjoy seeing what other artists are doing. She enjoyed it.
On Wednesday we headed to Charleston for the day. We enjoyed walking through the old "Slave Market". It has been renamed now to just the "Market". I was surprised at how much it has changed over the years. It's much more modernized. There were many vendors selling their beautiful Sawgrass baskets, along with lots of jewellery, clothing, paintings and photography. Afterwards we walked over to rainbow street which has a collection of houses painted in a beautiful series of pastel colours. It was beautiful however very difficult to photograph with all the traffic going by. We finished our walk by going to the harbour front where we could see the beautiful bridge from a different angle.
Thursday we headed to Holden Beach. We made a quick stop on the way for them to check out the Clothes Bin. The Clothes Bin is a store that receives brand new clothing and sells for a discounted price. The first couple of days everything is $8.00, then they get reduced to $6.00 and then to $4.00 regardless of the item. I bought a brand new winter coat (valued over $200) for $8.00. Pretty crazy. They have mens, romans and children's clothing, purses (sometimes), shoes (sometimes) etc. They enjoyed the store and were successful in making a few purchases. At Holden Beach we had a lunch before heading out for our walk. We didn't find any Sea Biscuits this time but were successful in finding other shells. It seemed like a quick day. We ended with a nice dinner at Carabbas. They serve amazing Calarmi.
Friday came and we were all commenting on how fast the week had gone. It was raining so we spent time at the Condo before heading out later in the afternoon to get Fairy Lights in the girls hair. It was so pretty. The pictures don't capture the sparkles. Apparently it will last as long as the hair strand lasts as it gets tied onto the strand. Their hair sparkles in the sunlight. Now if only Jordan can keep her hands out of her hair...the first night two hairs fell out. Ralph helped tie one of them back in for her lol.
Lawrence and Teresa joined us in the evening and we enjoyed another game of Play Nine. We sure have fun with that game.
The weather on Saturday was really nice so the girls wanted to sun tan in the morning. Jordan actually got a bit of a burn. The afternoon was spent doing last minute shopping (a gift for Lee and a few more books lol). It was time to pack and we all agreed that we would need an early night. Their flight was leaving at 5:04 the next morning. I woke up just before 2:00 am to put the burritos in the over (we wanted to make sure that they had breakfast). We headed to the airport around 3:10. I don't know why they were told to be 2-3 hours early as when we got there everything was still closed. I waited with them in the line up to go through security while Ralph waited at the cellphone parking lot. They had no issues going through security and arrived safe and sound in Detroit by 9:00ish. They were at the baggage carousel just as Laura and Jay arrived.
We had such a wonderful time and made beautiful memories. What a fantastic week. We sure do love our beautiful grandchildren.
