Weekend at Hilton Head Island.

I can't believe that we are now in September and more than that I can't believe how little I've blogged this year. I've pondered a lot why that is and why I have been so apathetic. I love it and I love being able to look back on past seasons in our lives...and yet, most days this year I have yet to document our life in this moment. 2013 has been a hard year. It has been an emotional year with some pretty deep moments. Some of these moments in time I may be able to blog about and other moments might not ever get recorded here. If you are still reading this know that we are good and the kids are good. It's been a hard year but God has been gracious and has sustained us. 

This past weekend we went with Andy's mom and sisters to Hilton Head Island. This was the first time our immediate family had been to Hilton Head and we LOVED it. We stayed at Marriott's Barony Beach Club and it was fabulous! Within the last year they had remodeled the pool area and it was AH-Mazing. I'm not sure who enjoyed it more the kids or the adults. It will most definitely be on our list of Marriott places to return to. (I seriously wouldn't mind if we went back yearly.) I loved that it was only 5 hours from Rome and that it was easily doable for a long weekend. For this trip we went Thursday night to Monday afternoon. I left wishing that we had been able to stay a full week. Next time! :)

 We took advantage of the lower crowds and spent time each day at the beach and pool. I loved that our room overlooked the pool. In the afternoons we were able to leave the little girls up in the room napping with an adult while the older two swam all afternoon. I even managed to read an entire 400+ page book cover to cover over the weekend. Which is quite the accomplishment these days with small kids. I remember the trips we use to take to the beach before kids and I would read multiple books in a week. One day again...when they are older, right? :) Here are some pictures on the beach and at the pool... 

Happy Birthday Nanny and GiGi!

In our family there are lots of dates that overlap or are right next to each other. Our mothers' birthdays are both next to each other falling on June 26th and June 27th. So, here's to both of you! Thanks for being such wonderful grandmothers and loving our kids so much. We love you both more than you know!

She may be ugly...

but Oh. My. Goodness. her blooms are gorgeous! Two years ago my sweet mother-in-law handed me a plant and told me, "this is the ugliest plant you'll ever have but if you can get it to bloom it'll be gorgeous." She was right. It bloomed last September but I missed it because the bloom was hidden and I snapped a picture of it the morning after. Same thing happened earlier this summer. Well, a few weeks back it started putting out not one bloom but seven blooms. So, I began to inspect it daily because I didn't want to miss the spectacle. Sure enough a week and a half ago it bloomed. My mother-in-law told me to check it out around 10pm...that night we had college girls over and at 11pm I remembered to check the plant. So, they went with me and this is what we discovered:

Aren't they beautiful?! I couldn't get over how big they were. And the sight of having so many all at once was really pretty. Again, I was just amazed. So, she may be ugly but she has gorgeous flowers! If you want to read more about Night Blooming Plants click here. Anyone else have a really ugly plant?

Wordless Wednesday...Grandparents edition.