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While in Savannah, we took one afternoon to drive over to Hilton Head to see some of Jen’s cousins (including our flower girl all grown up). They’d moved there a couple of years ago, and this was the first time we managed to pay them a visit. We met them for lunch at a local seafood restaurant, then headed back to their house after the meal.

It was a hot day, so we were all glad to cool off in the pool.

Here we are with our lovely hosts. Maddie was our flower girl back when she was even younger than Molly is here. Ben was not in our wedding, though, as he was not born yet.

Last year, after driving 12 hours to Savannah and back for a one day stay, I came up with the idea of combining multiple southern visits into a single trip. That way we’d only have to make the long drive once for several trips. Amazingly, this plan was actually enacted. So, we made the drive down to Savannah to begin the fun.

We brought a bunch of pictures for Grandaddy, and Leah was happy to tell him about them.

“This is me graduating from preschool”

While in Savannah, we took advantage of the flat terrain to go for our first ever family bike ride. Most kids take their first long bike ride down a picturesque bluff on the river, right?

Half way through, we took a break for a drink and a picture. Note the dock far in the background between the girls - that’s Grandaddy’s dock.

The bluff is usually pretty empty, but today it was packed. Adam Sandler and David Spade were filming a movie there, so there was crew all over the place. Thankfully they didn’t mind us riding through their set as long as they weren’t filming at that moment.

We spent most of our visit relaxing and visiting. As always, rocking on the dock was delightful.

We had another big birthday in our family. Grammy turned 85, and we all gathered together at Grams’s house to celebrate her birthday.

Uncle Scott always has something interesting on his phone to show the girls.

Dinner was fabulous. It’s great to get us all around Grams’s big dining room table.

For some reason, Grams decided not to put 85 candles on Grammy’s cake.

Uncle Scott had even more to show on his phone.

I call this photo Gramsy ;)

Then it was time to open some presents. This present to her was quite a surprise.

Ooooh

Uncle Scott and Aunt EA are known for musical cards, and they did not disappoint. Leah’s showing Grammy how to make it sing.

It was indeed a fun card.

Musical cards can cause spontaneous dance parties.

Happy birthday, Grammy!

I’ve already written about lots of big fun with grandparents during their visit, but there was smaller fun as well. For instance, there was book reading.

There are a lot of voices in the girls’ usual night time stories. G’Mom and Grampa didn’t know what they were in for when they agreed to read to the girls. Skippyjon Jones is a Siamese cat who wishes he was a Chihuahua, and the books include a lot of Spanish words. It’s a great book, but requires you to really get into the characters.

Leah played some Crazy 8’s with G’Mom and Grampa while Molly was at school on Tuesday.

G’Mom and Grampa went along with Leah to tennis lessons as well.

And there were some presents along the way as well. Here are the girls with their grandparents and their new journals.

Thanks for coming to visit, G’Mom and Grampa!

On Memorial Day, Larriland Farm opened their strawberry fields. All of us (G’Mom, Grampa, Jen, Molly, Leah, and I) made the trip to pick a few pounds of them.

It’s important to sample the fruit your picking to make sure it is up to your standards.

The girls frequently showed the interesting-looking ones to us.

You’ve got to get down low to pick strawberries. Consequently, I mostly let everyone else do the picking while I took the pictures.

Here we all are with our haul. We ended up with 16 pounds which is a lot. Next time, we’ll get more though, as you get a discount if you go over 20 pounds.

After picking the strawberries, we headed to the Red Barn on the farm to see what else they had for sale. The girls got some fudge, and sampled it quickly.

Outside the barn, they had some goats and alpacas that the girls fed. This little alpaca was just the right height for them.

It was a fun (and delicious) morning outing.

G’Mom and Grampa came in town to celebrate Jen’s birthday. After arriving late Friday night, they immediately started baking with the girls Saturday morning. Their first project - chocolate angel food cake for Jen’s birthday.

Baking a cake was not enough. So, on Monday they baked some scones with G’Mom as well.

Yes, there was even more baking. On Tuesday, Leah and G’Mom baked 6 mini-loaves of English muffin bread.

And if that wasn’t enough, Jen immediately followed them up by baking Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. In addition to meals and a few other extras, our kitchen was out of breath by the end of their visit.

A lot more happened during their visit, but I’ll save that for future blog posts.

After the big zoo trip, the rest of our cousin fun was smaller and more local. Sunday we went to church, then headed home for some lunch. After lunch, the girls showed Emmie how much fun sledding in warm weather can be when you have a steep enough hill.

Sunday afternoon was beautiful, so we headed to one of the many local playgrounds (this one at Centennial Park) to go to the playground.

After playing outside, we opted for to cool down with a sweet treat. Rita’s Italian ice and custard were perfect.

Thanks for coming to visit us! We look forward to seeing you guys this summer.