kiawah island.

Hello there, dear readers!

Thanks for being very patient with me and this blog. It’s been nearly impossible to work up a post in recent weeks. Great news: As of last week, our kitchen is officially finished! And the crew is at work on our new back porch.

I’ll show you pictures of the kitchen next week, but for now, we’re far away from house projects, at the beach, and it feels very nice.

 

 

Some friends offered us their family’s condo on Kiawah Island for this year’s vacation, and we were excited because we’ve never been to Kiawah before. It’s just as magical as everyone says it is, with its gnarled, moss-hung oaks, marshes, wide beaches, and miles of protected forest.

 

 

Our friends rented bikes for all of us for the nine days we’re here, and if it weren’t for wanting to cart boogie boards and chairs to the beach, we wouldn’t need to get in the van at all. There are bike paths across the entire island and over the waterway to a small shopping center.

 

 

We’re also enjoying the water park and pool, which are free to guests of the island. The fun of taking a beach vacation in September, is there are no lines for the water slides.

 

 

 

Our days have fallen into a pleasant routine of doing puzzles, playing Chinese checkers, sipping coffee on the back porch overlooking the golf course and pond, searching for alligators, and riding bikes several times a day. The beach is just a five minute ride from the condo, and we learned a tip from a seasoned visitor: ride one direction along the bike paths, and then, at low tide, ride back on the beach with the wind.

 

 

We’ve seen several alligators, white-tailed deer, egrets, heron, osprey, dozens of seagulls, and songbirds. We found sand dollars on the beach, and the remains of several giant horseshoe crabs, but much to Noah’s disappointment, no live crabs yet. We aren’t giving up.

 

 

 

 

This was a much-needed vacation for all of us.

We absolutely love our new kitchen, but were worn out from three months of construction. I for one desperately need a break from constant obsessing over design ideas.  And life in general hasn’t seemed to slow down for us since May. In fact, David got sick the first day we arrived and has been sick ever since — presumably because he hasn’t had time to get sick at home.

 

 

 

 

We’re soaking up slower days, no to-do lists, time together just the six of us, and the peace of this island.