Hellooooooo humans!
That's me (Shannon, 29) and my husband Will (28). Last week we returned home from a much-needed vacation that included three destinations, five racing presidents, one try at paddle boarding (verdict: LOVE), two cupcakes, one favorite new movie, at least ten (!) bug bites (on only one of us...guess who the lucky one was?
) and one beyooooootiful golden retriever.
The main feature of this trip, though, was relaxation. Our last vacation was traveling to Disney for Marathon Weekend in January, but let's be honest: as much as I love them, those race weekends are hardly vacations. They are WORK. And speaking of work, my job has been pretty demanding lately. It's good because I like being busy and challenging myself, but before this trip I'd been coming off of one of those periods where things are just a little TOO busy and a little TOO challenging. Know what I mean?
Will had his own stress to deal with early in the summer. He's a teacher, meaning that he's on glorious summer vacation right now. However, this summer was also his first semester of graduate school. We're talking a semester's worth of two upper-level math classes crammed into one 5-week session. So in addition to the classes themselves he had hours of homework/projects/papers each evening.
To say he needed a break - and a reward - after surviving that is an understatement.
We started talking about this trip in April, and initially Hilton Head wasn't a part of it. Will's two aunts had been asking us to visit for years (seriously, YEARS...I'm embarrassed it took us so long
) so we finally decided to make that happen. After roughly mapping the days out we ended up adding on the Hilton Head portion at the end since we'd already be in SC visiting aunt #2 anyway. I'd read a report on Disney's DVC resort in Hilton Head on another board just a few weeks prior, so that's where we ended up.
Here's how the schedule shook out:
July 22: Drop the monster-pup off at doggy camp
(obligatory monster photo that has nothing to do with anything
I just like him.)
July 22-24: Visit aunt #1 in the DC area
July 24-26: Visit aunt #2 in South Carolina (Columbia-ish area)
July 26-30: Head to Disney's Hilton Head Island Resort!
My favorite part of this itinerary was how little planning I needed to do. I mean, we worked stuff out with flights (my biggest triumph was scoring $59 tickets from Baltimore to Charleston...Southwest rocks!) and a rental car, and I made a few reservations for the Hilton Head portion of the trip...but compared to my normal OCD trip planning tendencies this was nothing. The aunts had stuff planned out for us and for once I was more than happy to just go where I was told, minimal thinking required. That's sort of what inspired the title of this report...in the days leading up to the trip I just sort of imagined us floating along effortlessly, completely relaxed, not a care in the world. AHHHHH......
That's me (Shannon, 29) and my husband Will (28). Last week we returned home from a much-needed vacation that included three destinations, five racing presidents, one try at paddle boarding (verdict: LOVE), two cupcakes, one favorite new movie, at least ten (!) bug bites (on only one of us...guess who the lucky one was?
) and one beyooooootiful golden retriever.The main feature of this trip, though, was relaxation. Our last vacation was traveling to Disney for Marathon Weekend in January, but let's be honest: as much as I love them, those race weekends are hardly vacations. They are WORK. And speaking of work, my job has been pretty demanding lately. It's good because I like being busy and challenging myself, but before this trip I'd been coming off of one of those periods where things are just a little TOO busy and a little TOO challenging. Know what I mean?
Will had his own stress to deal with early in the summer. He's a teacher, meaning that he's on glorious summer vacation right now. However, this summer was also his first semester of graduate school. We're talking a semester's worth of two upper-level math classes crammed into one 5-week session. So in addition to the classes themselves he had hours of homework/projects/papers each evening.
To say he needed a break - and a reward - after surviving that is an understatement.We started talking about this trip in April, and initially Hilton Head wasn't a part of it. Will's two aunts had been asking us to visit for years (seriously, YEARS...I'm embarrassed it took us so long
) so we finally decided to make that happen. After roughly mapping the days out we ended up adding on the Hilton Head portion at the end since we'd already be in SC visiting aunt #2 anyway. I'd read a report on Disney's DVC resort in Hilton Head on another board just a few weeks prior, so that's where we ended up.Here's how the schedule shook out:
July 22: Drop the monster-pup off at doggy camp
(obligatory monster photo that has nothing to do with anything
I just like him.)July 22-24: Visit aunt #1 in the DC area
July 24-26: Visit aunt #2 in South Carolina (Columbia-ish area)
July 26-30: Head to Disney's Hilton Head Island Resort!
My favorite part of this itinerary was how little planning I needed to do. I mean, we worked stuff out with flights (my biggest triumph was scoring $59 tickets from Baltimore to Charleston...Southwest rocks!) and a rental car, and I made a few reservations for the Hilton Head portion of the trip...but compared to my normal OCD trip planning tendencies this was nothing. The aunts had stuff planned out for us and for once I was more than happy to just go where I was told, minimal thinking required. That's sort of what inspired the title of this report...in the days leading up to the trip I just sort of imagined us floating along effortlessly, completely relaxed, not a care in the world. AHHHHH......
The Pirates were looking good!
Shadow is sooooooo cute! My parents have had goldens since the mid 80s...such sweet dogs.
