Vacation Adventures

 

We had some new vacation adventures while in South Carolina visiting Grandpa last week.  We booked an offshore fishing charter and tried deep sea fishing for the first time.  This half day adventure was so much fun for all of us, and we caught tons of fish!   

This flounder was HUGE and measured at 23 inches!

Posing bravely with our shark catch!

A catch for Leah!

Bubba's grouper.

Another catch for Luke.

Daddy caught this large cobia.

Luke's toadfish.

Leah's toadfish.

Another (smaller) flounder.

True to good ol' SC fishing tradition, if you put a beer can in a fish's mouth, you know it's a good sized catch.  Here's Leah, keeping it classy with our big daddy Flounder and a Coor's Light 😂: 

Leah also has a true fisherman's tale of "the one that got away".  We had some exciting moments on the boat as she tried to reel in a king mackerel.  Peanut gave it a good try, and I captured this screenshot from the video that I took of her fighting that huge fish.  At the last second, the king snapped the line and swam away, but it was thrilling to experience such a close catch:

After a few hours offshore, we ended our charter with some inshore fishing back in Murrell's Inlet:

Goat Island in Murrell's Inlet.  Look closely to see the goats roaming.

Another awesome adventure was Shark Wake Park.  This massive floating obstacle course includes monkey bars, climbing towers, slides, and inflatable rafts.  My gang had an absolute blast racing through Obstacle Island.  They slipped and fell often (which is half the fun), and they reminded me of contestants on "Wipe Out" or "American Ninja Warrior".  I took lots of videos of their hilarious falls and crazy competitions, and was so happy to sit and watch them from dry land!

We also had great pool and beach time.  The kids cracked us up as they lounged poolside.  They chose chairs as far away from us as possible and chatted with each other as we enjoyed what turned out to be our own private pool:

Living their best summer lives.

This is the only picture I took at the beach this trip... I guess I was in vacation mode, too!  We were thankful for gorgeous weather and warm ocean water during our time at Litchfield Beach:

We celebrated Father's Day a little early, watched "In the Heights", played basketball and rode bikes back at Grandpa's house:

Donning his new "Best Grandpa" hat!

Such a fun few days of adventures and time with Grandpa! 

May Days

We kicked off May with a wonderful visit from Bean & Poppy.  They had a weekend full of soccer games to watch (and everyone knows that grandparents are the BEST fans!) and we had the grand finale of Luke's birthday celebrations:

This giant NERF gun was the top item on Luke's wish list!

A soccer star poses with one of her most beloved fans!

Showing off one of his birthday presents: Lego Technic McLaren

May also brought the conclusion of the kids' spring soccer season.  The weather can be vary so much this time of year.  One day we were huddled under an umbrella and bundled up watching Luke's game:

...and the next weekend, we were sweltering in the hot sun!  

No matter the weather conditions, we love cheering for our favorite soccer players (and coach):

Our May Life Group consisted of a picnic at a new park and tennis with Mr. Chris:

L&L were also excited to use the Sky Wild gift cards that Mimi gave them for Christmas (and return to this attraction that they loved so much last summer).  This time, Daddy didn't need to accompany them, and our brave kids had a blast at this treetop adventure & ropes course:

There's a Winterhoff kid in each of the following pictures.  Your mission is to find them!

Ready for the course!

Just like our first visit to Sky Wild last summer, a peacock approached us as the kids waited to check in.  We thought it was so nice of him to greet us again this year, and he kept us entertained!

Back at home, May was filled with games of Clue, which is Leah's new favorite:

There were also many lovely days on the porch (usually with a lap doodle).  Mark and I like to say, "It's Porch Season!"

When I couldn't find the girls this month, I knew to look in Leah's fort, where they were often curled up reading:

We also had our first spring family movie night on the porch...

...and played in the baby pools with sprinklers and water guns as the temps warmed up:

Baseball is back, and we chose a quiet Tuesday evening to attend a Winston-Salem Dash game.  It happened to be free hot dog night, so you know that Luke was in heaven!  

Hot dogs + ice cream = Happy Kids!

Leah had the best night at the ballpark.  As we were waiting in line at the box office, someone handed her a free ticket.  Guess it pays to be cute!  A moment later, one of the Dash employees asked Leah if she'd like to be the guest announcer for the game.  Our unflappable girl was amazing, and was featured on the big screen!

Toward the end of the game, she got a baseball from the Dash players. 

 It was such a great evening!

Every year, I post baby cow pictures.  It's such a favorite of ours, and this May, there were 5 new calves born at the farm near us:

Millie carried this ball in her mouth the entire way to the park one day, and proudly pranced with it for our 3 mile walk.  We stopped once to sit in the shade, but our silly doodle picked it right back up afterward:

The neighborhood kids set up a lemonade stand one afternoon in May.  The "mamarazzi" thought this was so cute that the group was inundated with requests to take pictures.  Apparently, we weren't the only ones smitten with these little entrepreneurs, because they made over $100 in just a couple of hours!

Leah and I picked strawberries on a pretty May morning.  Yet another perk of remote learning is the flexibility to choose a sunny weekday to head to the strawberry farm!

The end of May also brought the end of the most unique school year ever!  Technically, the final day of school was June 3, but L&L did not have many live classes for the last couple of weeks, so we wrapped up the school year early.  I'm so proud of them for thriving during remote learning.  They both made all-A Honor Roll for the year, had amazing end-of-year standardized test scores, and adapted to continually changing schedules and learning platforms.  We've known it all along, but the pandemic has reinforced that these kids are exceptional.  They are resilient, happy, and smart, and we will always treasure our time of being together while learning from home: 

Hooray for the end of school and a fun summer ahead!