Bald Head Island Adventure

The coolest part of our trip by far was getting a chance to visit old friends of David’s family at one of their vacation homes in Bald Head Island. We left Kingston Plantation at noon, and headed down to the port at South Hill to meet up with Barbara and Buck. We parked our car in a lot there and went down to the marina with them. Now most people would have to carry their luggage and stand in line to board the ferry for a ½ hour ride across to the island, but we were able to go 1st class on Buck’s boat. We loaded our luggage in the compartment and took off ahead of the ferry, speeding over the choppy water. It was very windy, and we got sprayed a little from the sea, but it was WONDERFUL! I love boats, and I love adventures, and we were about to start another one. We pulled into the harbor and right into the boat slip directly in front of their house. The whole area had a quaint, Cape Cod feel and was very charming. We unloaded our things and all got on the little golf cart headed to the other side of the harbor for a late lunch. It’s so cool that no one has cars on the island, but there are roads. They are just narrower because you go everywhere in either a golf cart or on a bicycle. After lunch, David went off with Buck to play golf, and I took a quick nap before heading out in the other golf cart with Barbara for a quick tour of the island.
That evening we went back to the little restaurant on the harbor and since it was rather cool out, we all had a big bowl of delicious seafood chowder and calamari. When we got back to their house, we talked a little while, then headed off to bed for an early night.

We were awoken bright and early with the sun streaming into our room. It was still windy and a little cool, but a very beautiful day. Buck cooked us French toast for breakfast, then we got ready to head out on our own adventure. This was our room and the view from our porch.

They were so nice to let us go out on our own with their golf cart to explore the island for 3 hours. We had gotten a map so we could figure out where we wanted to go, but decided not to use it to start out with. It’s way more fun to explore and when we come to an intersection just say, “Let’s go see where this road takes us!” So we went all over the island together, feeling like little kids on a treasure hunt. We drove by gorgeous, enormous homes right on the vast expanse of beach, and whenever we wanted we parked the cart and got out to explore and take pictures. It was SOOO much fun! Here are some of the places on the beach side we went to.

I was amazed at how much different terrain there was on the island. I thought maybe a harbor and beach, that’s it, but no, there was so much more. We saw the tropical looking areas, the wooded areas, little lakes and the part they call the creek – which is really like a lagoon. One of the places this island has is a conservancy. (I got a cute hat that says Bald Head Island Conservancy) They protect all the sea turtles on the island and make sure that when the babies hatch, they go towards the ocean and not the land so they have a better chance of survival. Another part of the conservancy were lookout areas where they had signs posted to see if you can spot such and such animal. The coolest animal we spotted was this one! He was just sunbathing on the bank of the lagoon, when I snapped that picture. Then he saw us and turned around to come right over and even turned his head for a better photo. I also found it interesting that the alligators don’t harm the turtles, and let them just swim all around them without even paying any attention to them.

After our little jaunt around the island, we ate lunch and rested a while before packing up and heading out. Once we got back to our car, we had to come right by Wilmington to get home, so we stopped there as well to have dinner with Doug, David’s brother. All in all it was a wonderful trip. We certainly had a blast on our island adventure and we now have a new dream to have our second home on BHI some day.

Kingston Plantation

After leaving Holden Beach, we headed down to Chestnut Hill (the area between North Myrtle Beach and Myrtle Beach) to stay for 2 nights in a 3-bedroom condo on the 27th floor at Kingston Plantation. This was our view from the balcony.
What a laid back and relaxing time we had there. We got to spend time sunbathing on the beach, swimming in the ocean, playing beach volleyball, cooling off in the pool, and soaking in the hot tub.

We slept in as late as we wanted and took naps in the afternoon before some of the most delicious dinners ever. David, having grown up at the beach loves fresh seafood, and so do I, so we both really enjoyed our gourmet meals of parmesan-crusted snapper the 1st night, and crab-stuffed mahi the 2nd night.
Most people left to go back home after that, but David and I had more adventures to embark on…

Beautiful Beach House on Holden Beach

The next weekend was an even more awesome trip – or trips, I should say.
We started out the weekend by leaving bright and early on Friday morning and heading over to Holden Beach. One of the couples from Raleigh we are in business with has a 9750 sqf beach house in a private community down there. They invited several of us down to spend the afternoon there with their family. They have such a beautiful house – so peaceful and serene. We really enjoyed touring their place and getting to know them better as well. Here are a few pictures of their beach property.

They actually built this long dock
so they could take their golf carts

and bikes right down to the

Inter-coastal waterway where

they have their boat docked and

a couple of jet skis.
I loved the view from the widow’s watch and pretty much from every other room in the house too. David and I both love the beach and look forward to having a place at the at the coast too.

Weekend on the Lake

David and I have done so much really cool stuff just since we’ve been married, but I don’t feel like I should back post that far – since that was nearly 3 years ago! Wow! How time flies!
Anyway, I will just go back to the beginning of this month – starting with September 7th, 8th, and 9th. That was a fun weekend!
A few of us couples in business together rented a really nice house right on Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia and stayed 2 nights. On Saturday, we had a fun day at the lake with about 20 more friends and associates that came down just for the day.

We rented an 8-person boat and took turns going out tubing. Also, one of the couples brought their jet ski that holds 3 people, and we took turns taking that out as well. I got to drive it for the 1st time ever. I was speeding along at 50 mph – so fast that even with sunglasses on, my eyes were watering, but it was such a BLAST!

We had awesome weather – warm, but not too hot. It was great to be out and get some sun. I just love doing anything on or near the water.
So besides the water fun, there was also a volleyball net set up where people could play volleyball or badminton. Inside, there was a pool table, foosball, and ping-pong. Also, a couple of people had brought some interactive video games for the different TVs there in the house. We had WII sports and Playstation Guitar Hero upstairs, and my new favorite, so much fun game, Playstation Sing Star downstairs. You don’t have to sound good when you sing, but you pick a song and you are scored by how accurately you match the singer’s melody. A bunch of us played as teams for hours.
We also had great food for the whole weekend – a nice big cooked breakfast on Saturday, sandwiches and snacks around lunchtime, and grilled out hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner.
It was so nice to just be able to do whatever we wanted to do whenever we wanted to do it. I even got a nap in the middle of the afternoon, and it was great! Everybody had a wonderful time and we can’t wait to make this a tradition and do it again next year.

1st ever blog post

Hello! And welcome to David and Sherry's new blog. I am not sure how often I will post on here, but I would like to use this as a creative way to chronicle the fun times and cool places we go with friends and family. We have just had 2 weekends of fun and exciting things we have done, so I will back post on those first, then move forward from there. This is only the beginning. I hope you enjoy!