Happy New Year!

Now we're home from the beach. Holly and Alan slept in until about 8:30 today - Julia slept til 9:30. They stayed up late every night last week. But usually staying up late doesn't mean they sleep in, so they had to catch up on some sleep.

The last few days at the beach were just as full of fun as the first. And the second half of the week went a lot faster than the first half. Thanks to Aunt Mary Ann and Granna, the girls were often decked out complete with fancy dresses, makeup and manicures. One afternoon Sean, Alan, Granna and I went to the Angel Oak and the tea plantation.

Alan was very excited to be on a special outing, although when he got in the car he seemed to think that other kids or at least Uncle David was going, too.

He ate 4 fried eggs on New Years morning. We insisted that he be served only 2 at a time, but he wasn't lying when he said he wanted 4 to start with.

Later that day David, Sean and the kids all did the Polar Plunge at Folly Beach. We weren't sure what to expect. There was a pretty big crowd - some funny costumes - girls in bikinis - grown men in Under-Roos -

Our group was rather tame in comparison to some.

But had no lack of courage.

Noah and Olivia were the real polar bears in the bunch. Julia was upset that the water was so cold, but more upset that she was too cold to stay in it as long as her cousins did. Competitive? Or just not wanting to miss out on fun? Hm...

Check-out time was early-ish on Saturday. So we did a lot of packing up Friday night. We did go see the holiday light display at James Island County Park before we started seriously packing. And Saturday morning we finished up by setting free a lot of the shells we'd found over the week.

And posed for a family portrait on the steps.

Great start to the new year.