We left Cincinnati around 7:30pm on Sunday night, and drove all the way through. We thought if we left at Lukas’ bedtime, he’d maybe sleep for a good portion of the trip. That didn’t really work out. He was really good, but he was awake for probably 7 hours… There was just so much going on, and he didn’t want to miss out, I guess…

So we arrived at the island around 7 in the morning, and planned to hang out at the beach until our beachfront house was ready at 4pm. What a mistake that was! We were hungry, tired, but had our restless dog Boone and tired, but equally restless boy Lukas to take care of. What the heck were we thinking?!?

Anyway, we managed to set up a camp in the state park.

Our camp on the beach, the morning we arrived

And Lukas and I took a little nap in our beach cabana.

Dad and Lukas napping

But by about 10:30am, we were really wondering how we were going to make it until 4pm, so we decided to call the rental place and see if we could get into the house early. By some fortune that can only be explained as God having mercy on us, our house was ready! We crammed all our stuff back into the Explorer, high-tailed it to the rental office, picked up our keys, and headed to our house, High Tide.

Our house, High Tide

High Tide, from the beach

Over the course of the week, we found that Lukas really enjoyed the beach and the water (even though we went underwater unintentionally once… Dad’s fault, being a little too adventurous)

Lukas’ first experience with ocean waves

Playing in the surf

A wave almost goes over Dad and Lukas

The boys coming in after a long session in the waves

Standing on my head…

Mom and Lukas

We had a little setup on the beach with our wading pool, some umbrellas, lounge chairs, our cabana, and of course, our family.

Our beach setup

We had fun at the house too. Lukas liked crawling around on the deck outside. One day it was really windy, and he seemed to like that a lot.

Enjoying a windy evening on the deck

Hamming it up for the camera

One morning, we took a trip to Botany Bay Plantation to check out the beach there. Heidi took some really cool pictures, it was a little overcast, and the way the trees were growing on the beach and in the water, it was like something out of a Timothy Burton film.

Spooky

Some gulls gliding over the waves at Botany Bay

And that same morning, on the way back from Botany Bay, we got some pictures of the “Mystery Tree”

The Mystery Tree

All in all, it was a great trip, and we are already looking forward to returning to Ol’ Edisto next year!

Take a look at the rest of the pictures from our journey, but there are 200 of them, so don’t go there if you don’t have the time…