Saying goodbye to summer

We don't do the beach in the middle of summer. It's like a form of torture, especially for my insanely white family (except Noah apparently tans even with 30+ sunscreen?). The sunburn, the crowds, the heat... just not our thing. So we wait until school is back in session, and then we head down to Kiawah. We've been going since I was 14, and even though it's gotten way more popular since then and a few big changes have been made, it's still like going home.

 (in case you're curious, yes I did get my hair redone. It's in the middle of a rescue operation in order to get me back to a more natural color. I kind of love the color now though... hard to tell exactly here, but it's more of a dark red brunette)

 Over the years, we've brought different friends along with us. This time, we brought our buddy Chase (I'm sure you figured that...). I think Brad enjoyed having a guy friend around, and I liked having the extra set of hands to help with Noah. :)

 (okay, seriously... it looks like they hired a photographer to take pictures of them with their son. lol. I'm in like 2 pictures from this whole trip. I really need to get better about that.)

 Brad got to play golf on the island for the first time ever (he scored a great deal). Chase tagged along with him for that and got a few phone pics.

One afternoon, Noah and Brad were both exhausted, so I took Chase for a tour of the island. I showed him all the insanely massive summer homes of all the surgeons, lawyers, and celebrities. We both agreed that if we ever had enough money to build something like that, we wouldn't. Mainly because just the cost to build something like that could feed an underprivileged family for a year.

However, this one is my dream home. I love it so much. I'd never need all that space, but it sure is beautiful.

I also showed him the Oceancourse where they had the 2012 PGA Championship. We also used to take our truck out there and drive to the end of the island to fish.

He's officially branched out on his own business-wise. He does web design, SEO, and other nerd like things that make my brain hurt. Anyway, he needed some updated shots of himself, so we had some fun and did a photoshoot while we were there. And since neither one of us work for free, we traded... he's in the middle of designing a whole new website for my photography business, and I gave him new pictures. I love a good trade. :)

(to see more from the shoot, go here)

The price of fish there is ridiculous, especially when you can just catch your own. So that's what we did. We caught dinner.

It was a lot of fun. At least until the monsoon hit. Oh and until the gator in our back yard came after our fish. Yeah, that wasn't as fun.

It ended up being the perfect trip. The perfect goodbye to summer. Noah had so much fun, he didn't want to leave. When we got back home, he climbed back in his car seat and asked to go bye-bye. :) I felt the same way.