A little island time

Finally!!  We spent three absolutely glorious days at Jekyll Island last weekend and it was just what the doctor(s) ordered for us!!  We rented a villa at Driftwood Beach and it was perfect.  Two stories (those stairs were a struggle!), two bedrooms, a fully-equipped kitchen and I think our upstairs balcony had the best view in the whole place!  

Sunrise, sunburn, sunset, repeat.  We saw that on a t-shirt in a shop there and this was true for us.  We both got a little burned, despite constantly spraying each other down with sunscreen.  The days were overcast with long periods of bright beautiful sun and it was so absolutely worth it.  Larry's immediately turned brown and mine has now.  Gone are my days of burning, peeling and turning white again.  Since menopause, my skin tans and my hair is curly.  I'm a totally different girl!

We love Driftwood Beach and since we were staying right there, we went there first.  

We think that's probably 5th most romantic beach in the country, but who's arguing?  It is romantic.

It's a beautiful place and the site of some Walking Dead scenes come fall!  They filmed there my birthday week.  Don't miss it!

I love this picture I took of Larry.  He was so tired. 

My poor foot's first dip in the ocean since she went to hell and came back.  BEST. FEELING. EVER.  !!!!!!!

Driftwood Beach is miles and miles of trees that were once part of a forest and now have become driftwood from years of the sea washing over them.  We see lots of photographers there and we've even been there when a wedding was taking place.  Yep.  Quite the romantic spot and the best place for us to go first. 

We can't go anywhere without a cat finding us!  This little girl was right outside our townhouse Saturday night.  (And Sunday morning.  And Sunday night.  And Monday morning.)  She has her ear notched, which means she's a Jekyll Feral and has been caught, spayed and returned to live her life out on the beach and eat tuna and chicken and ham and whatever else visitors give her.  Not a bad life at all.  Shoot, I'd love it!

We got up early Sunday morning, had our coffee on the balcony and watched the sun come up.  The breeze off the ocean was downright chilly at times and we were loving that!  Got home and it's 100 degrees again.  Ugh.  

We spent Sunday morning at Jekyll Beach and could not have asked for better weather!  We just sat and relaxed and fed the seagulls and took dips in the ocean and just enjoyed being together.  I've never attended a more beautiful Sunday service.  It was such a long time coming and we enjoyed every second.  Look at that sky.  

Georgia has the most beautiful coastline.  I'm not sure why everybody wants to go to Florida all the time.  Not a big deal at all.  More room for us!

We went out Sunday afternoon and shopped a little and had supper at Jekyll Island Seafood Company.  And I got to wear my new Lilly dress!  I was so scared I'd get shrimp and grits on it.  I bought it earlier this summer JUST to have when we went to the beach.  It did not disappoint.

We played 18 holes of miniature golf and Larry only beat me by two strokes, which was a straight miracle.  I suck at golf, miniature or otherwise.  It was so fun, though.

We spent some all-to-ourselves time in the pool Monday morning, had breakfast at the Jekyll Island Golf Club and went back to the beach for a while.  We always have to go and say "see ya later" to the ocean.  Ever since I was a tiny girl, I've had to do that.  Not goodbye, see ya later.  'Cause I will.

Larry feeding the seagulls again.  Popcorn this time.  We "met" one seagull, Hoppy, we called him, who only had one foot.  He was there Sunday and Monday.

Larry wrote this in the sand.

It sure was.

Our trip to Jekyll Island with a side of St. Simons

We left out early Friday morning and went to Jekyll Island for the weekend.  Banjo went with us and we had our very good neighbor, David, babysit Tabbie Hoffman for us.  

We had so many wonderful experiences that I hope I can do them justice here!  We took over 400 pictures in three days!

Jekyll Island is such a beautiful, quiet little beach town and we met some really good people there.  The lady at the gift shop, Nana, who told us about the huge convention center "they" just built there and the monstrosity of a hotel that's going up, too.  There was an estate sale Saturday on the island that we went to and I found a Le Creuset French oven that I wanted really, really, really bad but wouldn't get it because it was $75.  A great deal, I know, but I'm like that.  I won't spend a lot of money if it's something I want.  If it's for the house or for Larry or one of our babies, I'll do it in a heartbeat.  I thought it was just a little self-indulgent so I wouldn't get it.  Larry went back Sunday and got it for me.  That's an amazing man I married.  But, hey, I knew that 26 years ago! Standing in line to get in to the estate sale, Larry talked with a lady who was also furious about the convention center and the hotel going up and she even told him that Governor Deal has made a deal (grrr!) to bring some hunters in and kill the "excess" of deer there so that they can build more stuff.  Larry and I encountered a beautiful small deer in the woods at the beach and he came right up to us (but of course, that's when we were frantically trying to find Larry's wallet and didn't have a camera with us!) and we just cannot bear the thought of them being killed.  We got her name and we're joining the cause to save those deer.  That's what we liked about Jekyll.  It was quiet and peaceful, natural and full of wildlife and the people who love them.  We ran into another lady on the beach who feeds all the feral cats on the island.  We have activism in our souls and while we realize that tourism brings jobs and money, what's more important is what the people who LIVE there want and from the very outspoken folks we talked to, this is not what they want.  Bringing things to a vote seemed fair to us.  "They" didn't do that.  If there is an excess of deer there, looks like we would have seen more than one since we combed every inch of that island, beach and river side.  Hmph!

Saturday afternoon, we discovered that Larry's wallet was missing.  He thought he'd left it in the truck and I couldn't remember if I locked my door or not so we were convinced that it was stolen.  I told Larry when we first discovered it missing that I believed some good person had found it and would mail it to us.  I said we were going to trust God with this and even if we didn't get it back, if someone had stolen it, there was nothing in there that couldn't be replaced.  I had $14 in cash in my wallet.  Every other dollar we had was in that wallet!  Of course, we had my debit and credit card but still, we had a chuck of money in that wallet!  We backtracked our steps, went back to Driftwood Beach where we had gone that morning, looked everywhere and just could not find it.   We went to SeaJay's and had lunch and I spent the entire time trying to get Larry to perk up and stop worrying about it.  He felt awful.  We prayed about it and decided that we were going to see God working in it NO MATTER WHAT.  We went back to our room and no sooner were we done with our showers when Larry's phone rang.  He answered and I could hear the voice from the other side asking if he was Robert Schneider and when he said yes, she said, "I have your wallet".  I just broke down and started squalling!  Not because of the money, not because of the many cards and things we would have had to replace, but because I KNEW without a doubt that God had done this.  We had been strong, we had gone to Him with it and we had trusted that He was in control.  And He was.  Larry gave me the phone and I got the lady's name and directions and off we went to St. Simons to meet her.  It took us about twenty minutes to get to the Sea Palms Resort but we met her in the lobby and got it back.  Not one dollar was missing.  Not one thing touched.  She'd found a card in there that had the phone number of a friend of Larry's, called the friend, got Larry's number and called him.  After she'd googled us and found us in Warner Robins, called the house and got no answer.  :)  It was truly an amazing experience, one that still has us in absolute awe.

Banjo was super good all weekend but he was a little afraid of the water at first.  He didn't realize he could swim!  By Saturday afternoon, he was running to the ocean!  It was so sweet and I'm so glad we took him with us.  We enjoyed him so much!

We bought a beach umbrella and anchor from a little souvenir shop and that was the BEST thing we could have gotten the whole trip!!  It was SO hot and we sprayed each other down with Banana Boat and I am happy to report that this was the very first beach trip of my life (except when my mama was keeping me covered!) that I didn't get sunburned!  We both got a little pink on the shoulders but NO BURN.  Not even our heads or feet.  We might have figured this thing out!  Ha!  

We had a cooler full of ice and drinks and a big bag of cheesy poofs.  We just hung out at the beach all weekend and life was pretty much perfect!

Sunday morning, we went for a sunrise walk on the beach and found a washed ashore jellyfish.  I wanted to pick him up and throw him back in but Larry was afraid he'd sting me.  We noticed he didn't have tentacles but we didn't know if he was storing them inside or what.  We didn't know what to do!  Just then, a Jeep belonging to the Georgia Sea Turtle Center comes by and Larry flags them down and we show them the jellyfish.  One of the interns there picked him up and told us that he was a cannonball jellyfish and was totally harmless to people.  We noticed a tiny crab had latched on to him as well.  I took them both from her and headed out to sea with them.  I can't even describe how it felt to give an otherwise doomed jellyfish back to the ocean at sunrise but I can say that it was a beautiful experience and one I know God had a hand in, too.  I kept talking to them, "we're almost there, y'all" and "hold on, little buddies".  :)  It was pretty amazing.  God was all around me, in the beautiful colors of the sky to the cool water around my feet to the cold little rubber ball I was holding in my hand.  No church service I've ever been to could compare.

We spent the rest of Sunday morning at Driftwood Beach and pretty much had the whole place to ourselves until some folks showed up to get married!
  

  

We made it a point to go to the Sea Turtle Center that afternoon!  We got to see a little bit of the work they do to save little sea creatures and their habitat and how we can all help.  This little girl's name is Glory.  She swam around to look me right in the eye.  :)

We checked out the historic district on the river side of the island, too.  The Horton House that's been there since 1746!  If you want to build a house that'll stand the test of time, build it with sand, water, lime and sea shells.  Sounds like my kind of house to me!

We'd had to cross the Sidney Lanier Bridge going over to St. Simons to pick up Larry's wallet so we went back and hung out at the park under the bridge Sunday before we started home.  

We had such a great trip full of sunshine and breezes, salty sea air, laughter, a few tears and a whole lot of love!