Bimini, Bands, Flag Football, & Formal

April proved to be another incredible month as we welcomed Spring and took some amazing trips. The theme of the month was definitely concerts, though! Brayden kicked the month off with a BYX chapter social, Trent had his regular bagel breakfast after workout with his F3 friends, Brayden attended the AOii Battle of the Bands, and I treated myself to an amazing facial with Wendy (using a gift card that was way too dated)! 

For spring break this year, it looked a bit different than it has over the past 14 years when our immediate family unit of four wasn’t together. This time, Brayden had already taken her spring break with college and she had classes while we were on ours. So, we invited Hunter, one of Hanleigh’s best friends, to join us for our trip to Fort Lauderdale and Bimini. We flew down to Fort Lauderdale very early on a Saturday morning, threw our bags down at the hotel, and then headed to A1A for a delicious lunch where the people watching was on point, followed by a couple hours laying out on the beach. After coming back in and getting cleaned up, we headed to dinner at 15th Street Fisheries, which was delicious. And it was hilarious because there was a couple next to our table who is making out the whole time and we all were just dying laughing about it. PDA, no thanks! We woke up really early the next morning and headed to the dock where we would board a very well-equipped and nice ferry for a two-hour ride to Bimini. This is an island I went to during one of my family’s summer trips. For that one, we chartered a sailboat, just the four of us, and sailed 50 miles from Fort Lauderdale to Bimini. I think we were under sail for about 14 hours and trolled for our own fish off the stern of the boat. Pretty cool experience! This time was a lot quicker to get to the island. When we arrived, we had our bags stored at a hotel, secured our golf cart, and made our way to Latitude 25 for lunch. We quickly realized we were on island time because I think it took us an hour and a half to get our food—at least it felt that way. Once our condo was ready, we checked in. It was absolutely gorgeous and had the most amazing ocean view. The beds were super comfortable and it was very spacious. If you haven’t been to Bimini, it is an extremely small island: about seven miles long and about 700-feet wide—very easy to get around, but it has definitely seen its share of storms and the island is quite weathered. The island is also extremely casual (no fancy restaurants). 

We went to dinner on the first night to Bimini Seafood Company, which is really tasty, and then headed back to the condo for an Easter day candy hunt. We were all exhausted from the long travel day, so we hit the sack relatively early. Each morning, I found a way to incorporate a jog to and from the tennis courts, with a workout in between. Our property had a gorgeous infinity pool that was right on the ocean where we could see the cruise ships coming in and out. We chilled out there for a bit until I had to scoot to do a very exciting dive with hammerhead sharks! Bimini is known for this adventurous dive and there was no way I was going there without doing it! Part of me thought I was completely crazy to even consider it, but I had to seize this opportunity! When I was on the dive boat, the Dive Master gave us the safety briefing and she handed out 2-foot PVC pipes to everyone. The idea is that we were to hold on to these and use them as a deterrent for the various types of sharks we could encounter. Nurse sharks are very popular during this dive, so we were giving the guidance to use our PVC pipe and just lightly tap and shoot them away because they’re little stinkers. They like to snuggle and they’ll just come up to you. No big deal there. With the hammerhead sharks, we were told to hold the PVC pipe out straight in front of us where it is perpendicular to the ocean floor, so that when the hammerhead approaches, his hammer would just hit the pipe and it would redirect him. We were told just to not have our hand where the mouth of the shark was (duh!). Oh my goodness! That made me just a tiny bit nervous. Then, they said that sometimes tiger sharks will appear. What did you say? And if they appear, then we should take our PVC pipe and stick it out in front of us like it is an extension of our arms. After they made that comment, I didn’t second-guess my decision, but I was a bit more nervous (although, I was probably 80%, excited and 20% nervous). Before we went in the water, they chummed it to attract to the hammerheads. We probably spent about 20 minutes doing that and it attracted a ton of nurse sharks. One of the dive instructors went under to see if there were any hammerheads and he finally confirmed that there were, so we all descended down! We were underwater for about two hours (including each person going up during their own time to change out their tank and come back down). We didn’t see any tiger sharks, but I kind of wished we had. I felt extremely safe down there and it felt so surreal that I was interacting with such large sea creatures. Definitely one for the memory books! 

The next day, the four of us went snorkeling with Caribbean reef sharks. It was kind of a stormy day and the visibility wasn’t that great. Also, Hunter had never snorkeled before and was pretty nervous in the water. So, she cut that trip short, understandably so. Meanwhile, our next stop was at the SS Sapona shipwreck, where Trent, Hanleigh, and I swam through the sides of the ship to hang out in the center of it for a bit. Definitely a lot of waves, but it was a really cool experience! There were also tons of beautiful fish there! That night, we went to Hemingway’s for dinner, which was a restaurant inside of the Resorts World hotel. The next day, we just bounced around and hung out at our pool and then headed back to Bimini Seafood Company for another dinner. This one was much more eventful. A couple of tables away, there was another family that had a son who was around 15 or 16 years old. Throughout dinner, we were plotting and scheming how we could give that kid Hunter’s Snapchat handle. So, we devised a plan that when we got up from dinner to leave, Trent would walk out first, followed by Hunter and me, and then Hanleigh would drop off a sheet of paper in front of him that had her contact info on it. She even filmed it happening. It was hilarious and we had so much fun figuring this plan out and executing on it! The great thing is that the kid actually reached out to her and they texted each other the whole time we were on our trip. Of course, they had many opportunities to meet in person, but, they never did. This generation, ha!!!

We spent the better part of one day at the beach club at Resorts World, which was really nice! It had one humongous resort pool, it was oceanfront, and had plenty of chairs on which to relax. I can see how when there is a cruise ship in port how that beach club can get pretty crazy with the DJ and pool parties. We got Edith’s pizza for dinner, which Joe and Leslie had recommended from a previous trip they took to Bimini, and it was delicious! The next day, we went to Bimini Big John’s for some cocktails…another fun place! Apparently, the island was much busier the week prior for their homecoming, coupled with the fact that we also did not have the best weather (so much so that two cruise ships couldn’t even approach the docks because the seas were too rough), though the restaurants and bars were a little bit slow. We still made the most out of all of it, though! On our last day there, we stored our luggage back at the hotel, and rode out to Radio Beach, which was definitely the prettiest beach we visited. It reminded me of the Turks and Caicos in terms of how clear the water was and how soft the sand was. After our time sunbathing, we headed over to Joe’s Conch Stand for the most amazing tropical conch salad ever. It was delicious! That evening, we hopped on the ferry back to Fort Lauderdale, spent the night in a hotel, and flew back to Charlotte. It was an awesome trip, very relaxing, and exactly what we needed!

Brayden attended a Fiji pledge class get together, then had her recruitment roundup in preparation for rush this fall, followed by a Big Dawgs date night, an Atlanta Braves baseball game, and an SAE spring party. There’s definitely no lack of social activities at UGA. She also registered for her fall classes (more information on that in the coming months). I do know that her normal schedule is about 12 hours of courses, but there is one course that she was recommended to take which will help her qualify for her sports broadcasting certificate. She’s a bit nervous about taking it because it’s a lot of work, but I know she can do it. Trent and I went to Coyote Joe’s to see Nate Smith! He’s one of my favorite country artists. I just love his voice. In typical concert-going style, of course, we were up front by the stage. All the good things happen when you’re that close. His openers were Just Jayne, Josh Ross, and then Nate came on stage. He sounded amazing and walked off stage and down to where the crowd was three different times! One time, I grabbed his hand, then later on in the night, he threw a t-shirt into the crowd and Trent caught it. Then, at the end of the concert, he signed the t-shirt! It was such an epic night! 

Hanleigh continued kicking butt during her flag football games. She’s just such a natural athlete in that sport, so much so that she was asked to play defense and offense all the time. The great news is that it looks like it will be a fall sport, so she’ll be training and practicing at this summer. We are so proud of you, girl! Brayden had her Camp Panda, a PiKap and Beta pledge class social, and Kendall and I went to dinner at Spice. A couple days later, Tonya, Heather, and I went to see a country cover band at the Amp (which, we really didn’t even pay attention to), and then we had dinner at Flowerchild. It’s always such an amazing time when the three of us hang out together! The next night, Hanleigh and I joined Ray and Kippen for dinner at Culinary Dropout, followed by seeing Caamp and Zach Bryan in concert at Bank of America. I don’t really know a lot of their songs, but the music is really great live. The concert was awesome and the stage was mostly in the center of the arena, giving everyone a really great view! The girls knew nearly every single song from Zach, so my heart was full just watching them sing the night away!

Brayden took Cora on one of her sorority date nights, which is so great. The fact that these two have been best friends since kindergarten and are now at the same college is just so amazing. Cora is not in a sorority, but I love how they make time for each other. I paid a visit to Eric Sparrow, who is such a talented artist and gave me more beautiful pieces to accompany my other symbolic art on my left arm. He’s such a kind and gentle soul and I would recommend him to anyone as a tattoo artist. Brayden had a joint social with Chi Omega, Julie and I had dinner together at Yama sushi, and Hanleigh had a dance recital for her class. They all dance to Madonna’s “Vogue” and it was so cute to see them all up there performing! She did an amazing job! 

Leslie, Carol, and I spent a girls weekend in Pinehurst at Leslie’s condo, which is right on one of the golf courses. It is in such a beautiful location and extremely peaceful. We went to dinner on Friday night at to Ashten’s in Southern Pines, which was absolutely delicious and we were lucky enough to dine alfresco. We followed that up with a visit to Cork, a new-ish bar that we ended up closing down. After that, there was no other choice than to go to Dugan’s. We ended up calling it Dugan’s Dungeon because the minute our big toes stepped foot in the basement, we were figuratively “pounced on” by random dudes. I’ve never seen anything like it and it was kind of creepy and comical. We just wanted to hang out with the three of us. We politely declined, and continued our night. Every time we go there, there’s always something funny that happens. The next day, we exercised, chilled out at the country club pool, walked over to the Cradle, which is the par-three course where everyone takes their shoes off and it’s very casual, went home and got cleaned up, headed back to dinner and then hit up Dugan’s again, but this time was karaoke night! It was really fun and a lot less sketchy that night. 

Brayden attended her sorority formal and looked absolutely gorgeous. They have a tradition at Georgia before formal whereby each girl has their turn to walk down the staircase inside the sorority house where her date greets her at the bottom of the steps and then does some kind of twirl around or a dips her down and gives her a kiss. Some people rehearse and some people don’t. They did and her entrance was very classy. It sounds like she had an awesome time! The next night, Morgan and Brayden attended the “Between the Hedges” concert, which featured Lauren Alaina, Zach Top, Luke Bryan, and Jason Aldean. In typical Jones family fashion, she took a lesson from me, got there really early, and was second row in front of the stage (general admission, no seats)! It looks like they had an amazing time!

Hanleigh participated in a flag football tournament at the end of her season and they did so great! It has been so wonderful and rewarding for her and amazing for us to see her really latch on to a sport that she loves so much. We are so proud of you, little bit! Cooper turned 15—happy birthday buddy! I had my monthly facial with Amy, Brayden went to yoga with some friends and then her finals kicked into high gear to wrap up her freshman year. It’s crazy how fast it’s gone by. She celebrated a meal at Marker 7 before all of her friends went back to their hometowns or traveled abroad. Cammy celebrated her birthday as well! I ended the month with a trip down to St. Petersburg, Florida for the annual Triple B’s trip. I’ll recap that one in our next post!

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