First full day at the beach

Well, after a crazy start to our vacation yesterday (Saturday), we had a great day today. (If you want to read about that crazy adventure, it's at the very end.) We are staying for a week at Surfside Beach (which is south of Myrtle) with my parents, brother and his wife and son and my sister. The pictures below highlight most of our fun.

First thing this morning, S was up again at his normal time, 7:15 (ugh.. is it too much to ask that the boy sleep in once in a while??!!) So, after we ate some breakfast, K, S, and I decided to walk down to the beach and check things out. (The rest of my family was still snoozing.) It was around 8:15 but there weren't many people out yet. Our rental house is about 3 rows back from the beach front. The public beach access is right beside a fishing pier, so there were lots of people out fishing, and several people walking the beach but none in the water yet. We found out why: it happens to be unseasonably cool for the first of September, with a strong wind, which makes it pretty cool once you get wet. Anyway, back to my story about this morning: so we walk down to the beach to let S see everything. We weren't sure how he'd react. Last year, he wasn't quite 1 yet and didn't like the sand at all. Over the past year, he started loving sand, so we were curious if he'd like the beach with tons of sand to play in. After we reached the beach, he thought the sand was cool, but thought the ocean waves rushing up to greet him was even cooler. He had an absolute ball! We hadn't planned to get in the ocean that early, but he was addicted.... we mostly just put our feet in, but at one point, the waves knocked him off balance and he fell down. That didn't scare him at all.. in fact, he wanted to get out in the middle of the waves! Mind you, we didn't have our swim suits on, but that was okay because we were having a blast watching him being fascinated by the waves.

The pictures below are when we went back later that morning, dressed for playing in the surf and with the rest of the family in tow. S just cackled and would have stayed in the waves all day if we had the energy and stamina to hold onto him while he kicked the water and splashed around (all the time fighting the mega-strong current.) The little boy that is in the last few pics is my nephew Nate who's 3 1/2 years old. The boys have been having a ball together.






Then, the rest of our day went as follows: after swimming and playing at the beach, we came back to our house, swam for a few minutes in the pool at the house, ate lunch, took a nap, and then headed out to eat an early dinner. I won't say the name of the restaurant we ended up at, but it was kind of cheesy (real LIVE mermaid and pirates, just to give you a clue) and way over priced!

After dinner, we needed to get a few groceries, so K volunteered to go to the store after dropping S and me off at a little playground that was just a short walk from our house. S and I had a fun time playing and he didn't want to leave that either, but I was worn out! So, we started our walk back and K was coming back from the store and picked us up. We then headed out to the deck of the house and played with some bubbles... see pics below... it was a fun day and I'm thankful to be on VACATION!!


So, if you're not tired of reading my blog yet, here's the rest of the story from my very first comment of our hectic day of actually getting to the beach... actually, not only did we have a hard time getting out of G'ville to get here, but my parents and sister had their own crazy adventure too...

Our morning started out pretty relaxed..except for the fact that S thought we were leaving him (as he noticed all the packed bags and stuff). He kept clinging to us as if we were going to pack our car and leave him at the house. When we started loading the car, he wanted to get into his car seat, i guess so we wouldn't forget him!! Ha.. he cracks me up. Anyway, we hadn't planned to leave until around 10:30 which would allow us taking our time getting to the beach, time to stop and have lunch, etc. since we couldn't check into the house until 4pm anyway. Well, I called my mom to see how they were doing on their journey and told her we had just left. As soon as I hung up with her, I looked at my hand and realized I had forgotten my wedding rings, so I wanted to turn back around and get them. K was cool with that and we were only about 7 minutes from the house. So, we turn back around. I get my rings and we head out again. We go all the way to Haywood Rd which is at least 15-2o minutes from our house to go by the bank to get cash for our trip. As soon as we finish at the ATM, I realized that we had forgotten to pay rent, which is due on the 1st of every month. Agh!! So, we have to head BACK to our house, pick up an envelope and then luckily, just go around the corner to the rental place and leave the check under the door so they will have it first thing on Tuesday morning and so we won't be late on rent. We then head towards the interstate again. By this time, we had driving around G'ville for about an hour, I had to use the bathroom, S was getting hungry (not to mention he had a very full, leaking diaper) so we decided to go ahead and have lunch. Mind you, we are still in the city limits! We eat at my favorite place (ChicFilA) for lunch and finally get on the road. Not to mention we had to stop for gas too!

By this time, it was past 12:30 and my mom calls again around 12:45 to ask how close we were to the beach. I just laugh and tell her that we had just left and ask her why. Well, when they had left their hotel (somewhere north of Charlotte) and started traveling and got to Charlotte, they took a wrong exit which threw their entire journey off-kilter. They had a map, so weren't lost, but they were by no means on the quickest route towards the beach. She had found out from my brother that the rental place which had our house key closed at 4pm and wouldn't reopen until Tuesday and so was calling me to see if we'd make it there by 4. I of course said no, since we had just left and she said she thought she could call them and make arrangements to get the key after 4. (Turns out, by luck, I guess, that they actually did get to the rental place by 4, but right at 4!)

The rest of our trip was pretty uneventful, except for when we stopped so I could use the bathroom at a gas station and I thought I would puke, as it ranks in my top ten list of dirtiest bathrooms in America (I also have a top ten list of cleanest bathrooms, but there aren't as many on that list as on the dirtiest list.. no surprise there.) Anyway.. that is our story!!