Huntington Beach State Park

On Tuesday we headed to Huntington Beach State Park. It was fantastic. We had to pay a small fee to get in, but it was so worth it. The beach was much less crowded. But even more than that, we got to see some of what South Carolina had to offer. They had boardwalks that went out over the Marsh (swamps). We saw Blue crab, egrets, herrin, and even alligators! It was fantastic.

Again, we spent hours on the beach. Crashing in the waves, sand castles for days and I can't even tell you how many shells we brought home. There was a castle that you could tour as well, but we spent so much time at the beach we got there as it was closing. It belonged to the family that previously owned the land...and poet and his wife. Maybe next time. After we left the beach we went back to the condo and had dinner. Frozen pizza and salad for the win and then we spent the rest of the night hanging out at the pool.

Myrtle Beach Boardwalk

Monday night we were ready to hit the town! First we checked out the Broadway Boardwalk and had dinner. We read that they had lots of activities in the evening but it was Monday and too early, so we didn't stay long. After dinner we headed to downtown Myrtle Beach. We walked around and checked it all out. And then we decided to give the Sky Wheel a whirl. Leah was terrified. It was almost comical, but after the first time around and a few deeps breaths she started to calm down. Kiersten and Hattie loved it, of course. The views were fantastic, especially since it was sunset. Afterwards we went for a walk on the beach. The tide was definitely low and we searched for more shells and sharks teeth. The girls were eating up all their time and attention with dad. After we wrapped up more time on the beach we decided that ice cream was in order. As we were driving back to the resort we passed a Dairy Queen and a Baskin Robbins but we wanted something a little more local. I put ice cream into my GPS and a place called Meyers popped up. When we got there the line was forever long. We knew we found a gem. They had SO MANY flavors available. We stood in line at least 15 minutes but it was so worth it. Spoiler alert...we went back on Wednesday night too!

South Carolina

Finally, Family Vacation 2017 has arrived!!! Mitch and I started planning this trip almost a year ago. We knew we wanted to take the girls to the beach, and we have plans so we picked a completely new location. We don't want to go to the same place over and over again. We want to experience new things, we want our girls to see the world. So while Disney is nice for some people...that's just not our plan. There are 50 states and we are slowly but surely going to start crossing them all off the list.

We left Illinois on Saturday morning and made good time. We stayed in Columbia NC, right on the South Carolina border for the night. The girls did great, because they are used to travel. On Sunday morning we were up and at'em to Myrtle Beach. We got to our resort right on time, but they weren't ready for us. We went to the beach, Surfside Beach, to be exact and then out to dinner. We got checked into the resort and enjoyed some time at the pool!

Monday we were ready to tackle the day. The Resort had a great events calendar. They did turtle races at the lazy river followed by a scavenger hunt. We had an early lunch and then we hit the beach. The Resort had a shuttle service to the beach, which was a mile away, but we liked driving on our own so we could come and go as we pleased. We spent a good three hours playing in the waves, collecting shells and making sand castles. The weather was fantastic! Mid 80's and low humidity was all we could have hoped for and more. Perfect!

The End

 

 

Our Time together is coming to an end. After family pictures on Thursday night we had some birthdays to celebrate. Thursday was Uncle Matt's actual birthday. He was so excited when we sang happy birthday to him, I kid, I kid! And then of course little Jackson will be turning 4 in August so we went ahead and celebrated early since we were all together. He was so excited about blowing out candles and all the wanted for his birthday was a balloon and some cake. He got that and a lot more. We love our little buddy!

On Friday Aunt Laura, Uncle Jeff, Nat and Jo came to Decatur and met us at the zoo. We rode the train and the carousel of course. And Nat got up enough courage to go in the petting zoo with my girls. We had a great day and ended our time together with some frozen yogurt from Krave. We've loved our time together and now Christmas can't come soon enough. Now we are off to Myrtle Beach for vacation...never a dull moment!