Summer Fun Things

Ellie’s diabetes camp was quickly followed by Myrtle Beach.  Then, we had about a week of time before we had out of state family entertaining us for a week (post coming soon).  In that week “lull” we found some fun things to do….

The library sponsored an animal show at Secrest Arboretum one night.  Ellie had seen this guy at school toward the end of the year and said it was good.  There were a lot of kids/people there, but we just squeezed right in.  We took Sam with us – which I love that as a freshmen he is still willing to come with us to these types of things… not sure how long that will last.  Ben and Cale met us there; Landen really wanted to come, but he got a horrible headache and had to sit it out.  The guy did a great job telling about the animals and allowing kids to come up and interact with them.  Snakes, a rabbit, an armadillo, a tortoise, a chinchilla, and more.  It was fun. 

Ellie is involved with Stirrup Courage, equine therapy program.  They decided to walk in the Orrville parade on a Wednesday night and were looking for kids and their families to walk with them.  We had been in the Dalton Holiday Parade with 4-H, so we added one more to our list.

The parade route is long (2 miles?) .  There are lots of people.  We had a couple horses that walked ahead of us.  Jeremy volunteered to be the pooper scooper – brave man if you ask me!  The girls tossed melt away peppermints.  I held a sign and passed out brochures. 

   

It was a lot of fun, but the wait to start the parade was long.  The parade stepped off at 7pm.  We did not leave the parking lot until almost 8:15pm.  It was amazing how long it took to get everyone through.  The general consensus was it was fun to be in the parade, but they missed watching it.. and getting the candy. 

Myrtle Beach (Part 2)

Wednesday

This was supposed to be one of the hottest days of the week. The first few days were gorgeous – low humidity, mid-80s.  The last part of the week had much higher humidity, more wind, and warmer temps (upper-80s to 90s).  That said, we were at the ocean, so it didn’t feel like it would feel when you are land-locked. We went through our morning routine. 

        

But after lunch, we chose to just stay in, do laundry, get ready for the evening.  We were headed to the Pirates Voyage, a Dollywood production.  We saw the show 7 years ago when my family went to Myrtle, but the girls didn’t really remember it well and wanted to go again. 

   

Madison tried some gear on in the gift shop!

The show is filled with diving, fire, aerial tricks, trampolining, “sword” fighting, and even a seal and dogs!  While you watch the show, you consume biscuits and soup, chicken, potato wedges, ham and corn on the cob, and an apple turnover – mostly eaten with your hands.  My favorite quote of the night was when Madison said, “I don’t know how to be excited AND eat at the same time!”  It is, admittedly hard to cheer and clap while pounding down food. 

    

We came home and walked on the beach for a bit before bed.  It was a pretty breezy evening. 

    

Thursday

Thursday morning we headed to the beach, but only after Jeremy ran to the store for more eggs… and brought home a new boogie board for me as an anniversary gift!  I was pretty stoked.  I love trying to ride waves in.  It was the perfect gift. 

Thursday afternoon we choose a unique to us, but not to Myrtle Beach, experience.  An escape room.  We chose Riddles Escape Room, which happened to be close to our condo.  We booked the Marooned Island experience.  It was challenging.  We used all our hints.  We had a few quibbles about who got to do what, but overall worked fairly well as a team.  Escapes rooms are weird in that they are not really a scavenger hunt, but a pile of hidden locks and clues around the room that eventually get you out.  We figured out all the locks.  We had everything in place, except that the last combination the letters we put in went front to back YES64, and they should have gone from back to front YES64.  Jeremy says were were ripped off and we really made it.  I think I might agree :)  At any rate – win or lose – it was a fun way to spend an afternoon. 

    

We decided to drive down to Myrtle Beach Strand area – reminded us why we chose not to stay right there.  Then, we went to Broadway on the Beach.  It was similar to Barefoot Landing where we had went shopping earlier in the week – some of the same shops in both places.  But I really like the vibe at Barefoot better.  Although there was a neat Hangout with bubbles, sand, and live music that was cool.  And this Illumination art exhibit with things that, I think, lit up at night.  The girls enjoyed the swings briefly.  (It was also much hotter when were here, so maybe that was my problem?)  We treated ourselves to ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery (Ellie) and Sweet Molly’s (the rest of us). 

    

We went back to enjoy a bit more beach time, some pizza and a movie (Sing 2 on Netflix), and a bit of packing.  Last night on the beach.

Friday

This was our 16th anniversary.  I have found that we are often on a trip of some kind on our anniversary (Gatlinburg and Honduras come to mind, but there may be more).  We went about a week prior to this one night to watch Maverick: Top Gun at the theater while my parents watched the girls.  Such a good sequel!  This time, Jeremy texted me around 7:30 from the beach and said he had two chairs set up.  (He tried on our honeymoon one morning to get me to watch the sunrise at 6am in Hawaii – pretty sure it was our first or second morning there – and I just couldn't roll out of bed. My body had adapted well to the time change; his, not so much.) I put on some flip flops, saw the girls already reading on the balcony, let them know, and headed out.  It was a nice morning.  We sat and talked and just enjoyed the view and sounds. 

He had just mentioned that we hadn’t seen any dolphins this time, when what did we see not far from shore – a dolphin jump partially out of the water and catch our attention!  We saw a number of them swimming together.  I ran back and hollered at the girls to look for the dolphins and come out if they wanted.  They joined us pretty quickly.  As they dipped their toes in the water one last time, we watched them.  Soon they were whispering and writing in the sand a message for us.  It was pretty sweet. 

   

We walked a bit down the beach before finally saying good-bye.

  

We finished packing up leftover food, tossing what we couldn’t take, and looking around for missing things one last time.  We rolled out exactly at 10am.

We made a slight detour to the Duke University campus on our way home.  Jeremy really wanted to see the campus – partly for the lure of Cameron Indoor Stadium and the campus appeal, but partly (mostly) because he has a distant relative that apparently donated enough money to get a facility named after him.

I think it was a pretty cool experience for the girls to be on a college campus.  I realize that we have not really taken them back to either of our colleges, except a drive by years ago.  They had a lot of questions about college – what it is like? if you get lost easily? – so it was good.

         

We learned when we got there that there was a athletic apparel surplus sale happening.  So, we bought a few Duke clothes (not because we are fans necessarily, but because it was a memory).  Jeremy was pretty stoked to be on the floor in Cameron Indoor.  It was much smaller than I imagined; I can only picture how crowded that must get during a game!

    

We also ventured into the chapel.  A pretty elaborate place. 

    

After that, we moved on to our expensive (and incredibly normal) hotel room in Princeton, W Virginia. 

Saturday

We let the girls swim Saturday morning and didn’t end up leaving until almost 11am.  But we made it home around 5pm, unpacked the car, grabbed supper at Subway, and went to pick up the dog at Grandma and Grandpa's pet sitting services.  We stayed long enough to retell vacation while showing them pictures of our trip – a huge perk of this digital age and not waiting to get film developed.

It was a good trip.  And I would go back to this specific place again and again and again.  If I am going to do the beach, I have realized on want to be on the beach, not a walk from the beach.  And while I say I am a mountains over beach kind of girl, I do really love playing in the surf and listening to the waves from my shady balcony.

Myrtle Beach (Part 1)

Our big, summer vacation arrived.  We went from June 11-18, including travel days.  Myrtle is about 10 hours away, so it is doable in one day, and based on the ridiculous rates for hotels, we probably just should have driven through.  (Seriously, they were all between $280-350 for a decent hotel!)  We stayed at Princeton, West Virginia both directions in the same Fairfield Inn.

We left on Saturday at 2pm.  Our drive was fairly noneventful which is not a bad thing.  When the girls were little, I spent a lot of time trying to make the trip bearable.  I figured I didn’t want them on screens the whole time, but they were too little to read or do many paper/pencil games.  So, I had tiny “gifts” every hour or so – a fidget, a small toy, a pack of crayons, a treat, etc.  We also tried playing car bingo and the alphabet game as they learned letters.  Now, they kinda expect this on trips.  I don’t do it the same way though, and we do allow them more screen time, and they do read books now.  The past two trips, I have brought a binder filled with activities and an envelope labeled Bored.  When they feel bored, they can pick a card from the envelope and I give them something to do – an art challenge, a word search, a decoding activity, a story starter, a travel game, a podcast suggestion, etc.  It is all stuff that I accumulated from Pinterest, slide in page protectors, and pull out as needed.  It doesn’t take up as much space, but they have fun.  They probably only dove into the envelope about 6-8 times total.  I also give them something at each state line.  This year they got yogurt bites to snack on, gum to chew, and gas station treat stop ($2 limit on a treat of their choosing).  It works.

Sunday

We left around 10am.  Stopped at a fun rest stop.

Jeremy’s cousin had recommended we check out Buc-ees travel stop in Florence, South Carolina.  These are huge truck stop like places.  But no trucks are allowed.  There are 120 gas pumps, a huge area to buy food (bbq, tacos, sandwiches), clothes, and home decor to name a few of the things in there.  The mascot is a beaver – just like my college alma mater! 

    

IT WAS CRAZY!  The place was crawling with people.  It may be because we are in the height of vacation season.  It may have been because they had just opened this one.  It may have been because that is just how it is.  Whatever the reason, I think once was enough for us and Buc-ees.  (Although it is something to see… kinda like Wall Drug in South Dakota.)  We did eat some pretty tasty brisket and pulled pork sandwiches, so there’s that.

         

We arrived at our Air BnB at about 4pm.  It was perfect, just like the pictures showed.  And so close to the beach! 

        

While the girls and Jeremy headed directly to the beach, I headed to the grocery store to stock up for the week.  We planned on eating breakfast in (eggs, pancakes, baked oatmeal, cereal) and lunches too (sandwiches, mac and cheese, quesadillas).  I did buy food for two suppers, but the pasta night was flexible enough we could take home the ingredients if we decided to go out. 

    

Journal Recap

Monday

The girls wanted to go shell hunting right away.  They found some neat shells this first day.  Then, it was pretty much beach time all day long.  And that’s what we did.  Jeremy set up our umbrellas and chairs in the mornings around 8am.  We would get out around 9:30 or 10am after slathering on sunscreen.  We spent a couple hours digging in the sand and playing in the water.  We would come in for lunch and a break and head back out around 2 or 3pm. 

That night (our coolest night), we decided to go miniature golfing.  Jeremy found one called Hawaiian Rumble.  It apparently hosts the miniature golf Master’s Tournament.  And there is a volcano that erupts every 20 minutes.  The course was fun and the night was beautiful.  We all – on different holes – even managed to get hole-in-ones!  Just for the sake of bragging rights, I am going to mention that I won… beating Jeremy by 1 stroke! 

              

Journal Recap

Tuesday

A little of everything today.  We (I… the itinerary person) planned to go to Barefoot Landing to do some shopping on Tuesday night.  It looked like it was still going to be cooler, and if I’m going to shop, I would prefer to be comfortable.  But Jeremy had the idea of going to Top Golf.  (Which to be honest, I was a bit reluctant about)  So, I looked it up on our way down to Myrtle and discovered that they had half price Tuesday!  What?!?  I can’t pass up a deal.  So, I booked us a time slot at 12:45 on Tuesday. 

Our day started as normal – breakfast, sunscreen, beach. 

Then, we took a break to head to Top Golf.  Very different than mini golf.  There are apparently many games you can play.  We played the basic game – hit the ball and hope it goes into some part of the hole.  I missed the ball multiple times while swinging, but I could just swing again.  Madison and Ellie had a blast.  Jeremy enjoyed it a lot, especially the second game after he was warmed up.  He crushed all of us points-wise and technique.  There is talk of going back.

              

We managed to squeeze in a bit more beach time after getting back to the condo and before heading to Barefoot. 

         

Barefoot was a good time.  We thought we would go to Flying Fish – a seafood restaurant.  There was a 90 minute wait.  So, we meandered through the shops while we waited to prep our brains for what we might want.  At the ding of the text, we headed back to the restaurant.  It was delicious.  Madison and Ellie shared a platter of jumbo and popcorn shrimp.  I indulged in Cajun-seasoned tile fish (one I had never tried before).  And Jeremy splurged and fought with the king crab! 

    

Afterwards, we headed back to the shops.  Madison bought a necklace and t-shirt.  Ellie got a visor and a long sleeved t-shirt.  We all got some salt water taffy.  And we enjoyed a beautiful sunset.

    

Journal Recap

Part 2 coming soon :)