Myrtle Beach - May 2011

On Thursday, May 19 we finally got to leave for our first family vacation! The kids had never been on a vacation before, and me and Will had not been on a real vacation since our honeymoon, almost 7 years ago! So it was long overdue and much needed!

Will picked the kids up from daycare at about 12pm while I was finishing up packing at the house. He brought them back home, we put the last few *million* things in the van and finally headed out around 1pm. The kids did not take a nap at school, so we thought they might go to sleep in the car for a little while and make the ride a little easier. They finally went to sleep somewhere in the mountains. Liam slept for about an hour and a half and Taylor slept for 30 minutes. We used to have a DVD player that hung on the back of the headrest, but it is broken right now, so the kids had to use their imaginations to keep themselves busy. There was a little bit of fighting and yelling and whining, but for the most part, they did really good riding in the car for so long. After a quick trip to Walmart for a few groceries, we got into Myrtle Beach around 9pm. Will got us checked into the hotel and we could finally stretch our legs.

Taylor was not in the best of moods by the time we got to the hotel. Probably because she had only taken a 30 min nap! Right here she was made because she wanted to ride on the cart and we told her no.

Liam was pretty excited to be there though!

After Taylor got settled in, she was pretty excited to be away from home too! This was their room in the condo. We ended up pushing the far bed beside the other bed so that it wasn't right next to the window. I also brought the baby monitor so that I could hear them if they fell out of bed or anything. Or if anyone tried to steal them through the window. I was a little worried about it, but they were just fine!

They finally went to sleep after much convincing on Thursday night.

Friday morning we all slept until about 8 or 9. Then we got up and got ready to head down to the beach. Taylor has been to the beach before, but the last time she was there she was about 7 months old. Liam had never been to the beach. They were both so excited to play in the sand and see the ocean.

The weather was perfect the whole time we were there.

Liam's first touch of the ocean!

Taylor absolutely loved the ocean. She was in and out of the water and playing and splashing in the waves and going a little further out each time.

Liam was a little more apprehensive about the water. He would get his feet wet but usually only if he was holding someone's hand. He was more a fan of the sand!

The beach had so many seashells on Friday. It almost hurt to walk down to the ocean, but the kids didn't seem to mind too much. Will enjoyed going down and sitting in the water with the kids, and they loved having him down there too. We didn't stay at the beach for very long this day...the kids wanted to go to the pool and the lazy river so bad. So since this vacation was all about them, we went up to the room, ate lunch, and then went back down to the lazy river and pools.

After we went swimming, we came back up to the room, took showers and baths, and then went to eat at The Big Crab. It is one of those all you can eat seafood buffets. And we sure got our money's worth. We had been to this buffet once before (the year I was pregnant with Taylor) and we have decided that we probably won't go back there. The food was ok, but there are definitely better seafood buffets!

After we ate we needed to make a quick trip to Walmart to get me and Will some new sunglasses. Then we came back to the condo and just rested and watched Tangled and fell asleep on the couch.

What a wonderful sight to wake up to!

The next morning we slept late again. Liam tried to wake up at 6:30, but I told him the sun came up too early at the beach and he needed to go back to sleep. I put him in the bed with me and Will and he went right back to sleep until after 8.

We got ready to go back down to the beach and decided that we (Will) would put the tent up so that we could have some shade down at the beach.

It was nice for the kids to ahve a place to play in the sand in the shade and I certainly enjoyed it! I think we were representing TN well at the beach!

My little beach babe! She was born for life at the beach!

Even with the shade from the tent, the kids were not interested in staying down at the sand for very long. We stayed longer than we did on Friday, but still not more than an hour or so. They really really wanted to go swim at the lazy "riber," so once again, we went upstairs to eat lunch and then came back down to the pool to swim.

Taylor was a big big fan of the lazy river. She could touch the bottom so she didn't need a float and she just swam and swam around.

After a little bit of swimming and time in the hot tub, Will took the kids back up to the room for a nap and I stayed down in the sun. It was so nice to have time to just lay in the sun, read a book, and take a nap! Thank you Will for that time to myself!

After naps, we got ready to go eat! We decided to eat at Olive Garden on Saturday night. We had a gift card and decided that this was the perfect time to use it! We had wonderful food!

After we ate we drove around trying to find a red box so that we could rent a movie. We finally found one and picked out a movie. They I decided that the kids needed a Myrtle Beach shirt so we stopped at one of those beach stores and let the kids run around and check out all the stuff, we got them some shirts, and headed back to the condo to watch the movie, and again, fall asleep on the couch!

I completely forgot to take the camera down to the beach with us on Sunday. But I can guarantee you that we had a great time playing in the sun and the sand. We decided to let the kids go ahead and play at the pool before we went up to eat lunch today so that we could get ready sooner and go to the outlet stores. Yeah!

When we got to the outlet stores we realized that since it was Sunday that they were closing shortly so we hurried up and went to Old Navy and the Disney store and then we were done.

The kids are always asking to ride in these coin operated rides when we are at the mall or pretty much anywhere they see them and I always tell them they are broken! I just can't see paying all that money for a ride that just rocks back and forth, but...since it was vacation, and since they were begging, we decided to let them ride on this helicopter. And guess what, two seconds after it started they were ready to get out! We made them stay in it though. They were going to get their 75 cents worth!

After we shopped a little we headed back to the condo and ordered some pizza. It was so good!

After pizza and a little bit of a Disney movie we decided to head down to the beach for a walk. The kids had so much fun being down on the beach at night! If we knew they were going to like it so much, we would have had them down there every night. They had the most fun chasing the birds around. They would be really quiet and get right up next to them and then the birds would fly away. Then they would run around after them. I also think they liked running really fast in front of us and seeing how far away they could get before we yelled at them to stop. It was a great night of fun.

Our one hundreth attempt at a family picture and this is the best we got!

We got up late again on Monday morning and took our time getting down to the beach. We told the kids that this was our last day at the beach so we needed to stay for a long time and enjoy the sand. So that is just what we did.

The kids played a long long time in sand and really enjoyed covering my legs up with sand.

After playing in the sand we went upstairs and ate lunch and then we came back down to the pool and the lazy river and played for a long time. Once again my wonderful husband let me lay out in the sun by the pool and take a nap while he kept up with the kids for a little bit. After I was all rested up we spent a little more time in the lazy river and the kiddie pool and then we went over to the hot tub to play.

Taylor was convinced that the hot tub was just a big bath tub that she could swim in! She absolutely loved the hot tub. She would just float around and enjoy the warm water. Liam was a bigger fan of the steps, but eventually got a little more down in the water!

This was probably one of our longer days out in the sun and the kids were exhausted. They had no trouble falling asleep when they got back up to the room that afternoon!

After naps we all took showers and got dressed and went out for one last night of seafood. We decided to try out Benjamin's Seafood on Monday night.

The kids just had to have their picture made with this pirate. They thought he was really cool!

The kids ate really well and me and Will, well, we never have a problem eating well! We were all pretty stuffed!

The waitress had told us that there was a play area down stairs for the kids if they wanted to go down there after they ate. It was really cute! The kids enjoyed playing with all the goodies down there. And they each got a turtle painted on their arm.

They also had to try out the sailor's bunk beds!

We left the seafood place and decided that we would rent another movie for our last night.

When we got back to the room we went back out the beach for one last night of beach fun! When we were fixing to go back in I told the kids that this was our last time on the beach for a while so they both told the ocean, the sand, and the beach goodbye. It was really cute.

We came back upstairs, watched our movie, and fell asleep on the couch.

The next morning was filled with lots of packing and hustling around. Will went and got the van and moved it to a better parking spot so that it was easier to load the van up. On his first trip down he was taking all of our chairs and the big tent. The elevator was broken so he had to walk down 10 flights of stairs with all that on his back. And then he had to huff it back up 10 flights of stairs to the room. We decided to wait a few more minutes to see if they were going to get the elevator fixed before we took anymore trips down. Luckily, it didn't take long to get it fixed!

After we had loaded everything up in the van it was time for one last goodbye to the beach.

We got in the van and started back towards home right around 11am. We ran through Wendy's drive-thru for lunch and headed back. It was a good trip back and we didn't really have any traffic. Liam slept for about 45 mins around 12pm because he had thrown something at Will's head while Will was driving and he got in trouble. So he was mad at us and took a quick little nap.

We were so so glad to see this sign! Home Sweet Home!!

Taylor still hadn't been to sleep the whole trip back. She was not in the best of moods! But finally around Newport she drifted off to sleep for about an hour. And Liam took another very short 30 min nap from the middle of Knoxville to Lawnville Rd. We got back to Harriman around 7:30 and after a quick trip to Kroger for chocolate milk we stopped by Logan's baseball game to see Nonnie. Then we finally got home around 8pm. It was a long long day!

We had the best time on our first family vacation. We needed this after the craziness that we all endured while I was in school. The kids had a great time and me and Will had fun seeing them enjoy everything. We look forward to our next vacation coming up in September...

We are going to Disney World!!!