Beach Vacation

We just returned Saturday from a week at Surfside Beach. Our first time there. I always went to Myrtle growing up and liked this so much better. It's more of a family beach, so much less of a crowd, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. And since we went in September (b/c of the move), we beat the heat wave. Yay! We found the 2BR condo on vrbo.com-the best place to go if you're looking for a vacation rental anywhere in the world.

Last year, Ella didn't like the sand; this year she wanted me to cover her completely in it. Wish I had a pic of that! She preferred the tidal pools to the actual ocean and loved playing w/her buckets, shovels, and sand castle molds. And she met a darling little girl there, Casey (almost 2). We hit it off w/her parents and are hoping we'll see them next year, same time, same place. Also had fun meeting up w/friends who were staying in a house on the beach. Ella got to get reacquainted w/John Michael, but since we only had our disposable camera, I have no pics to post of that. :-(

Our first full day there we went to Wild Water Park and had a blast! I haven't been to a water park in ages. We took turns riding the slides while one of us watched Ella in the toddler pool (which had tons of small slides for her to play on). But Ella loved jumping up and down in the pool best. It was only 2 feet, so she could do that. We love the water wings we got for her. (We got them new for around $11.00 w/shipping, but they're so worth it. I'm sure she'll be able to use them next summer in our pool, as well.) They're for 1-3 year olds, whereas most of the ones you find at Wal-mart or other places are for 3 and up. So they actually stayed on, and she could swim w/us anywhere-even in the big pool.

Will and I both went on the scariest slide-it has a straight vertical drop. My legs couldn't stop shaking when I got off. And I went in the dark hole slide-completely dark, enclosed slide-there should have been a sign, "Warning-not for claustrophobic people!" We only stayed for 3 hours but that was just the right amount of time-we got to do all the slides and even eat a bite. The rest of the week was spent on the beach and in the condo pool. We had a private walkway from our condo right to the beach-when you have to lug a bunch of stuff, it's helpful not to have to travel far. And Ella got a suntan. You can still see her bathing suit lines-obviously she takes after Will on that one.
:-)

I've also included some pics from when I watched Jonathan a few weeks ago, so Kimberly could go to a dentist appt.
Enjoy!