Monday, September 17, 2007

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!

7 comments:

rcsnickers said...

Looks very relaxing and fun! Glad you had a wonderful family trip. The Wild Waters Park looks a lot like Wet 'n Wild that we used to go to in Florida. They had a straight down slide that would scare you! My favorite was the Lazy River. Just relax and float!

Yes, I agree Jonathan looks like Laurance in the picture. Very cute and getting quite big!

Letisha

Elizabeth said...

I'm so glad you posted these! I was missing your posts. I'm so glad you had fun and got to enjoy the beach and the pools. I haven't been to a Wet n Wild since our honeymoon!
The pictures of the two girls are precious, Laurance's minime is too cute, and I love the happy family picture. The music makes me teary whenever I read and view pics on your site. Can't wait until you have your own place again and we can hang out. Things have been so crazy busy here, and will be for a while yet. More on that soon...
Love you!
Liz

Amy B. in Charleston said...

Laura,

Was good to see you briefly at the beach! Cil and I rode our bikes on Thursday and stopped by your condo but your car wasn't there and no one answered the door, so we assumed you all were out somewhere else.

My beach pics are posted at http://picasaweb.google.com/
amy.boatright/BeachVacation (no space between .com/amy ; I had to add that to make it fit in the comments)and there are a few from when y'all came over to visit. :)

Love,
Amy

Laura said...

Letisha-we did the lazy river too-twice-that was nice. The only bad thing was they had sprayers/waterfalls on several different places throughout the ride and Ella was trying to sleep in my arms-poor thing-we tried to avoid them, but a couple times they got her and she woke up crying, "No...No!" She was completely exhausted by the time we got finished and fell asleep on the way back to the condo!

Liz-sorry things have been crazy for you lately-hope we can catch up soon!

Nene said...

It looks like you all had a wonderful time! The waterpark sounded great!

Gracie's sick right now...she caught a little cold from her Daddy, so I'll try to catch up with you when this bug has passed by...I'm sure I'll be next :)

Anonymous said...

Children are always a great excuse to ride the water slides, huh?


Mike
http://somethingaboutparenting.typepad.com/

http://www.mikeleonen.com/

rcsnickers said...

I was not sure if your email or cell phone numbers are the same so I am writing here. How is the new house coming? Have you closed on it? Do you have a move in date yet? Hope everything is going well for you guys!

Letisha