Aside from a somewhat outrageous throwdown in the Newark Airport restroom, the travel down to South Carolina was somewhat uneventful. The girls shared the handicap stall while I held the door closed. I'm not sure what occurred behind the closed door, but there was some yelling, screaming and tussling. I snapped a bit of motherly advice, and the skirmish ended, but the rest of the ladies in the bathroom were quite amused. The girls emerged quietly from the stall, washed their hands and we beat feet out of there, leaving behind the laughing ladies.
We arrived in Myrtle Beach around the same time as my sister. We texted back and forth while I gathered our checked luggage and rental car. We walked out of the terminal and Sugar looked around and said, "They have palm trees here? I'm gonna love it here!" Since her initial comment, she's said about a thousand times that she would love to live here.
We met up with my sister and her kids and shared a late lunch at Denny's. The kids were all excited to see each other and were pretty loud in Denny's. Fortunately we were seated away from everyone else, so I don't think the other patrons were too bothered.
We got the key and went to the condo we rented. The outside of the building looked really nice, but my sister and I started to worry when we stepped into the elevator. It smelled bad. The building is near the beach and the elevator is carpeted, so I'm sure it's pretty hard to keep clean. It smells like yucky seashells and rotten seaweed. We got into our unit and we were all thrilled. It was exactly as advertised: four bedrooms, each with a private bath, nice living and dining area and the kitchen is nicer than mine at home.
After we unpacked, my sister took the kids to the pool while my niece and I went to the grocery store. We bought a few basics and enough to make an Easter dinner. We all met back at our unit and hit the beach. It's a super short walk and the beach was beautiful. It wasn't too crowded and the kids were thrilled to run all over the place. We let them expend their energy, then went back to the condo for dinner and sleep! My sister and I bedded down the kids, then stuffed and hid a bunch of eggs. The Easter Bunny HAD to make a delivery, no matter where we were.
Sugar and Spice were up at the butt-crack of dawn, despite going to bed much later than usual. My sister's kids sleep in a lot later, so it killed my girls to wait to search for eggs. The egg hunt went well. I was worried that Spice would be left in the cold since she's so much younger. Happily, she found as much as everyone else. She did tell my nephew that he was a "pain in the s." My sister looked a little confused and asked what an "s" was, then the light dawned and she went, "oooohh." Leave it to my girl to throw down the first swear of the week.
For Easter Sunday, we went to the souvenir shops and bought beach chairs, boogie boards and other assorted items, then we hit the beach. We were there for hours and the kids had to be threatened before they would leave. Everyone (including the adults) needed a nap. We all slept for a bit, then I got up to cook us all dinner. I think it was the best ham dinner I ever made.
After dinner we headed down to "regular" Myrtle Beach, not the north section where we are staying. That area was filled with souvenir shops, haunted houses, rides, food places. There was much people watching to be done, but we didn't stay long because everyone was still pretty shy on sleep. All of the kids took a turn having a meltdown about what we refused to buy them, the size of their ice cream cones, etc.
My sister and my niece discovered grenade whistles with great excitement and my sister bought one. I was completely clueless as to what these are, but they told me that this is something from Jersey Shore. My nephew was delighted with the whistle and blew it a thousand times. It made us all laugh. And today he spent quite a bit of time blowing it from our balcony, while someone from another balcony blew one back at him.
Today we hit Broadway at the Beach, mostly because I could not go to the beach. Despite using sunblock 50, I'm horribly sunburned on my legs, chest, nose and the back of my hands. Yikes. Broadway at the Beach is as I remember it from years back, even many of the stores are the same. It's grown a lot and there are now rides, IMAX theater, aquarium, etc to see. I loved looking through the shops but the boys really weren't too into it and even Spice finally lost per patience with shopping. We came back to the condo and I took the kids seashell hunting on the beach.
Tonight I am in agonizing pain. My sunburn is radiating heat and shiny from the gallons of aloe I have slathered on myself. And my feet and legs hurt. I attribute this to all the walking I have done in flip flops for the past few days. Where I live, the weather changes so much that we get to ease into the wearing of flip flops. We may have a deliciously warm couple of hours and can sneak on a pair of flip flops for a bit before switching back to socks and heavier footwear. We break into the flip flops in baby bites.
I got off the plane and my toes begged for fresh air. With the exception of today's shopping trip, I've lived in my flip flops. My toes are begging now for nothing to separate them, and my calves are burning from using some different motion to walk so I hear the proper "flip flop" sound. Or maybe it's the barefoot beach walking that's killing me. Either way, I'm blogging while sitting on a king sized bed with the slider open to the balcony so I can hear the ocean and smell the seabreeze. Life is good.
xoxo
Ice Princess
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