We left Dallas Friday afternoon right at our goal time (3:30). Before we left, our neighbor surprised the kids with Princess Kherington and Pirate Kevin travel treasure chests and told them they couldn't open them until we got out of Texas. It was so sweet. They had a beach towel, coloring book, crayons and snacks, but Kevin's favorite thing was the treasure map on the front.
We did end up driving through the night to get there, approximately 21 hours.
On the day we arrived, Grandma took the Kherington and Kevin to ride the carousel at Barefoot landing
(it is free on Saturday's during the summer). Kherington said it was the
fasted carousel ever. The next day, after morning church, we came home and had movie time which had its desired affect...nap time. It amazes me that Kevin can fall asleep sitting up. I just don't get it.
On Sunday we went for a walk at the beach (their first time to the beach since arriving in Myrtle Beach). Right when we got there I made them sit down for a picture and got the cutest one of all three. Such sweet kids. They were excited to be there.
When Kherington woke up after our first night there, she ran into our room and started telling us all about the bed she slept in and how "beautifully, cozy and comfortable" it was. We learned from Grandma that the mattress was super uncomfortable so she bought a cheap pillow topper. I guess we need to get one for Kherington's bed and maybe she'll be excited to go to sleep. The kids loved going into Grandma's room in the morning and watching cartoons while laying on her bed.
Grandma picked up 20 books from the library and each night they have story time together. There favorite story was Tickle Monster. One night Kherington read to Jonathan. She is a great big sister.
On our first swimming trip to the beach the kids collected a lot of shells. When it came time to leave, they wanted to bring them all with them. Kherington is still really into having a 'collection' of something (pretty sure she got this from watching Little Mermaid). Right now she collects rocks. She wanted to do the same with the shells. We convinced her to choose a few to take to grandmas house each day at at the end of vacation she can decide which will make the trip back to Texas.
Grandma always seemed to have a new fun activity for the kids. They colored paper towels then turned them them into butterflies, colored pictures, did play dough, played games and more.
Before we came to Myrtle Beach, Grandma and Kherington decided they would go on a date one afternoon. They were going to go for lunch and pick out an outfit for school, but when they got in the car and Grandma asked Kherington what she wanted to do she told her she wanted to get flowers for her mom, have lunch and get some sparkle nail polish. What a sweet little girl. She also picked out a couple dollar items including a new tiara and wand that she wore around the next couple days. Kherington also asked Grandma to give her piano lessons. She did really well and loves to practice.
Jonathan has turned into a sweet happy baby. I am really hoping we can keep this up. Kevin still repeats people, but loves his cuddles. Both kids like to help themselves to the pantry snacks (especially the Oreos). One day we went in to find the pretzels laying on the floor...a definite sign there are kids around. Kherington found Grandpa's glasses and walked around acting like him. It was pretty funny.
Jonathan spends each beach day in the stroller. He like to watch us and usually if we walk down the beach he falls asleep.
We setup grandpa's new fire pit and roasted hotdogs and s'mores for dinner. When we started talking about s'mores, Kherington wanted to make sure that we had all the 'decoration food' aka tray of fun toppings so she helped grandma put it together before dinner. Her favorite were the butterscotch chips. When the Kevin went to put his s'more together he wanted the marshmallow on the side. Our kids are all very 'deconstructed' eaters. They like all the ingredients, just not in one mouthful. In the end he did end up putting the marshmallow on the graham cracker, but notice he put both graham crackers on bottom with the lump of marshmallow on top...now that is one of the messiest ways to eat a s'more.
Grandpa was only in town for the weekend but we put it to good use going to the beach. It was Jonathan's first time in his suit at the beach. Every other time I just kept him in the stroller. He loved splashing around in the water. Daddy helped bury both Kherington and Kevin. Kherington found a friend, a hermit crab, and named him Joey. She lost him once and we found him again. Then it came time to leave and she really wanted to bring him with her so she loaded him in a water bottle. Mean mom said no. She was super sad to say goodbye (as in close to tears).
After the beach we went to Rita's for gelati (Italian ice and custard). We all picked out our flavors but in the end Kevin ended up giving his to Kherington and taking both mine and Ryan's. Some day I won't share my food...that is just no day soon. I gave Jonathan a little of the vanilla custard but he wasn't a huge fan (staying true to his dislike of food in general).
For FHE the first week, each time Grandma got assigned to do something (song, lesson, activity, etc) someone else ended up doing it. Then the second week we talked about who was going to do what. Kherington ended up making the assignments. The last two given their assignments were Grandma and Dad. Kherington told them they both needed to pick an activity and then we would all vote on which activity we wanted to do. Pretty cute. So then a couple days later it come time to vote. Grandma thinks she has got it and says her idea is to go for a walk at the beach. Kherington was very unimpressed. Next up was Dad. He went with huckle buckle beanstalk (you hide a pencil then everyone looks for it and if you find it you yell huckle buckle beanstalk). It is usually a hit with the kids. Kherington just groaned and opted for the beach. Jonathan was sleeping so I stayed behind with him. They had fun and found a place to take family pictures.I made sure to snap some fun pictures with Grandpa and the kids. The loved all the attention with having both Grandma and Grandpa.
To change up spending every day at the beach, grandma broke out the pool. They finished up their pool time with soap races using a bar of soap and piece of gutter.
I ended up working out just about every other day which was a good amount since I really needed to have a rest week anyways. I downloaded a timer on my ipad and wrote out a tabata and hiit workout. Jonathan came and kept me company.
Ryan and I spent Monday shopping for outfits for family pictures, then Tuesday evening we took round one of them. It was perfect weather, but the kids hadn't napped and were a little hungry. Jonathan and Kevin had a hard time looking and smiling at the camera. We got some good ones, but I decided to try again. For round 2 of pictures the kids did much better (they had naps and ate before pictures) but it was crazy windy at the beach. Grandma helped paint Kherington's nails with some silver glitter polish.
We picked up Dunkin Donuts one morning and then headed to the park to eat, play and feed the ducks. The kids loved it. They ended up using an entire loaf of bread.
We told the kids if they did good with pictures we'd go out for dinner to some place new. When we got to Red Robin there was a 45 min wait. We tried talking the kids into heading to Zaxby's instead, but Kherington really wanted to wait. Not a huge deal although the 45 min turned into 1h 15 min and then they didn't even eat much of their food (although did eat lots of fries). One of the big selling points for the kids to a sit down restaurant as opposed to fast food is they love having their own menu.
We went to Broadway at the Beach (a touristy outdoor shopping area) to play in the fountains. I loved that there was music playing and benches all around so we could sit and chat while the kids ran around. Jonathan was pretty funny to watch. He wanted to put his hand in the fountain, but every time he did the water would spray him in the face. It was a cooler day, but the ground was really warm so when the kids wanted a break, they just cuddled up to the ground.
Grandma had the great idea to roast hot dogs and make s'mores over the fire pit again on our last day. We ended up doing it for lunch since the weather didn't look like it would be nice for the evening. It was perfect. Kevin cracks me up with his s'more eating. This time he didn't want a graham cracker, he wanted two chocolate bars with peanut butter and the roasted marshmallow in between.
Grandma stayed home while Jonathan napped and we got to head the beach without the baby. It was so nice to actually relax instead of trying to make sure a 6 month old was happy. Kevin and Kherington are old enough to entertain themselves. Kevin is hard to get a good picture of. For every good picture I have A LOT of not so good ones of him whereas Kherington's pretty much all turn out well. Recently I have been trying harder to get good ones of him too. Well, I asked him to turn and smile and he wouldn't so I made some joke about how I wanted to see his face instead of some crack (his swim shorts have a hard time staying up). He turned and mooned me. He's 3! I'm not sure where he learned about this from.
On our last day in Myrtle Beach the weather didn't look so good, but then cleared up enough to make heading down the beach in the afternoon okay although it was still windy to the point of being too cold. We ended our time at the beach by helping the kids ride some waves on the boogie boards. They loved it! Ryan and I both stood out in the water which was only about up to our knees and gave them a push to help them ride it. Kherington couldn't stop talking about how much fun it was.
When we came home from the beach, the kids found that Spiderman had left them a web along with cotton balls to throw at it. Kevin called the cotton balls "meatballs" and loved throwing them at the web.
Jonathan was mostly a happy baby the entire trip.
We didn't get picture with Grandma when we took our family pictures, but wanted to make sure we got some before we left. She was so kind and thoroughly spoiled the kids as well as Ryan and I. It was awesome to not think about meals (or shopping for food), to have someone take my kids, play games with them, go to movies, get ice cream, have campfires and more. I know it was a lot of time and energy and I'm so grateful for it.
We pricelined a hotel for the drive home so we knew we only had to go a little over halfway before breaking for the day. After checking into the hotel, we went to dinner at Mugshots. I am not a huge burger fan but these were awesome and the fries were good too (great recommendation from Jason and Tiffany). It is a chain with a couple locations in Alabaman, Mississippi and one in California. It was just too bad Jonathan was super cranky. Ryan took the kids swimming when we got back to the hotel so they could get some energy out before going to sleep. The hotel was out of pack n plays so to get Jonathan to go to sleep we put him on one bed with cushions all around and turned off the lights. Once he was out I moved him over enough so I could have a place to sleep.
The second day of driving went really good also. We stopped about every 2 hours to go potty, stretch and feed Jonathan. The last hour of the drive was funny only because both Kevin and Kherington went to sleep but Jonathan just wanted to be done. He did a dull moan for over an hour, but aside from the moaning just continued playing with his rings.
I love coming home to a clean house. It only took about 30 minutes to get all unpacked.
