Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Trip

A few months ago Randy's sister rented a condo in Myrtle Beach in hopes of going for her spring break but decided flights were too expensive to take her family so that left an open condo for a week just sitting there for anyone who wanted to go. Well, lucky for us, flights were open and we decided to take the kids on a family vacation. The boys were so excited to get to go play on the beach.

We left early on Saturday morning to fly up to Salt Lake. Well the plane was delayed for 20 minutes for stupid stuff which made us miss our connection to Dallas. So we had to regroup and caught a flight to Chicago. From there we took a flight to Atlanta which was 45 minutes delayed which in turn made us miss the flight to Myrtle Beach that night. So we booked a hotel in Atlanta and stayed there that night. The boys did really well for travelling so long that day. By Sunday afternoon we were finally on our way to Myrtle Beach. We checked into our condo, did some grocery shopping for the week, got some dinner and went to bed.

Monday morning, we got up and headed out to the beach. The first thing on Halen's agenda was to build a sandcastle so dad and the boys went right to work on that.

The final product (our condo is in the back)
Dad and his boys playing in the Atlantic Ocean

The view from our balcony (you can see the sandcastle in the middle)

Randy's parents flew in Monday night and stayed for a couple days. Tuesday was a little stormy so went to the downtown area and walked the boardwalk for a while then drove the 20 miles up to North Carolina just to say we'd been there. Ü Then we came back to the condo and went swimming in the indoor pool and sat in the hot tub which was nice.

The boys by the sign to our condo

Wednesday was a lot better day so we spent a few hours playing at the beach again. Halen loved playing in the water and could have stayed out there all day. Alex was more content to play in the sand but would venture out to the water once in a while. We did manage to bury dad in the sand which Alex thought was pretty fun.

Randy took his parents back to the airport Wednesday afternoon then we took the boys mini golfing. Randy wanted to bring his clubs and actually play golf but since this was a family vacay he decided not to leave us to go play. So as a compromise, we went mini golfing so we could at least say we'd been golfing in Myrtle Beach. Ü There were probably 40 different themed mini golf courses and the boys chose to go to a dinosaur course. Alex led off with a little help from dad and got a hole in 1. After hole 5 though he was just wanting to play around hitting it wherever so he did his own thing while the 3 of us played. I got a hole in 1 somewhere along the way and Halen got one on the last hole. I think Halen's officially hooked on golf now. He asks to go almost every day. Ü

Alex & Halen holding up their clubs and golf balls

Family pic in front of the T-Rex

Thursday morning we got up and drove down to Charleston for the day. It was about a 2 hour drive each way and the boys did really well. Randy really wanted to go to Fort Sumter and the boys were great to indulge him. We had a little time to kill while we waited for the ferry to go out to the fort so we had a little picnic on the lawn in front of this aircraft carrier (I think it was the USS Independence) and played on the cannons.

Family pic

The Spirit of Charleston ferry we took to Fort Sumter

The week we were there marked the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War so they did a different reenactment everyday of the events. On the ferry with us were several soldiers and women dressed in period clothing. It was kind-of neat to see. Alex really liked the 'drummer boys'. Ü

Looking at Fort Sumter from the ferry

Soldiers reenacting the turnover of the fort to the confederates

Family pic by the Fort Sumter sign

After the ferry ride, we drove over the bay to Charleston and drove around town looking at the old buildings. I wish we had more time to look around but I don't think the boys wanted to walk around any more and we needed to get back to get ready to head home. But we did get to see some fun places around town.

This is a church in the downtown area

As much as we hated to, we got up way early on Friday morning to start our trek home. We actually made really good time. We made all the flight we tried for going from Myrtle Beach to Atlanta to Denver to Salt Lake to Cedar City. The boys did great through it all. And for Randy & I, it was a nice relaxing vacation. Usually we're always on the go trying to see everything and don't stay in one place too long so it was nice to just relax a little bit and spend time as a family.