Myrtle Beach 2011!

Nate's mom and step dad moved to Myrtle Beach in June. While we greatly miss having them close by, it is nice to have a fun vacation place to go to. And of course until the kids start school, we'll take advantage of going the week after Labor day! It was a long drive and we split it up on the way down but we realized it would have been better to just get it over with. We first stopped at Rcky Mount NC where I had found this park. Thank goodness it was there and open and the train was working because Max talked aout riding the train for weeks!

Staying at a hotel is something I'd never do again with little ones!

Max LOVED the beach. We were afraid he'd be scared but he wasn't at all. We had so much fun. Aliyah liked to run wild and eat sand but they were fun to get out there. We had great weather too and the water was warm.

"Cheese"

There was a Labor Day weekend BBQ, they also had a fun playground!

Play time on Grandma's back porch. Bubbles and a dance party:)

She also had a great pool we could walk to.

A walk on the board walk when Great Grandma Nancy and cousin Alicia came to visit.

Beach time with cousin Alicia, pointing out a plane to Max.

Fun sand castle time....

Until the monster comes to knock them down!

Decided to join in.

We finally found a way to contain her!

Not to be left out...

Broadway at the Beach, feeding the fish.

We were going to eat at Margaritaville, it was really cool and we had an awesome boat table. But we had to jump ship because Max didn't like the loud music playing. Sat crying with his hands over his ears....

This place was quieter and had fun hats!

On the way home we skipped what would have been a fun visit at Uncle Ron's river house. We had record flooding back home and we wanted to make sure we could get home and the basement was ok. We made it home in a day with 2 long stops. One was at the park again in Rocky Mount and then we stopped at Tyson's Corner mall for dinner and indoor play place. The kids did great. It only took a day to re-potty train Max and re-sleep train Aliyah. They got used to falling asleep with one of us in the room and Aliyah actually needed to be rocked by the end. Otherwise they were so good.

Entertaining his new pet, Mr. Crabs, on the way home.

What would we have done without paci??:)

DC

I had been wanting to get to DC for a while now, to visit the city I miss so much and to see my former boss Barbara. My mom likes to go there too so we picked a good summer day (not too much southern humidity) and went down. It was a long day for the kids but they were great. We first met Barbara at the mall and had a picnic lunch and then went to the Air and Space Museum. (Side note- this was 1 day after the earthquake, no major damage, just a few things closed. I have good timing, I was also down there 9/10/01 interviewing.)

He did a lot of looking up, loved all the planes!

Then we took a drive, 3 laps between Old Towne and Mt. Vernon (about 10 miles) along the river so the kids could sleep. I couldn't think of any other way to get their naps in and this worked. After naps we headed into Old Towne, walked down to the river and took the ferry across the river to the new National Harbor waterfront place. It was neat, still has some stuff to finish but we had a nice dinner and the kids LOVED the boat! On the way back we were the only ones inside so they really ran free!