A day at the Beach

So 2 weeks ago, I texted Matt and said that he needed to have the next day off. He asked why and I told him that it was necessary that we go to the beach. With a new baby coming in March, we may not want to make a beach trip (I don't like babies and sand mixed together). So I told him we needed to have an overnighter in North Myrtle. He spoke to his boss and she let him have it off!! So I made some hotel reservations at 9:00 that night and the kids had no idea. We actually had hotel points so our room was free - even better! In the morning, we fed the kids and told them we were taking them on a surprise trip. I gave them clues once we got in the car about every 20 minutes. After a good hour and a half, gave them a big clue and they guessed the beach. They were so excited!! We got there around 11. I had packed a lunch and we went to see if our room was ready. It was, so we unloaded, fed them lunch, got suited up and hit the sand!!! It was beautiful! The wind was blowing there was no humidity, it was hot, but you couldn't tell - perfect weather!! This was the first time Finley had actually played in the sand and she liked it of course.
Here she is on some sort of mission. Notice her tongue handing out, so she probably is on her way to eat one of those shells - yes, she eats shells too. Matt had her stand up and he backed up a little bit and she took her first step!!! We were so excited. I quickly got out the camera and was able to record the second and third steps :) I was so happy that he was there to see her first steps. She was proud of herself too.

Here is Daddy teaching them how to make a pool. They ended up making about 4 of them, but they kept washing away because the tide was coming in. The hotel was actually on property of a time share place, so it had a nice water park as well. The kids absolutely LOVED the water slides. They could all go down together and I think they did about a million times. At the end, our poor Chloe got her finger all sliced up. She was bleeding all over and it was a pretty long cut. She was a trooper, but it was still very painful.

Finley decided to take a stab at building a sand castle. Don't worry, she didn't sit her long!

We got in from the beach/pool around 4:30ish and took showers and got ready for dinner. We took them to Red Robin, where Finley was quite excited to get a balloon. After dinner, I told Matt we needed to take Chloe back to the scary plane ride she was tortured by 2 years ago at Broadway. When we got there, they remembered where they were and were SO excited to ride the planes! Here is our Chloe proud as punch in her plane alone! Carly and Harper had a blast and had their planes going up and down. Chloe was still hesitant so she stayed low to the ground and her hands couldn't have been any further away from the controllers. But she was so proud she didn't cry and she conquered her fear. Her smile was spectacular.

As well as her first steps, Finley also had her first ice cream (despite what TJ did at Chic Fila - I don't want to know what happened)! She wasn't too thrilled with it. She ate it of course, but I think it was too cold. Of course it was Chocolate Peanut Butter - my favorite so I was glad to help her out (good old Ben and Jerry's).

As we were in line getting the ice cream, she riped her hair bow out, so we had to keep her upwind so her hair would blow out of her face for these pictures!! Got to love the hair!!

In the morning, I took the girls for a walk on the beach while the little 2 were still sleeping. It was so pretty out and the girls enjoyed picking up sea shells. Chloe had picked up one shell and Carly and I were walking looking for a good one. I looked in the water and saw a pretty good sized one (biggest I have seen at Myrtle) so by default Carly was the recipient of the big shell. Chloe just looked at it and said she was going to look for a big one. We looked and looked and finally Carly said, "here Chloe you can have this one!" It was so sweet. What a thoughtful thing to do for your sister. The smile on Chloe's face was priceless!!

After our walk, we went back to the room, ate breakfast, and got ready to hit the beach before we left. They played in the sand for a while building sand castles and then Chloe's finger started to really hurt so I told her I would take her and Finley to the pool so the salt and sand wouldn't bother her any more. We swam and then Carly, Harper, and Daddy met us and swam too. We then headed up to the room around 11 to take showers and pack up and we were checked out at 12:00 on the dot. We had some Wendy's and then buckled up and took naps (everyone except for Finley!!) Our little day trip hit the spot! It was so much fun and we enjoyed our family time!