Mariah, Jenny, Jarrod, Me and Miah--feet in the Atlantic Ocean

Looks like a long time since I updated this blog! As you can see from the picture on top, I did make it on vacation. We spent several days at Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. This was my first time to South Carolina. I love the palm trees and surprisingly, the ocean. I've seen the Atlantic and the Pacific many times so I didn't anticipate my reaction. Although I found it fun to sit in my beach chair watching the waves, I got more a sense of restlessness from the water than calm.

There were so many commercial aspects to the beach and town! Small planes dragging banners flew overhead every few minutes advertising something. Buy! Buy! Buy! Souvenier shops. T-shirt shops. Candy. Ice cream. It got to be overwhelming. I truly appreciated the beach in the early evening, after almost everyone had stopped sunbathing for the day. You could walk or sit in the cool sand without tripping over someone. We took walks along the beach, searched for shells or blew bubbles. After dark, we took another trip back to the beach for the nightly walk. Since it was the 4th of July weekend, these visits were punctuated by fireworks. One night, we brought a box of sparklers and all the children ran through the surf, the sparks like shooting stars against the dark of the ocean.

Another night, we went for a walk on the Longest Pier on the East coast. Since they were offering "entertainment," we had to pay. A band played oldies and we stopped to watch. All the children got up to do the Limbo.

We played Bingo, Laser Tag, Putt Putt Golf and waited in line one night for over an hour to eat at the Olive Garden. I read a bunch of books, did some sewing and sat around with my sprained ankle propped up. It turned out to be a nice, relaxing few days.

Now, if I could just think of what to do with the jar of sand I brought home and all those shells. . . .

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