Family Weekend

         
Last weekend we took a little trip to Myrtle Beach to celebrate surviving another school year. We wanted to do something fun and get away and just spend uninterrupted time together. The kids deserve it. They got excellent report cards, they met their reading goals, they are very understanding of our crazy schedules. Besides, we don't reward them for good grades each individual semester (because we are horrible parents) so we wanted to do something nice at the end of the year.

We packed our bags on Saturday morning and drove up. We checked in and immediately hit the pool. I made sure to tell the kids not to go near the vents at the bottom of the pool. I watched a 20/20 episode when I was a teenager about those vents and this kid sat on one and it sucked her intestines out and ever since then I have been freaked out about pools. I am passing om my neurosis about this to my children. That and my fear of aliens....but that is a whole other blog post. So I jump in and we are playing and the water feels great but the water tasted kind of salty, like sweaty. I felt like I was swimming in a giant sweat gland. It was gross. I swam and played for 1/2 an hour to appease the kids but after that I had enough.

I saw a billboard for this a few months ago:

It looked so cool so I purchased tickets. My oldest daughter wanted to dress up like a pirate to go to the show and she put together one with some of the costume stuff we had laying around. I told my youngest that she should dress up as a mermaid. She said that she wouldn't do it. "But it will be so cute for you to be a mermaid and your sister to be a pirate." My oldest daughter concurred. "No, I am scared to do it." "I'll give you 5 bucks." She thought for a minute. "Okay." She's too easy.

We showed up and they had a pre-show. The kids were invited to participate in the pre-show because they were dressed up, which was cool. My youngest daughter didn't want to go on stage but my 8 year old went up and was sword fighting. There was this amazing juggler and a sea lion that did tricks. It was freaking cool. They ushered us to the area for the show and we sat down and I was sitting next to a couple with a 2 year old. The 2 year old was not happy. He was screaming. My expertise is at tuning out screaming children so it didn't bother me. That kid cried for a 1/2 hour, was throwing himself under the table, trying to crawl on the table. The parents looked like they wanted to hang themselves they were so frustrated. They were apologizing to me and I was like, "Don't be sorry, I WAS you not to long ago. It gets easier." Not that it's any consolation but whatever. They left halfway through. What a waste of $100. We enjoyed the show. There was pyrotechnics, and acrobatics, and animals.The kids were loving it.

The next day we work up early and had breakfast in the lobby of the hotel. It was a big spread and the girls thought it was so fancy. I am always eating hotel breakfasts, so I was less than impressed. They served themselves and picked a seat and I waited by the waffle maker. They sat and ate and watched the news like little old people. A woman came up to me and said, "Are those your daughters?" "Yes." "I was just remarking at how well behaved they are." I smiled. "Thank you so much, they are good girls." They are also actresses, but I didn't say that. They are good when they want to be.

We went to play mini-golf after breakfast. This mini-golf place was over the top. We took a little wooden train to the top of the hill for the first hole. We golfed in a pyramid, through waterfalls. It was a little over the top. My husband beat me by 3. Boo.

Then we went to the Ripleys Aquarium. We looked at fish, we pet sharks and sting rays and we watched a mermaid show. We sat on the floor while these women in bikini tops and mermaid tails dove in and out of the water. Afterwards I turned to the girls and asked if they liked it. My 6 year old said, "It was pretty good, but they weren't REAL mermaids." She is hard to please. We went to go talk to the mermaid. She leaned out of the pool and rested her boobs over the side. I thought one of those things were going to pop out. I told my husband he wasn't allowed to look. haha.

We ended the day with a meal at the Hard Rock Cafe. It was in the shape of a pyramid and the kids kept calling it a lunch pyramid. I waited for the bill while my husband took the kids to the gift shop. He spent 6 times more money than I asked him to spend. That's how it goes.

The kids napped on the way home and we remarked at what a fun time we had. When we got home I unloaded the suitcases. I paused and looked at the pile of laundry I had just generated. Yes, we were back to real life again.