Myrtle Beach

We had a great time visiting Myrtle Beach with family, thanks to Karen and my mom for letting us mooch off them for a few days. They had a nice hotel reserved for Chloe's birthday, and it turned out there was plenty of room for some freeloaders, and we don't need to be asked twice, especially when there's free food and a beach involved.

We stayed at the Dunes Village resort, a great place for young kids. They had an indoor watermark that the kids loved. Caleb especially enjoyed the watersides, showing absolutely no fear. He even went down the scariest slide there, one that goes pretty much straight down, then causes you to go airborne for a split second, all inside a dark tunnel. You're supposed to be four feet or taller to ride, so I didn't really expect him to go down it, since he's not that tall. But I look away for one second and he's already at the bottom. He screamed all the way down--not screams of fear mind you, more gleeful than anyone. I guess when he's finally tall enough for roller coasters, I'll have another partner to ride the crazy ones with. He rode the slide five times in a row. Then, all of a sudden he told me he didn't like it, that it was just too scary. I said, "but you've been laughing all the way down. Why the heck did you ride it so many times if you didn't like it?" He told me he just wanted to keep riding it to see if it ever changed.

Jacob loved floating around the lazy river and pretending to be a pirate. We looked at other kids as we passed them by and yelled out at them, "Arrr! Avast!"

Beth loved getting her face painted and spending the night in Chloe's room with Chloe and Tori, a friend. Karen let them all jump on the hotel beds, a highlight of the trip, I'm sure. She also liked talking with the lifeguard at the top of the watersides, though I'm sure she would tell you she wasn't flirting--she was just being friendly.

We played mini-golf at a small course at the hotel. Jacob held his club backwards and awkwardly struck at the ball as if he was trying to club a small woodland animal. And what do you know, he got a hole in one. Pretty amazing stuff.

I climbed in a hammock to take a break from the grueling round of golf and Caleb promptly tried to tip the hammock over and dump me on the ground.

The kids loved the beach. It was perfect weather--not too hot and with a nice breeze. Jacob loved jumping waves. Beth and Caleb loved using their new boogie boards to surf waves. At night, there was an amazing full moon over the water. I really wish I had taken a tripod; I could have gotten some amazing shots of the harvest moon over the water with some fishermen's silhouettes in the foreground.

I did take some video. My apologies to everyone that is not in it. I was a slacker and never had the camera with me. The kids also kept me in the pool most of the time. Everything you see on the video was shot in about 15 minutes on the second day we were there.

I love the beach. I rarely want to leave. I think if I could live near the ocean I certainly would. I need to start checking want ads for Wilmington =)

Myrtle Beach and Fort Fisher 2010 from Robert Caldwell on Vimeo.