Myrtle Beach Vacation, 2013: Day 4

Day 4 is winding down and I'm trying to get an early start on the blog tonight.  After a late night last night, we slept in a bit today until almost 9 in the morning.  After we finally rolled out of bed, I went for another run, while Mariah and the kids had some breakfast.  Once I returned, I changed into my bathing suit and headed down to the pool with Ben, and Mariah brought Emma down a few minutes later.

Emma did a great job swimming on her back today and Ben tried out swimming around on his favorite kickboard without his swim vest, something I always had trouble getting him to do in swim class.  After swimming for a good hour or two, we dried off, got dressed and headed out to lunch at one of my favorite burger joints, Fuddruckers.  As some may know, we used to have a Fuddruckers in Richmond, but it closed down a few years ago.  Ever since then, I'm compelled to eat at one whenever I have the chance.

Yum.

Next, we headed over to the Ripley's Believe it or Not! Odditorium in the heart of Myrtle Beach, where we met up with Zac, Ellie, Jena, Ryan, Megan, Sam, Noah, and Michael.  I've been to the Ripley's Museum multiple times over the years and it's always been one of my favorite places to visit in Myrtle Beach.  I've wanted to bring the kids here for a while, but didn't think they were old enough to appreciate it in years past.  Well, it looks like they are old enough now, because they had a blast looking at all of the crazy things in the museum.

Ben and Emma with
Optimus Prime

Ben posing with one of his
favorite heroes, Iron Man.

Emma and I with a statue of
the world's tallest man.               

Emma's priceless reaction to seeing how big the largest hand in the world is compared to hers.

Even better though, were some of the new interactive areas that had been added since the last time I had visited.  One was a section of floor that you could walk on and it reacted to where you were standing.  The kids were running around like crazy, kicking soccer balls, popping bubbles, and jumping on lily pads.

The next area had a giant screen that would show your silhouette when you walked in front of it and had lots of psychedelic effects while dance music pumped away int eh background.  It was very similar to one of the mini games in Double Fine's Happy Action Theater game for the Xbox 360 that uses the Kinect, and it made me wonder if it was using the same tech.  The kids didn't care about any of that though, they were all mesmerized to see all the wild patterns they could make by waving their arms around, dancing, jumping, etc.  I think they all would have stayed in that room for hours if we had let them.

We eventually managed to drag them all from the dance room and headed back outside for a few great group photos before we left.

Everyone is actually smiling at the same time!  It must have been a hit.

Back at the beach house we were all ready for a long overdue break, so everyone chilled out for a while, watching some TV or playing games.  Jena then made some delicious spaghetti that everyone was happy to chow down on.  Afterwards, Ben and Emma ended up relaxing in our room watching some cartoons and playing games on the iPad.  Mariah and I took advantage of this quiet time to take a nice walk on the beach and got to see an amazing sunset.  We took a ton of pictures and it seemed that the view was so spectacular that it was hard to take a bad shot (not to take away from our obvious artistic prowess!).

Here's a shot of Mariah taking the previous picture.

After we returned from our walk, we brought the kids back downstairs for a late snack on some amazing brownies that Zac baked.  Mariah started up a crafting corner and Jena, Sam, Megan, Ellie, Patty, Ben, Emma, and Michael all decorated picture frames using shells that my mom had brought us from Sanibel Island in Florida.

I then invoked BEDTIME and herded the kids upstairs.  After reading them one of our new beach books (Curious George goes to the Beach), they were out cold in less than 10 minutes.  Mission Accomplished. :)

That's it for day 4.  More to come tomorrow...