Myrtle Beach Vacation, 2013: Day 6

Wow, that turned out to be an unexpectedly long day!

It was a rainy day here in Surfside Beach, so you would think that would mean a long, slow day, lounging around the house watching bad daytime TV, and things certainly started out that way.  We woke up around 9 again today and Mariah made some cinnamon rolls and orange danish rolls to get things going. Yum!  The kids opted for chocolate pop-tarts (Ben) and Fruit Loops (Emma) though, while watching the Tinkerbell movie on DVD.

As we finished up breakfast, it was time for Ryan and Megan to say goodbye as they left for Nagshead to spend the rest of their vacation with their mom.  We took the opportunity to get one last family picture with everyone.

Zac headed out with Ryan and Megan, and then Patty got Ben and Emma started with a classic rainy-day beach house staple, a puzzle.  Mariah and I joined in and soon all of us were working away on the puzzle, which was only 550 pieces, but actually turned out to be pretty hard due to the hand drawn picture and amount of detail in the puzzle.  The kids lost interest after a while (big surprise), but Mariah and I are old school puzzlers and stuck it out until the end.

After the puzzle was completed it was time for lunch already, so we heated up some frozen pizzas for everyone.

By this time the heavy rain had tapered off into a light drizzle, so I suggested we head out and do some shopping, and possibly hit the aquarium if the crowds weren't too bad.  We loaded up the kids in the car and headed out, deciding to try the shops at Broadway at the Beach.

We got stuck in traffic for a while (Why in the world would I think that Hwy 17 bypass would be faster 17 business? Madness!), but the kids didn't mind as they were engrossed in playing their Mobi-go games or listening to music on the mp3 players.  Watching little Emma listen to her Disney songs and sing along always makes me smile.

Emma made sure that Mimi, her bunny, was buckled
in safe with her while she listened to her music.

We eventually made it to our destination though, and it was predictably packed to the gills with other bored vacationers, also denied a day on the beach and looking for a way to pass the time.  We made our way around and had a lot of fun looking through the various shops and seeing all of the neat things scattered around.

There was no question that Ben's favorite thing to see, even thought we only walked past it and didn't go inside, was the "Upside down house," or the WonderWorks building.

He was just so blown away by this giant building that appears to have fallen out of the sky and landed upside down, that he could NOT stop talking about it.  His little mouth was just running a mile a minute with all sorts of thoughts and questions about it.  "How did it get there?  Look at those big cracks in the sides!  Did it fall on top of that other building?  How do people get inside when the door is up so high? Oh, look!  People are going in through that hole in the roof over there, because the roof is now on the ground!" and on, and on.  It just put such a big grin on my face to see him so excited and his imagination just on fire and running wild.

After a few more twists and turns, I saw a shop that I knew we just had to go inside of, IT'SUGAR! As you may have guessed from the not-to-subtle name, this is a gigantic candy store, and Ben and Emma were in seventh heaven.  Mariah and I decided to divide and conquer and each took a munchkin and let them pick candy to fill up a bag with whatever type of candy and sweets they wanted.

They each ended up with about half a pound of treats, and I got a couple of boxes of Spree candy for myself, which I always have a hard time finding in Richmond, while Mariah stocked up on some chocolate covered: cookie dough, cake mix, nuts, and pretzels, all mixed up in the same bag.  Since they are all chocolate covered, you don't know exactly what you are going to get (well, except for the pretzels), but you know it's going to be delicious.

Once we were stocked up on sweets, we finally made our way over to the Ripley's Aquarium.  We've been here multiple times before, but the kids still have a blast every time, and there are always a few new things to see too.

Ben and Emma were in full-on information overload, bouncing from exhibit to exhibit, pointing at fish, sharks, and eels, and anything else that caught their eyes.  The climbed walls, slid down slides, got to pet horseshoe crabs and a shark, and generally had a grand old time.

At every turn though, Emma asked the same question, "When are we going to see the mermaids?!"  She knows that they have a Mermaid show at the Aquarium, where actresses dress up in mermaid costumes and swim in one of the large fish tanks, while the audience can watch from under the water.  Well, by the time we made it over to where they have the show it was 15 minutes before the last show of the night, and they had already roped off the area as it was completely full, standing room only!  Emma was crushed and started to cry, she wanted to see those mermaids so badly.  Luckily Mariah and I remembered from previous years that after the show is over, the mermaids swim up to a shallow area of the tank and will do a meet-and-greet with the public, so we quickly told Emma that we couldn't see the show, but that she could still meet and talk to a mermaid.

With Emma's excitement stoked again, we headed to the upper level, and found an area where you could get your picture taken with one of the mermaids who wasn't a part of that particular show. Score!  Emma was giddy as she got to sit right next to the mermaid, ask her some questions, and even touch her tail.

Next, we headed over to the shallow pool where you can touch the stingrays, and where the mermaids come after the show and talk to the kids while they are still in the water.  I was so proud of the Ben and Emma as they waited so patiently for around 30 minutes before the mermaids finished the show and came over to where we were, and then had to wait another 20 minutes or so while the mermaids talked with other kids, many of whom arrived way after we did, because they started at the opposite end of the tank from where we were waiting.

It was worth the wait though, as Ben and Emma go to talk to both of the performers and peppered them with questions that the ladies were so nice to answer, "Can mermaids talk to fish? What do you eat? How long can you hold your breath?"

In case you were wondering, the answers were: "Yes, the dolphins teach us how." "We eat seaweed and algae, we like our greens!" and "About 2 minutes, but a sea turtle can hold it's breath for 6 hours!"

Once we had finished visiting with the mermaids we headed back to the car and then it was back to the beach house.  By the time we were back it was 9:30 PM and we still hadn't had any dinner!  The kids hadn't eaten anything since our late lunch around one o'clock, but somehow hadn't complained the whole time.

We had a quick dinner of leftover tacos (what better to eat at 10 o'clock at night right before bed?) and then it was off to bed.  I read one of Emma's favorite books tonight, Morris goes to School.  She's had us read that one to her so many times, she can recite every page back to us, even though she can't read many words at all yet.

So it's been another late night of blogging for me!  I'll have to work hard to try to turn in an early entry tomorrow if I want to be rested for our long drive back home on Saturday.  Until then!