Myrtle Beach Vacation, 2013: Day 7

Our last full day at Surfside Beach is here, I'm sad to say.  We were lucky to have a break in the rain this morning though.  Mariah and Zac went out early and brought back some hot and fresh Krispy Kreme donuts, but I exercised extreme willpower and went for a run first, before rewarding myself with such a tasty breakfast.  It was in the low 70's and overcast, and the tide was out, so I decided to run on the beach for my final excursion, which was great.

After I finished my run, I changed into my bathing suit and Mariah got the kids ready for a quick walk down to the beach.  The kids didn't want to play in the ocean today, and weren't interested in making sand castles either, but we did convince them that taking a walk on the beach and looking for shells would be fun.  They each got a bucket for shells, and I got my new shell scooper/sifter from Sanibel and we headed out.

On the way down to the beach, we ran into Blair, who used to work at Westminster Canterbury with Mariah, and her daughter Lila.  It turns out they had been staying in a house just across the street from us all week and we didn't have a clue!  Lila used to be in Emma's daycare classes, so the two were happy to see each other again.  We went on down to the beach and spent some time walking in the little tide pools, where the kids were excited at every tiny shell they found.

Soon enough, a light rain started and we headed back up to the house.  The kids wanted to swim in the pool, so we hopped on in and were surprised by how warm it was!  Zac and Ellie joined us and we all had a grand time swimming in the rain.

Ben and Emma came up with some crazy game where one side of the pool was the human side, and the other side was the Lego side, and you were transformed into a Lego mini-figure if you went over there.  Emma, on the human side, had a "shiny diamond" (a green squirt bottle) which had apparently been used to break the Earth in half or something.  To rescue the Earth, Ben had to either get the shiny diamond or use some small orange missiles, that he called the Lego Potion and the Human Potion.  The potions could change everyone in the world to either a Lego person or a human, depending which one was being used.  What wild imaginations they have!

In any case, we had a blast chasing each other all over the pool, grabbing the "shiny diamond" back from each other.  As the rain intensified, I grabbed one of the pool floats and made a little shelter that the kids loved hiding out under.

The rain finally started coming down very hard and was getting cold, so we reluctantly left the pool and made a run for the porch where we dried off and then went back in the house.  I was very cold, and decided that this would be a good time to take advantage of the jacuzzi tub we had in our bedroom (not the bathroom, in the actual bedroom), so I took a nice, hot bath to warm back up.  It was so relaxing I almost fell asleep at one point.

While I soaked in the tub, Mariah and kids had lunch downstairs, and then started working on another puzzle.  I finished up and came downstairs and had a sandwich for lunch.

After we had relaxed for a while, I noticed that the rain had finally stopped.  I checked the weather radar on my phone and saw that there was a break in the rain for a little while, so we quickly got Ben and Emma ready and rushed out to play some miniature golf.  The kids picked a Putt-Putt place called Adventure Falls that was real close to our beach house. The kids were excited by the castles and giant animals on the course, especially since one of the castles was pink.

Ben had already played mini-golf once or twice before on school field trips, but this was Emma's first time.  Ben was eager to help her learn the rules and show her how to play, and Emma was quick to pick up the idea, even if she had some trouble holding the club.  She ended up with her own unique style that worked for her though.

We had an awesome time playing our way through the course, and I was really proud of how well both the kids did.  They had several holes where they actually scored only two or three strokes, and even when they did have to hit it ten or twelve times, they never got frustrated.  We had some mishaps here and there; Ben whacked his ball into a little stream of water at one point and we almost lost it, and Emma fell off the sidewalk and hurt her knee, but we recovered from both.

As we got to the 15th hole or so, the rain started back up so we rushed through the last few holes.  We made a run for the van just as the rain started coming down in earnest.  I told the kids that it was a family tradition to get some ice cream after playing Putt-Putt, and we were lucky enough to find an ice cream shop only a few doors down from the mini-golf place.  The ice cream was delicious (when is it not?) and after our sweet tooth had been satisfied, we headed home.

Back home, we had some more time to chill out. The kids watched some cartoons, with Emma curled up on Zac's lap on the couch.

Patty offered to watch Ben and Emma for the night so that Mariah and I could have a "date night" and we were happy to take advantage of her generosity.  The rain had stopped again, so Mariah and I decided to head to Broadway at the Beach again, as they have a ton of restaurants to choose from. It was a lovely night, so we walked around for a long time checking out the different restaurants.

 I was in the mood for seafood again, so we decided on Landry's Seafood, which seemed to fit the bill.  We ate out on the deck, starting out with the Crab, Spinach, and Artichoke Dip.  For our entrees, I had the Stuffed Shrimp and Mariah got the Shrimp Fresca, which were both amazing. Despite being stuffed already, I ordered a Brownie Sundae for dessert.  It was as delicious as it looks here!

After dinner we walked around a little more on our way back to the car.  We got back to the beach house after 10:30 pm, and started packing up for the drive home.  I packed up the beach and pool toys, while Mariah cleaned up and packed what she could in the house without disturbing the sleeping kids.  Once we had done all that we could for the night, we took one last midnight dip in the pool!  The water was warmer than the air temperature at that point, but was still chilly, so we didn't stay in for very long.  

We finally ended the last long vacation day at about 1 am, a fitting end to a jam-packed, crazy awesome trip!