Saturday, August 8, 2009

Are we there yet?!?


We started our 2 week vacation on a Friday morning, when I drove the 5 hours over to Jacksonville, FL to visit Rick's sister Emily. We have made it a tradition to go see the new Harry Potter movie together. So, we headed to the near 3 hour movie, while poor Christian watched my crew. Then I drove up (alone) the 6 hours to Myrtle Beach, where we met my Dad, Annette and my grandma. Here is our 4 generation picture and no, Gwenny the poodle does not count as one of the generations.


We spent 5 days jet skiing, pontoon boating, water skiing and just relaxing in the shade of the giant weeping willows. Emma found that part of the riverbed was composed of clay, so every morning she made creations like skulls, snowmen, mermaids and letters out of the clay and let it harden in the sun. Here Reece waits his turn for the jet ski with Dad so he could tear it up. We started calling him Full Throttle Reece, since Rick and Grandpa gave him full rein over the throttle and of course his hair was blown back, going 50mph with a huge smile on his face. I thought he looked like a little beaver in this picture.

Grandpa was in 7th heaven with his grand kids




Adeline told long winded stories to her great grammy about Disney World, and princesses and riding on It's a Small World and the monorail.




Rick got out on the tubes the 2nd day we were there, and the jet skis too. So, not to be outdid by his son-in-law, my Dad got out and even threw one ski off and did it slalom for 50 feet before biting the dust.




Rick and Reece waiting to be dragged mach1 behind the boat, just to be tossed off into the water






My grandmother who is 86, with 2 of her 7 great-grand kids. I think she's amazing for 86. She even got out on the jet ski one morning and went for a 10 minute ride.








Mommy tore it up with Reece. I enjoyed jumping our own wake, but not going lightning speed. So, he chose to ride with Daddy more often b/c I must be an old lady driver.







One night we drove out to the beach and boardwalk. There was a big amusement park there called Family Kingdom. The kids loved it. Here is Adeline biting Pichacoo's ear, that Annette had won her on a guess the right color game. Emma won the fairy wings in the stroller from the yellow rubber duck game.









The kids are so used to Disney, that they don't get a chance to ever try these old fashioned rides, like the cars, the little swings and the airplanes. Poor Reece, we dragged him on the Tilt-a-Whirl, mommy's favorite ride, and I think he was sick the remainder of the night.













We took the pontoon boat about 20 miles north our last day there and braved 2 thunderstorms. Rick was smart and had us all hide under the boat cover, poor Grandma was laughing the whole time. On our ride, I learned that the Inter Coastal Waterway( which is where we were staying ) was built after the Great Depression as a means of stimulating the economy. It runs the entire length from Maine to Miami and was built to hide our barges from enemy subs out in the Atlantic.











The kids really enjoyed their time with Grammy and hopefully we can get up to see her in Ithaca, NY, one of these falls when the leaves are all in full color. Too bad Southwest doesn't fly into there. Since, this trip was so long, I'm breaking up our time in South Carolina as 1 blog and Virginia as another.












2 comments:

Stories of the Stephens said...

Jackie--you look so pretty! What a fun time!

drew.wojtanik said...

It was a great time had by all. I so enjoyed all of your family and charished the time we spent together. I would love for this to be an annual event.