Spring Break - Sunset Beach (Part 2)

Sunset Beach.  Truly the most beautiful beach on the east coast, but then I am a little bias:)  We enjoyed a wonderful long weekend to end Spring Break at the beach with my parents.

 

 

 

At the condo, we stayed right beside a turtle pond, full of baby turtles.

 

We all loved running over the bridge to the pool and dipping our toes in, but with temps in the 60's that is all we dipped:)

 

Back on the beach we played football...

 

 

And Elijah got his first taste of sand.

 

Looks like it wasn't as good as it looked!

 

 

 

The next morning we went for a swim...in the indoor pool.

Then a quick snack before heading to Myrtle Beach for some boardwalk fun...

arcade time...

Daddy's little protege.

 ice cream of course...

chasing waves (or in Bella's case, running from them)...

investigating a jellyfish with cousin Erica...

and even a quick photo op!

On our last day we started our morning out with breakfast on the beach (homemade by McDonalds).

Then lots of playing and wearing sand.

Chasing down a Frisbee in a very cold ocean.

Calla and her brothers dug a very big hole.  Noah missed out on the hole digging fun since he was in Tennessee, although I don't think he minds.

 After our morning at the beach we stopped at the park to play a little tennis and grab some lunch.

 What a fabulous Spring Break, now I just need to recover:)

Spring Break 2012 (Part 1)

Ahhh, Spring Break, or maybe it should be called Spring Busy since our family likes to pack as much "together time" in as we possibly can!

We started simply enough by planting a new garden made out of old pallets.  The kids from the neighborhood even came out to help us get it all started.  Because we found such a great deal on strawberry plants, it should really be called a strawberry garden:)  At least the first three rows are all berries, followed by a row of tomatoes and cucumbers and finally a row of cantaloupe and watermelon.  Since this is our first gardening attempt, I am looking forward to seeing how it "grows".

 

After all that hard work planting strawberries, we decided to treat ourselves to some...strawberries!  We all headed to Hall's Family Farm to pick 6 pounds of ripe, delicious strawberries and we even shared a few strawberry slushies.

Elijah was totally into his first strawberry picking trip:)

 

The next day was, prepare for the surprise...Biltmore!  Jeff and I had just gone and toured the house again, but we were a bit to early for the gardens.  But Spring Break was the PERFECT time to see the azalea gardens in full bloom.  This trip we steered clear of most of the touristy areas near the house and took our crew out on one of the many garden trails around the property.

 

 

Such a sweet day!

Mid-week we took the Linx train uptown to Discovery Place.

 

Everyone seemed to enjoy the train (and it was nice that we had it all to ourselves). 

 At Discovery Place there were tons of stuff for everyone to try.

 

Others needed a little help:)

 

They don't call it "hands on" for nothing!

 

Walking back to the train station we got to catch a few sights...

Before we caught a few zzzzz's!

Then on Friday Noah left early with a friend for a fun-filled trip to Pigeon Forge, TN.  Our neighbors have one son and asked if Noah could join them at their cabin for a long weekend to Dollywood, NASCAR racing, the Titanic museum, gem mining and so much more.  Although we were sad he wouldn't be joining us at the beach (we left shortly after our neighbors) we were all happy for him to being sharing such a great vacation with friends!

At the NASCAR race track!

 

Dollywood fun!

Next up...Sunset Beach, the culmination of Spring Break!