Myrtle Beach Trip

After we finished up our Easter festivities in Ellerbe, we headed out to spend a few days at Myrtle Beach.  We stayed right on the beach at the Landmark Resort, a pretty nice hotel with 2 lazy rivers, tons of swimming pools, and its own miniature golf course.  We arrived Sunday night just in time for dinner at IHOP (where I tried their Nutella crepes for the first time - they were AMAZING!) followed by an evening walk on the beach.

Monday was Mom/Grandma's birthday.  We spent most of the day enjoying things at the hotel.  We took Gemma to the beach (her first time) and in the lazy river.  She absolutely LOVED both!  (In fact, she started crying when we picked her up to leave the beach.)  The lazy river was probably her favorite part of the trip though.  She absolutely went crazy kicking her legs and slapping at the water with her hands every time.

We let Mom/Grandma pick our dinner location and she chose the Melting Pot.  We stuffed ourselves with cheese fondue, salad, meat, and then super delicious chocolate fondue for dessert. 

It was super dark in the restaurant, reminding Rachel and me of the movie When in Rome.  Rachel posed as Lance from When in Rome (asking "Does anyone have the time?"):

Unfortunately, the weather was pretty gross for the rest of our trip.  On Tuesday we were able to hang out in the lazy river for a bit, but when we attempted to find the hotel's miniature golf course, we narrowly escaped being drenched by a sudden, epic thunderstorm.  Tuesday night was fun, though, as Dad/Grandpa, Rachel, Cy, and I went to Medieval Times.  At Medieval Times, we feasted on chicken, ribs, tomato bisque, potatoes, garlic bread, and apple pastries and drank from fancy goblets as we watched knights jousting and cheered on our knight, the red knight (who totally won, by the way).  I was a little unsure at first when we walked in and were greeted by a strong smell of horse, but it ended up being really fun.

Wednesday was basically a shopping day.  While Gemma and Cy napped, my parents, sister, and I hit up the stores at Broadway at the Beach.  I finally got the fudge I had been craving.  But the best part was...there was an entire store devoted to flamingos!  I had to really restrain myself to keep from buying one of everything in the store.  In the end, I limited myself to a t-shirt, a stained glass thingy, an old-fashioned looking sign, and a mosaic flamingo figurine.  I was very impressed with my self-control.  (Although I informed Cy the other day that I want to make a day trip to Myrtle Beach sometime before Christmas specifically to go back to that store and purchase flamingo Christmas ornaments.)

Cy and Gemma met us for lunch at Fuddrucker's and then we all went to Ripley's Aquarium.  It was fun but crowded.  By the time we got done, we were all exhausted and our plans of going to a Japanese steakhouse fell through, so we ordered some pizzas instead (this ended up being a minor fiasco of its own, but I won't get into that). 

Thursday was our last day so we hurried downstairs for one last trip to the lazy river.  (The mean pool lady wouldn't let us in at first but it turned out okay.)  Then we packed up and headed out.  We were going to stop at Mount Atlanticus for some miniature golf on the way out, but when we pulled into the parking lot, poor little Gemma was passed out asleep so we ended up just going on home.  She slept the entire way.

Did I mention that my laptop broke, our credit card number was stolen, and Cy and Gemma caught a respiratory virus while on our trip?  Ah, well.  Such is life when we go on vacation.  But other than that, our trip was sooooo much fun!