Our vacation

Our beach vacation went by way too fast, as most things you look forward to do.  We left home on the 22nd around 12:30, which was about 30 minutes before we said we wanted to leave, so we were happy about that!  Jackson was asleep about 2 minutes after I buckled him in!  He didn't sleep for very long though, but he was a happy camper 99% of the ride.  We stopped in Winston-Salem, NC for the night, and after our trip home last night, I'm glad we stopped on the way down.  The hotel was, eh, ok.  It was cheap, and the room was nice enough, but the area was a little rough.  We survived though :)  The night went about as well as I was expecting it to.  Jackson slept better than he did the last time we were in a hotel, but by the time the morning rolled around we were all in the king size bed!

We left for Myrtle around 10:30, after getting breakfast at McD's (the continental breakfast at the hotel ended at 9, but no one told us that...) and stopping at Wal-Mart for a few things.  We thought we would get to the condo/resort at about 3 or 3:30, but it was almost 5 by the time we arrived thanks to heavy traffic for the last 40 miles.  That last 40 took about 1.5-2 hours to get through...ugh.

We finally arrived and got everything to the room and went to check out the beach and the rest of the resort.  Livi loved the sand, and it would probably be her favorite thing of the week.  We went to dinner at a seafood buffet, but I was a little disappointed because, for a SEAFOOD buffet, there weren't many seafood options.  We had to get groceries for the week, we had decided to eat breakfast and lunch in the condo and then go out for dinner each night.  We spent about as much for 1 week as we do for 2-3 weeks here at home...stupid food tax in South Carolina.  That was a whopping 9%!  Then there was another tax for something else, it was absurd.

Sunday morning we FINALLY got to go to the beach (to swim, play and soak up the sun!).  Livi hated the ocean.  I knew she would.  Besides bath water, she's not really a huge fan of water.  I don't know why.  She even wouldn't go swimming in the pool, except for the baby pool, which was less than 1 foot deep, so she could stand in it and be ok.  Jackson, on the other hand, loved the water!  And the sand, especially in his mouth :)  He couldn't take being in the sun for very long though, so we didn't stay at the beach for more than 2 hours.  I was disappointed about that :(  I was looking forward to being at the beach or pool for the majority of the day...yeah, that didn't happen.  Definitely a different experience than any other beach vacation I've taken.  But I digress.

All in all, it was a great trip.  Monday we celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary, even though we had already celebrated a few weeks before.  Jackson slept beautifully the entire week!!  I didn't think he would do that well in a pack n play, but I had 2 soft blankets under the sheet, so it made it nice and cushy for him :)  We had gotten an air mattress/sleeping bag thing for Livi, and she slept in it beautifully all week also!  We never had either of them in bed with us all week.  The bed sucked though, but I was just happy to have somewhere to sleep. 

The road home was a bit difficult.  The owner of the place we rented told us about a different route to take to avoid all the traffic we came in with.  It was ok for a while, but we eventually got stuck in traffic, and it would be the 1st of about 6 or 7 times that day.  I think we stopped more in 1 day than we did in the 2 days going down.  Jackson needed to eat, or Livi had an accident (this may sound dumb, but we put a diaper on her for the trips because she is constantly going to the bathroom, so we figure we wouldn't have to stop as much that way.  Well she did #2 and lets just say it was gross.  So we had to stop to clean that up).  Or we had to stop for gas/food/money from the ATM for the tolls because we forgot...what should have taken 10 or 11 hours took 14.5.  We needed gas around 9:30 and we were in West Virginia.  Apparently from the storms, they had no power, which somehow meant that the gas stations were all out of gas?  And the stupid thing was that there were mile long lines at the pumps.  Not saying anything about people from West Virginia (since my SIL is from there...), but that's just dumb!  There was a station that had a gas truck trying to fill up the tanks, but he couldn't get in because of all the cars!

Our saving grace was good old Gallipolis, Ohio.  Never, ever thought I would be thankful for Gallipolis after last year, but they had gas and we were able to fill up, get some snacks and I could feed Jackson.  We finally made it home at 1:30.  LONGEST trip of my life.  Livi, at one point, woke up around Circleville screaming because she was tired of being in the car.  That made the long trip even longer, but she wore herself out and went back to sleep.  I think we learned our lesson and will never drive all day with kids this age.

Well, I didn't expect to write that much, but I did.  Oh well :)  Now to unpack (yuck) and sleep.  Maybe I'll leave the unpacking for tomorrow...yeah, that sounds like a good idea!