I guess you can still call it “summer vacation” even if it is not related to the school calendar, right? In any case, we took a family trip to the beach. An entire family trip, meaning Thao’s family all drove up from Atlanta for a few days and then Cory’s family drove down from Ohio for the rest of the week. It seemed to make sense to us to pick a spot in the middle (ish) and go there. Plus Cory’s family usually does a beach trip every summer so it was just a matter of changing the location and dates a little bit. So after some consideration and looking at logistics, we opted for Myrtle Beach.
A big part of picking Myrtle Beach was that Alaska Air flies into Charleston, South Carolina and since we live in Alaska, we fly them a lot. It also helps that until the end of this year we (or more correctly Thao) has upgraded status so we get better seats and upgrades quite often. Alas, we will not qualify next year so while we may have more flexibility in who we fly with, we still have a lot of miles with Alaska so likely will continue to use them. Anyway, back to the trip. The plan was for the Atlanta group to come up for a long weekend and the Ohio group to come down for a week. Since we were traveling with two different groups at two different times that were two different sized, we coordinated booking two different places (since the Atlanta group was much bigger) and planned to just switch accommodations in the middle of the trip. And since Cory was in charge of one booking and Thao was in charge of the other, we booked a place in Myrtle Beach and the other in North Myrtle Beach which are actually neighboring towns about 20 minutes apart (oops). Since our flight was dictating our schedule, we arranged to meet the Atlanta group in Charleston for the night on their way to Myrtle Beach and ride with them the next morning. So Charleston was really just a short overnight since we arrived in the late afternoon and left in the morning for the beach.
As for the vacation itself, it was much needed. We had not been on a vacation all year and have been very busy with work, baby, properties, etc so were looking forward to a little down time. What is funny is that there isn’t a lot to write about the vacation itself. We just spent most of the time at the beach or the pool with the family and not “doing stuff”. The highlights are that Half Calf LOVES the beach; he played in the sand, he walked fearlessly into the water (though was not sure why he kept getting salt in his eyes) and he of course enjoyed all the attention from the relatives. And it seemed like everyone was loving having him around too. Half Calf has also gotten MUCH more comfortable on his feet. We spent a lot of talk walking him to the water and I think the bare feet on the sand was helping him learn to balance better since he could grip a bit.
Half Calf got to play with his aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents from Georgia and then got to spend time with his aunts, cousins and grandma from Ohio. Plus he got to have yet another birthday celebration. That is one benefit of living far away I suppose. It was also nice that Jill and Drew gave him some of their old toys so it was a win/win; they got them out of the house and the toys got recycled which we parents prefer (almost everything Half Calf has is “new to us”).
And yes, there has been a big gap since the last post but that is because we were gathering pictures for this from all the relatives so it took time to get them all and then to go through them all. And life happened too, which always messes with the schedule as well. So sorry for the really unexpected delay but if nothing else we are hurrying to finish this one before the NEXT trip happens in a few weeks.
And of course, there are a few videos from all those people who were on vacation with us. Here are a few of the highlights.
Sometimes the best games are the simplest.
The first time Half Calf ever touched the ocean.
Speed crawling, while kicking up sand.
So close to figuring this out…
Getting my workout in for the day.
SSSSSWWWWWWIIIIIIINNNNNNNGGGGGGG!!!!!!!
Momma was teaching me walking at the airport. I kinda figured it out!!!
