The Hatz Family: South Carolina ~ Vacation 2014!

This past winter, we decided that it was time for another family beach vacation!! So we booked our week in Surfside Beach for the end of July. The only bummer this time around was that Mark and Grete decided not to make the trip with us. Baby Boy T is due to arrive the middle of September so they thought it was best to stay back in Minnesota. We missed them and thought about them throughout the week. Especially Miss Tierney as we tried to imagine her reaction to the beach and ocean. But we certainly has a great time!

The last 5 miles of the trip has always been the longest due to the traffic so we decided to do something a little bit different this year. My uncle and cousins live in Atlanta and we have been hearing great things about the acquarium there so we decided to drive to Atlanta on Thursday, stay downtown Atlanta and go to the Georgia Aquarium on Friday. My cousin, Dylan came with us. The trip down was fairly uneventful except for hitting truck tire that came off right in front of us, which broke something underneath the van :(. The kids were amazing on the trip down. They watched movies or slept. We didn't hear any complaints from them. Carter was so funny. We decided to put a pull-up on him on the trip because you just never when you can/can't stop. Carter thought is was hilarious that he was wearing a diaper again and kept saying, "I can't believe I haven't peed in my diaper." He never needed to use his pull-up but I think it made us all a little more comfortable that we didn't have to find a rest stop in a panic or stop on the side of the road. Which we did once, before putting the pull-up on Carter and Matt didn't like it at all.

We met my parents, Jo, Katie, Addison and Gus downtown Thursday night and had dinner at a diner downtown. It was very good and most importantly had really fast service since we had all be in the car for 12 hours. The Georgia Aquarium was really cool. The whale sharks were definitely a favorite...it is hard to believe that the tank is able to house 4 whale sharks! The kids also loved watching the beluga whale and the sea otters swimming.

Watching the fishies

Impressed!

In awe!

After the acquarium, we went to Roswell and hung out with John and Dylan and was able to go swimming at their neighborhood pool. It was a perfect way to spend the afternoon and we were able to see our cousin Jack's name still up on the on the record board for swimming. John made us dinner of pork and perogies! So good! We left Atlanta around 7:30 on our way to Myrtle Beach. This was a very LONG night....thankfully Matt drove and we arrived in Myrtle Beach at 1:30 am.

We were up by 8 and out on the beach by 9 the next morning. Carter could not wait to get in to the ocean! Matt left to get our swim stuff and Carter and I saw a shark near shore! For real! Carter was in the water the waves broke and receeded and we both saw the top and back fin of a yellow shark. Carter ran to shore yelling "shark! shark!" It was so crazy! I wish another adult had been there to witness it because I don't know how seriously Matt took us when he came back. Carter was less than 5 feet away when it happened and swore it was a lemon shark. I googled it because I was so anxious about it and apparently lemon sharks are common around Myrtle Beach. Definitely a baby but it was such a reminder to me about everything lives in the ocean. Carter thought it was the coolest thing ever and wanted to go back in the water immediately!

No fear!

The days were relatively the same...beach in the morning, back to the house for lunch and pool in the afternoon while the babies napped. The only exceptions were Monday morning when the boys golfed and Friday. The weather was overcast for most of the day and rain threatened so we decided to switch it up and go to Broadway at the Beach. We went to the Wonder Works museum and the kids had a good time in the bubble room, the arcade and the other fun exhibits. Matt, my mom and I laid on a bed of nails, which hurt more than I thought it would :). For me, one of the most interesting things in the museum was the Titanic exhibit. It was very small just showing the angle of the boat deck during the sinking. But there also was a cylinder of water that you could put your hand in that was 28 degrees ~ the temperature of the ocean when Titanic sank. Let me tell you that I could not put my hand in there for more than 5 seconds it was so cold!! It is amazing that some people survived after being in that water.

Most evenings we ate at the house and played games. We also walked the beach almost every night. We only went out to eat once to Nance's our favorite restaurant. We also went putt putting one evening. Carter did a pretty good job putt putting when he would concentrate. He legitimately beat me on a couple of holes. Isla walked around carrying her club and ball. :) Matt, Cory, Katie and I went to the outlet mall one night and the final night we capped it off with a trip to Meyer's ice cream!!

The weather was beautiful! The first couple of days were hot and sunny but then it cooled off to the mid-80s. Thursday and Friday were overcast and the ocean was really rough. So that was kinda of a bummer. Carter, Addison and Gus loved the ocean! Isla not so much. She loved the beach and the sand but unfortunately the day she wanted to go out it was really rough and she was having none of it!! Carter was so fearless in the water and wanted to be in the ocean almost all day long. He preferred to get out past the breakers in his water wings and just float but both Carter and Addison learned how to boogie board and caught some good waves!!

It wouldn't be vacation without some drama and the Meyer family provided that for us :). Katie, Addison and Gus all got stung by jelly fish while in the ocean! It is crazy that we have been to the beach 3 times now and never had an issue with jelly fish but in the span of a couple of days 3 out of the 4 Meyers got stung. Luckily, no one was allergic so we didn't make any trips to the hospital and the pain subsided in a couple hours. More importantly, both Addison and Gus got back into the ocean.

We had an amazing week! It went by way too fast of course so we were all sad to head home especially with school looming on the horizon.

Warning! Picture overload!