3rd Annual Beach Campout

The last weekend of September is a great weekend to go camping at the beach - smaller crowd, water and weather still warm but not too hot during the day, and cool enough at night to be comfortable.

Friday we stuffed the van to the brim with the various gear, clothing, food, and toys absolutely essential for a 2 night trip to the beach. We set up camp, roasted hot dogs over the fire, and finally walked over to the beach after dark. The girls were *not* happy that they had to wait so long before seeing the ocean, but Mom and Dad would have been *not* happy at setting up the tent after dark, so first things first. We got to see the moon rise blood red over the ocean, which was thrilling and both girls still managed to get their clothes sopping wet, so the wait was worth it.

The next morning, we ate a quick breakfast, packed up the toys, drinks, snacks, towels, camera, sunscreen, and headed over to play at the beach. We walked up, set our stuff way back from the water and watched the tide come in...way in. We had to move the gear up almost on the dunes to keep it safe. K was immediately in the water, getting deeper and deeper until the waves knocked her over and washed her up on shore. She'd look half-drowned, but she kept running out to do it again, so it must've been more fun than it looked. L was...very impressed...with the power and roar of the waves and resolved to stay far, far away. She would only get close enough to get her feet wet if someone was holding her hand and she still wasn't very comfortable with it all. She did, however, love to play in the sand, so it was all good.

Lunchtime came and went and we convinced the girls to go back to camp and get cleaned up and fed, then we went to find a mini-golf course. Myrtle Beach is the "Adventure Golf Capital of the World" or at least it should be. It's BIG business when you can't drive a block without seeing a mini golf place and each one is bigger and more elaborate than the last. I wanted to go to the one with the huge smoking pirate skull cave, but we settled for the tall mountain, waterfalls, and jungle animals. The girls had a blast until the last few holes of the second round when L finally had simply had enough fun and excitement for one day, had a meltdown, slowly recovered, then stayed clingy. Of course, K told us later that she had read a sign to L about how the "Lagoon Monster" sometimes "ate" balls (they sometimes went in a pipe and never came out) and L freaked out that there was a monster at the end of a long course and it was that terror that brought on the meltdown---info that would have been nice to know when it was actually happening!

We're back home, plan to get to bed early, and jump into another exciting week of school, activities, and house cleaning since we're expecting a visit this weekend from Grandma - yea!