This year we had quite a big event scheduled to celebrate America's birthday. Long before we left Germany, we thought about getting together with some of our Benning-bound Army friends for Independence Day. That's a four-day we knew they'd be getting, and South Carolina seemed like a good place to "meet in the middle". When we mapped it, we realized it was a 3.5 hour drive for us but an 8 hour drive for our friends. That was a lot for a four-day, so we accepted that it might not happen. But Liz and Matt go down to SC for the 4th every year, so we decided we'd head down for the holiday weekend. We were excited to see our friends, the boys were excited to have the bikes where they can ride sans helmet, and Hayden is always excited about something new.
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A few weeks before the 4th, we found out that one of our very good friends was going to be at Ft. Bragg for some training and that his family was driving up for the 4th to see him. Ft. Bragg is much closer to Myrtle Beach than Ft. Benning in, so a plan emerged. We were SO excited to be able to spend the weekend with TWO of our favorite families! Hayden, Oscar and I loaded up while Jay slept in a little on Friday and we got on the road. About 90 minutes into the ride I realized I left the keys to the beach house at home. Doh! I called Jay to let him know we didn't have the keys with us, and we just kept going on our way and hoped he'd catch up!
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Hayden, Oscar and I arrived with no keys and Jay was at least an hour behind us, so we headed to the park to stretch our legs. We walked to the swings and slides for a few minutes, but then Hayden wanted to take Oscar down to the water. There's a pond with a fountain at the bottom of the park so we headed that way. Hayden loves to hold Oscar's leash, but I don't usually let him when we're around a bunch of people so I held the reigns. Which was moot, because once Oscar saw the ducks in the water, he pulled out of his collar and dashed into the water after them. I couldn't believe it! Oscar usually has to be coaxed into the water but he jumped right in! The ducks scurried away but Oscar stayed in and swam a bit. Jay and I joked how things like this NEVER happen when I have an extra set of hands, so naturally it was bound to happen while I was on my own.
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We got back into the truck and grabbed a little lunch. Jay and the Pollards arrived soon after, keys in hand, so we were able to get in and get settled. The boys did some grocery shopping while Amber and the little boys and I hung around in the A/C and talked about how big our kids had gotten in the six months it had been since we'd seen each other. That night we decided to grill out, and Matt and Liz joined us for burgers and hot dogs. We went to play mini-golf at a really fun place with a train! It took you to the top and you played your way down. Hayden had a great time playing putt-putt for the first time, and loved all the water and waved every time the train went by us. After golf we got some ice cream before heading home. Not a bad way to start our vacation!
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Saturday the boys had an early morning tee-time so they were out of the house before 8am. We got the boys up and ready to hit the beach. They were so excited! The Pollard boys had never seen the ocean and we couldn't wait to get them there. Gabe and Logan had a great time playing in the water but Hayden was still not interested. We hung out in the sand and tried a few times to get Hayden in the water but he just wouldn't budge. The boys finished up their golf game and came out to join us and build a few sand castles. After we cleaned up from the beach, we headed to the Hard Rock Cafe, one of our favorite haunts we tried to hit in every city we could while we were traveling in Europe. Always a good time!
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Sunday we went back to the beach for a bit, and then headed to Alligator Adventure. What a fun place! We saw alligators and crocodiles, white alligators and the world's largest alligator, one with no tail and babies not yet in the water with their big brothers; we saw bats and lemurs, lizards and frogs, turtles and tortoises; even birds and a few cats! Hayden loved seeing all the gators and got to touch a baby one! His favorite part was petting the giant tortoises and it was really hard to tear him away from them! After the gators we headed to Grandma Pam and Grandpa Don's house, Matt's grandparents, for a BBQ and some swimming. Hayden had a BLAST in the pool and it was almost an act of Congress to get him out of the water! The boys took turns throwing him up in the air, and he even did a little swimming on his own in his life jacket. Logan took a liking to the little pool, which he dubbed "Logan's pool", but told us he would share his pool with us. We enjoyed chicken wings and burgers and dogs, and Lizard's cucumber salad didn't last long of course! We were SO stuffed but managed to make room for some of Grandma Pam's brownies. Yum!
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We could tell Hayden was getting tired because he kept tripping over his feet. He ran into the gate and got a nice goose egg on his forehead, and after he fell two more times we decided it was just time to go. Hayden fell asleep immediately in the car, and we headed to pick up some fireworks while he napped in the truck. We headed to Barefoot Landing, where we thought they were doing fireworks. We walked around, got ice cream, did some shopping and waited. Then we checked again and found out the fireworks weren't until Monday night! Bummer. We headed back home and I think we all were ready for bed as soon as we walked in.
Monday morning came and we made breakfast and started packing up. The last day of vacation is never any fun. We were sad to see the Pollard go and even sadder to head back to reality, but we were so glad that we got to spend the weekend with some of our favorite people!
