Friday, July 27, 2012

Rachel waited a year for this experience...

After watching her big brother ride roller coasters in the children's area for a year, Rachel is finally tall enough to ride as well.

Photo Collage Myrtle Beach 2012





Wednesday, July 18, 2012

An impulsive stroke of genius

Last Saturday we were supposed to head down to Myrtle Beach for our annual family vacation.  This typically involves either
1) getting up at the butt crack of dawn to shepherd two sleepy preschoolers and one grouchy husband into a jam-packed car for a 9-10 hour car ride,
-or-
2) heading to my parents house on Friday in order to wake up about an hour later to drag two hyper preschoolers and one grouchy husband for a 8-9 hour carpool trip.

John always takes off from work the Friday before.  At around 10am I got a brilliant idea.

Me: Hey John...?
John: [engrossed in stuff for work on his computer] Yeah...?
Me: Why don't we leave for the beach at around noon?  We'll stop at Kings Dominion and let the kids ride some rides, then stay at a hotel outside of Richmond.  We can avoid all the traffic from DC to Richmond on 95 South.

For some reason, John let me talk him into this.  The trip from outside of Washington, DC to just north of Richmond should take just under two hours according to Google maps.  This is because Google maps is high on pot and doesn't take into account that driving on interstate 95 is about as pleasant as watching multiple episodes of Lazy Town.*  It takes *FOUR HOURS* Google, NOT two.  And that's NOT during rush hour.

But even after arriving at the amusement park after 4pm, the kids had a blast for about four hours.


This does not take into account that my daughter freaked out because she was pulled off of a children's roller coaster for being one inch too short AFTER we were already buckled into the ride.
Other than that hiccup, it was a good time.



And at around 9pm, we were all in our hotel and ready for the long car ride in the morning.

BTW- If you're looking for a hotel outside of Richmond in the 95 corridor, check out the Country Inn and Suites in Ashland, Virginia.  Beautiful hotel, good breakfast, great service.  Too bad we had kids with us. ;-)

And that usual 10 hour trip to Myrtle Beach?  It took us less than 6 hours.  We arrived a little after check-in and actually got to enjoy the beach our first day there- a first!
 This is why my kids can't wait to ride roller coasters.
(Listen to the background music: John's comments are a hoot)

We are definitely doing this next year. 

*Lazy Town is a show aimed at preschoolers where a 20-something, buff man wearing spandex comes to a town full of creepy looking puppets and befriends the only human character: a 12 year old girl.  Dear PBS/ Sprout: W.T.F??!!