AS promised I want to tell about our spur of the moment fun weekend. I had posted that I didnt have much planned for last weekend, and I didnt.

Until thursday afternoon, when I was wandering around bored in the yard. My Dad is having a new shop built and I was watching the workers build it.. riveting ,as you can imagine. We dont even have hunky construction workers.. just old guys in baggy jeans.

SO I decided that I would like to get away for the weekend. My girls have been kind of down.. for one reason or another and I felt like a mental health day would be just what we all needed. Steven, I knew would have to work on Friday, but he could take us to the beach (we live about an hour from Myrtle Beach, SC.) and then come home, go to work on friday and then rejoin us friday evening. SO, I got on www.hotels.com and found us a deal on an offseason hotel room. The price was pretty decent and we stayed at a really nice place called the Caravelle. Its more a golf resort than a family place, It has  hot tubs and an indoor pool. It also had flatscreen tv and those Westin Heavenly Beds! It was SO nice. My girls arent rowdy wild kids so I never have a problem taking them to places that arent specifically geared toward kids.

Anyway, thursday night when the kids got home from school we headed right to the beach. They were both really excited. Originally I didnt plan to have Thing One the whole weekend since it was her Mom’s visitation, but it worked out that she was with us anyway! We usually have a HUGE problem deciding where to eat when we go on vacations.. Steven never cares, but doesnt ever want what we suggest. The Things are pretty easy though. Luckily, this time Thing Two was craving a burger and fries so after we checked into our GREAT hotel and looked around the room we headed straight for our favorite burger place. Its a saloon looking place called River City Cafe. They make hand cut fries and the BEST burgers for really great prices. Its rare for 4 to eat in a resort town for under $30 and we can do that easily there. Thing Two and I split our usual cheddar cheese bacon burger, Thing One had a chili burger and Steven chowed on this HUGE double “black and bleu burger” with cajun spices and bleu cheese. It looked really yummy. After we ate we headed back to the hotel and Steven had to leave us to head home It was wierd for him to go. I rarely spend a night without him. In fact maybe a handfull since weve been married? But he would be back as soon as he was done working. After Steven left I took the girls to the hot tubs and let them swim a little while I read my bookand watched the sunset

By 10 they were both wiped and we went to the room and watched the HUGE flat screen tv and sunk into the AWESOME beds. I gotta get me one of those!

Thing One had kind of a rough night. She and her sister were both croupy and I’d likely have kept them both home anyway with thier colds. The steam from the indoor pools and the hottubs went a long way to keeping them loose though. She coughed on and off all night and ended up sitting up watching Disney channel at like 3 am. She seemed happy and comfy so I snuggled in beside her and woke up at 5 with the television on and a sleeping baby in bed with me. We slept in until 10 and went in search of breakfast.

The hotel had a great little resturant on the first floor and we joined a bunch of golfers returning from thier all night partying. (more on ONE of them later!) The hotel offered a breakfast buffet that was sooo great. They had made to order omelets and waffles as well as anything else youd imagine wanting for breakfast. Not to mention Starbucks coffee! I was a happy girl. I had a pleasant conversation with a guy from New York over our omelets. I didnt think much of it….

After breakfast the girls and I headed where else? To the pools. They played in the quasi water park and the slightly fridgid pools while I lazed in the hot tub and read more of my book. SO relaxing. Once our fingers were all pruney we went up to our room and napped and watched a couple movies.

By that time it was late afternoon and we decided to walk up the beach to another hotel where I knew there was a California Pizza Kitchen. But before we got there Thing Two spotted the River City Cafe where we had eaten the night before and asked if we could get wings and fries and then eat a meal when her Daddy got there. I of course wasnt in any hurry to do much of anything before Steven got there, so we agreed. We got to eat outside over looking the ocean and enjoyed some GREAT wings and more handcut fries…sometimes I think really good dipping sauces is all there is to great wings and that place has GREAT bleu cheese sauce! mm mm

On our way back to the hotel we did some shelling and watched TONS of birds on the sand.

We also met up with my “friend” from breakfast. He asked about a good place to get a drink and we chatted some about the night life in Myrtle Beach.  I  sent him on his way with a few good choices.

When we returned the girls wanted to spend more time in the pool and I sat with my feet dangling in the hot tubs and read some more until Steven surprised us by arriving earlier than we thought he would!

By this time we were hungry for some real food and we all hurried through getting ready so we could take advantage of a coupon to our favorite seafood place. “Big Giant Crab” cheesy? touristy? all of the above. But they make pasta to order and have all you can eat crab legs.

Let me tell you.. I have a pretty small appetite. (yes even as big as I am) and I rarely eat a lot in one sitting. But when it comes to seafood I can put even Steven to shame.. and I did. CRABS FEAR ME. When we left I was SO SO full…like crazy full. I had to go find some fat pants FAST  LOL. The girls had a big time looking at all the great aquariums they have there as well as the 2 ton metal crab they have in the parking lot.

After eating we decided that I was to full to shop and the pools were calling to Thing Two.. so we returned to the hotel and Steven took the girls walking on the beach. I, finally in clothes that allowed for the immense amount of crabs that I had eaten went and read in the pool area and enjoyed a mai tai from the bar.

Over the top of my book, I kept noticing someone watching me.. I vaugely recognized him as the gentleman we kept running into all day. I smiled and returned to my book. The wind came up and I shed my coverup and slid into the hot tub. Totally engrossed in my book, until I noticed two feet at my eye level. The guy bent down and handed me a note… it read

“You looked lonely so I thought I would say “hi”. If you are at all interested in some company you can call me or text me at 555-555-5555. If you are married or taken I mean no disrespect.”

I, of course was shocked. And by the time I looked up again he was gone.. and my husband and kids were coming accros the pool area.. heh. Mama still got it. Of course I didnt call him.. but there was a time when I TOTALLY would have. (bad michele.. bad michele)

Anyway. I showed my little note to Steven and he of course teased me the whole rest of the weekend.

After the walking and the swimming, the girls were ready to hit the sheets. So we put them to bed and enjoyed snuggling and watched a movie while listening to the sound of the waves crashing though the open balcony door.

The next morning we packed up and found one of the thousands of pancake houses in myrtle beach and had a quick breakfast.. nothing spectacular. I dont think we will return to that specific one as they charged $2.50 for a glass of sweet tea! Youd think it was gold or something in there.

After breakfast we decided to check out one of the tourist areas known as Broadway at the beach.They have neat shops and fun stores. I knew they had a KISS coffeehouses there and I had been dying to see what it looked like. SO cool.. if you like that kind of thing. I have like KISS from way back and we have been big fans of the Show “family jewels” so it was cool to see all the Gene Simmons stuff in there.

We spent the morning wandering peacefully and watching the 7 million cheerleaders that were in town for a competition make fools of themselves.

At lunch we ate at a chain place. Joes Crab Shack.. BLECH I will NEVER eat there again. It was mediocre at best and the prices were outrageous! I was voting for Taco bell and wed have done WAY better eating there. After our pretty lame lunch we shopped some more (Disney store! yayhoo!) and Thing Two discovered Club Libby Lu.. a very girly store where they cater to the 8-11 set. She was IN LOVE and could have spent hours and millions in there.. I hope to perhaps take her there when we have more time to devote to the place.

We stopped for ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery.. (which is right next door to Ben and Jerry’s) we love that place. The banana ice cream there is the best thing EVER.. except maybe mickey bars.

Finally I was getting POOPED out and was happy to buy tickets to see Horton Hears a Who at the great big movie theatre there. It was SO cute. The girls enjoyed it almost as much as Steven and I did.

After the movie we got a call from my mom that Dillon was experiencing some really rough weather and that there was a tornado warning in effect. So we carefully sped home. We did run into some really rough wind and rain and saw trees down all over the place. When we got home the electricity was all out and there had been a bad storm there while we drove. Luckily there wasnt much damage. Thing One’s basketball goal had blown down, but it got put back up the next day!

phew.. great weekend all in all. looking back it seems like all we did was eat! But, I think the relaxing did us all a lot of good!