The Beach: Part 1

We left at 9:16 AM on Sunday, August 2nd, to start our annual beach trip, only a quarter of an hour past schedule. The kids and I had talked Brian into buying a cheap portable DVD player at Walmart the day before, so we drove off to sounds of "Snoopy Come Home" and quiet children. We stopped for lunch near Monks Corner, over 1/2 way to our destination.

A few minutes later, we discover that our air conditioning system isn't blowing very hard.... nor is it blowing cold air. We roll down the windows. Then it starts to rain. We roll them back up. Brian alternates between checking his blackberry for directions and trying to figure out why the air isn't working. That's why no one saw the MPH sign or the cop that ended up pulling us over in Jamestown.

57 in a 40. OUCH! Thank goodness it wasn't 3 more miles over or Brian would have lost his license. It was quite an expensive way to start our trip, that's for sure!

The next hour and a half took much longer than the hour and a half that it was supposed to due to torrential rain. There were some spots through residential roads that we were actually afraid of flooding. It appears that Georgetown, SC does not believe in storm drains.

We finally made it to the condos that we love so much. This year we got a 3 bedroom unit for the same price as the 2 bedroom last year. Gotta love the economy :)

We unpacked, the kids picked their rooms, and we saw that it had stopped raining. So we decided to head for a walk on the beach before dinner.

And this is why we come to Pawley's Island:


No commercialism, no crowds, no cigarette butts, no trash. Just miles of pure beach and ocean water that you can see your feet through.

The kids immediately ran down to the ocean and got right in. Why on earth did we think they would stay dry at the beach?
I love Jaina's expressions in these two photos. She was truly happy to be there. I didn't quite catch Jayce in his initial pleasure because I was too afraid of getting my camera (and my brand new CK capri pants) wet. That boy wouldn't come out of the waves long enough for me to get any shots except of the back of his head.



The kids were getting soaked fast, so Brian tried to steer them out of the ocean by suggesting we actually take a walk on the beach. You know, the whole reason we went down to the beach at 6 PM anyway :)


And then we saw THE THING:


Little did we know, but we'd be seeing a whole lot more of those small clear jellyfish throughout the week. I can't tell you how much it ooked me out to realize they were swimming very close to us in the ocean the entire time.

As we were leaving the beach to get in our car, Jayce asked the important question, "Can we have wet pants at the restaurant?"


The people at Carolina Wing and Rib must be used to seeing total beach bums on a daily basis and gave us no more than a passing glance. But boy were we kinda chilly in there!