myrtle beach

Note: there are videos at the end. There are 15 in all for the hardcore Lea fans, but the first 3 I think say it all.

We started the trip with a brief stay in Georgia at Grampy and Margaretes (though the Neal's stayed with Tina who Lea took quite a shine too, following her around her house). That was our first swim with Floaties. Lea took right to them, and Grandma, Grampy, Margarete & Dad were such sports they sat under the umbrella in the rain while Lea and I swam.






To Lea Myrtle Beach was only where the sand was. She did not quite comprehend or agree with us that the whole town was called Myrtle Beach. Unless we were going to where the waves and sand were, we were not gong to Myrtle Beach.

When we got there she looked out our balcony, saw the lagoon between the pools and told Grandma that that's where the meremaids lived. It was precious so we would talk about what the mermaids were doing. They went dancing a lot. I don't know where she got any of it, we've only watched the little mermaid once. We've watched Nemo many more times. It was just all out of her imagination.


Above you can see our view of the lagoon and pools and then the beach. Below is the bridge we had to walk over to get to the monkey pool and the beach. This bridge was over the lagoon where the mermaids lived. We didn't actually see any of those, but we did see eels and ducks.



Lea would get so excited swimming with her floaties she would laugh and keep her mouth open. We kept telling her to swim with her mouth closed (it was a salty bromine pool instead of cholorine, but still not tasty or healthy). She was just too enthusiastic!




We had a wonderful time. Most days consited of going to the beach after breakfast, then to what we lovingly called the monkey pool, because it was always full of children and had the best set of steps for jumping and swimming from. Then back up for lunch and a nap (for mommy most days too!) then back to the beach and monkey pool until we came up for dinner. It was so fantastic.


Our bating beauty had a different swim suit for everyday, some days 2 suits!

Our view was great, the walk to the beach was minimal. We had it down pat, instead of loading up everything I could think of like the first day, it was grab the bag with towels, the bucket and shovel and we were off. We can't get out of the house to the grocery store as quick as we could head out for the beach. We had our system. Some days Grandma and Grampy and Margarete would come to the beach or the at least the pools, but Dan, me and Lea hit the beach every single day. The drive was long, but for a free beach stay you can't beat it. Thanks so much to Grampy and Margarete for inviting us and for Grandma Lynn paying for gas to get there. Can't beat the price. What a great deal we had. And so much fun.

We did make it out of the condo on two days. We went to a place called Broadway on the Beach which was an outdoor shopping center built around a canal with docks. We took a water taxi across the center just for the ride. Lea saw a dragon at the mini golf place in the shopping center and would recall it later as "I saw a dragon, it was a little scary." We beleive this actually came from the circus as I discussed in the last post, but it manifested itself on this trip. Dan and I came up with some brilliant parenting if I may say so. On her diapers is a picture of Elmo with a drum, so i said if you bang on the drum it will scare the dragon away, and separately Dan told Lea that Dragons are afraid of ice cubes so all you have to do is say "ice cube" and it will scare the dragaon away. So she plays her pretend drum and says "ice cube" now when she tells of seeing "the dragaon. It was a little scary" At Broadway on the Beach... actually the whole reason for heading to Broadway on the Beach was the carousel, which Lea was scared to death of when we finally got on it. That's not quite how she remembers it, but she was not happy to be on the horse that went up and down. We also went on a small train ride and that was a big hit! We got to play on a playground there too. Lea had a blast. The rest of us were hot and thirsty, but then we went for crazy amounts of seafood. Yum, yum. Calabash seafood buffet. Grampy got Lea a chocolate ice cream cone that she managed all on her own.


Not totally neatly, but she got most of it in her, not on her. Lea also tried squid and crab, but liked the chicken best. Aunt Teresa will be thrilled to hear that!

We also went to Mini Golf (not with the dragon, with the large octopus).

We all played. Lea looked at us a little strange when we would fight to use the club to get the ball in the hole. She would run up, thow her ball in the hole and jump up and down yelling "I did it! I did it!" and then look at us like "its much easier without the stick, silly mommy!"


We had fun, but the long walk got to Margarete so we consoled ourselves with steak from Outback. We had a wonderful and fun dinner and headed home.

Aside from those two days it was delicious home cooked meals and beach and pool, beach and pool. Lea was able to make some friends. With Dan's encouragement I let Lea go on her own toward groups of kids and start her own conversation and interact in her own way. She took a while to warm up, would mostly just stand and watch for a while until she saw something she could help with and she'd jump right in. Most the kids she played with were older and she did very well making her own friends. I was very glad I held back from my instinct to run up and help her meet and play with kids. She didn't need mommy to make friends!

psst, elephants

Where oh where has the time gone? Way back in Aug. we went to the cirucs with Teresa. Lea LOVED the elephants! We saw jugglers and elephants and motorcycles and elephants and clowns and elephants. The circus was very good about putting elephants in every couple acts. They only made a real appearance 3 times, but about 3 other times they talked to the audience through a big television screen. Lea approved very much.
Smile! You're at the circus! It was so hot and we milled about outside before hand looking at elephants in the parking garage. We saw one poop and don't think that doesn't come up in conversation often! "elephant poop!" "Yes, sweetie, we did see an elephant poop!" "and, and, you touched elephant FOOT" - we did touch the elephant foot. There was a plastic cast of an elephant foot so we could see how big it was and we touched it. That is a favortie conversation starter as well.


There was a dragon that blew up like a Thanksgiving float out of a little circus train car. Lea will say "the dragon was a little scary" and her words get shakey and she shakes as though terrified. She's very dramatic. That's what we get for naming her (middle name) after her acress Aunt Kaitlin!

Daddy with our "free" clown nose


Mommy & Lea with our $12 snow cone


Everyone wrapped in the magic that is the circus. It was really a great expereince.


And on the ride home, engrossed in the circus program


We then took everyone to dinner at Fridays and In this video you hear Teresa and Dan tell the secrets, but all by herself Lea leaned over to me, put her hand to her mouth like she had the greatest secret in the world and whispered "psst, elephants" and it was adorable. We laughed and tried to get her to do it again, but as always the moment is hard to catch on camera. But you get the jist. It was so unexpected and cute.


And now, even though the circus was over a month ago, we still talk about the things we saw. We got a circus book, that has many things that we did not see, like lions and skating bears, but we can relate well to the circus book. More of our little Lea's melodrama occurs near the end of the book where something is missing in Mr. Roly Poly's circus, turns out to be music, but when they are trying to figure it out there is a page of sad animals and a sad clown. In the smallest saddest voice Lea says "pig sad" and then "clown sad too". But "pig sad" will break your heart. I was very happy to find a picture on the fly leaf in the front of a happy pig, so pig is not always sad. At the very end of the book they find music to make the circus the best in the world. In marches the band — the cymbols clang, the drums bang and the HORNS TOOTED! Oh gosh Lea heard that and laughed and laughed. "Horns tooted" and would point to her bottom. I beleive that is her first joke: Horns tooted. She still giggles when we read it and we've read it at least 100 times in the past 30 days!