During dental school summers are only 2 weeks long. A long while before these two weeks arrived we had already planned our whole vacation (maybe we were looking forward to it just a little?). The 1st week was spent having lots of fun with the Karlson family at a resort in Myrtle Beach. Even the drive down was an adventure of sorts. We spent 10 hrs traveling from home to Aaron's in VA. The next day we caravaned down to Myrtle, spending another 10 hrs travelings. We saw some beautiful things like these clouds and this marsh (it reminds me of The Notebook when they canoe amongst all the swans).
We saw the quaint back-roads of SC. Our GPS took us past corn field after corn field down Chicken Rd of all things.
Did you know that True Value Hardware has a Bridal Registry? Me neither, but apparently it does. The handy man's dream come true.
Khloe of course was an angel.
Once we arrived it was sweet relief because no matter how chill your baby is, 20 hrs traveling in two days is a lot! The most exciting thing for the guys was golfing. And of course, for us girls was our night out shopping. We pulled out all the stops and stayed out till midnight. We came back with lots of goodies in all our bags but perhaps the most hilarious part of the night was when I unknowingly drove, off-roading, right through the median. We spent quite a bit of time hanging out at the resort.
Check out this candy store. Gummy bears the size of my hand and a jelly bean sand castle made with 254,093 beans. For a mere $25,000 you could have this very castle in your own home.
Here we are at the bouncy house arena. There were like 7 different bounce houses. Notice we're all clustered in the shade of one of these. Yes it's humid, we all know that about the south, but what I still don't know is why I even bothered to do my hair or put any make-up on when my hair was a frizzy mess in a pony tail 30 min after leaving the resort and my make-up was sticky and sweated off not much later. Farthest on the right is Ariel. She was a surprise visitor on this trip. Vendla brought to help with all the kids... our very own nanny!! She was great with the kids, watched them all
while we adults went out together one night, and she was fun to party with.
Myrtle Beach seemed home to every sort of attraction from shopping to mini golf to amusement park, which is where we found ourselves on the last night together.
And what trip to Myrtle
Beach would be complete without loads of beach time?!
The first stop on the road-trip portion of our big summer vacation was Charleston, SC. For those of you who left their last history class long ago, South Carolina was the first to secede from the United States and is rich in Civil War history. We toured Fort Moultrie. As you went deeper into the fort it was as if you went further back in time where they had an extensive display giving the history of cannons. It was so interesting and strange to realize just how far we've come technologically.
Also in Charleston we visited the Aiken-Rhett house, which is an unrestored home from the Civil War era. I used to sort of think that past centuries lived primitively. Not so. They had large gorgeous wardrobes, homes, meals, etc. they just had loads of servants or slaves to accomplish what is (thanks to electricity, cars, etc) more readily achievable for us. 
What better place for Khloe to taste her first rib than the south? Love her questioning stare. She still wasn't convinced after tasting it and she absolutely hated having her shirt off. Little Miss Modesty.
The next stop on our road trip was the Outer Banks in North Carolina. Here we stopped at the Wright Brothers National Monument. This was incredible! It might have been my favorite part of the trip. Orville and Wilbur had an amazing friendship. They shared the dream to fly and accomplished it so fast! Orville was only 32 by the time they took the first flight. And it was only 66 years from the first flight till we landed on the moon.
The Outer Banks are SO GORGEOUS! We ate scrumptious steamed seafood and played on the beach.
Its a grainy close-up, but you've gotta love the expression.
On the way back Aaron and Tahoe were our hosts.
Of course we ate at Rays since they have the most delicious burgers (seriously) and the guys hit up a Nationals game. Unfortunately, this is also when I started to get sick so we had to cut our trip short and come straight home instead of stopping in Philly. With another long day in the car we pulled out every last trick to keep K happy. These cheap party favors from the dollar store helped us make it thru the last hour.
Luckily once we did get home Wes had a few days till he had to be back at school so he took care of everything while I recuperated from my severe case of Strep throat. You can tell how bad it was (I was out of it for like 5 days) by how great I look here. (at least my closet looks good)
