Surfing Myrtle Beach, SC

More pics from our trip

Our family...one of the few pictures that I am in. Kevin thinks he took some baywatch pics of me on the beach, but I'll keep those for his viewing pleasure. This was at the Broadway on the Beach. It's a tourist trap with lots of places to spend your money. Plenty of fun. :) BTW, Kai is a little upset in this picture because as we were feeding fish below us, he wanted to get a better look by jamming his head between the rails. So, Kevin had to forcibly remove it. No harm done to his head or the rail. :)
We have a few pictures of Cole like this, he'd just decide to relax his reflective white self in the sun. It makes me think back to when he was born and Kevin and I had a conversation that went like this:
Kevin: "It's a boy!"
Stephanie: "It's a boy?!"
Kevin: "Yeah, and he's really white. We're going to have to keep sunscreen on him all the time, maybe even a hat."

And here's our cute little cheeser sitting on a half-buried Kai.
This is Kai and his little friend Wallace. They were in the cabin across the street from ours. They had kids the same ages as Kai, Saydria and Brayden. Kai and Saydria made instant friends with them (Brayden did also, except that theirs was a girl that was his age, and he was already hanging out with his buddy Zane from another camp area). When we took their kids to the night time candy hunt with us, these two little guys were hand in hand going down the hill and just so excited. Well, Wallace tripped on a tree root and Kai helped him up and said, "Are you okay buddy? Can I help you?" It was so sweet. Then, after the hunt, Kai wanted to take Wallace some candy that he had found for him and Wallace replied, "I love you Kai. You are my best friend." And Kai sai, "I love you, too buddy." It was a sweet and sincere exchange between the two of them and I'm glad I got to witness it.

Ripley's aquarium

Cole getting a feel for the bodyboard...and lovin' it!
SPF 50 totally works...when applied as directed. I was sure that I got his whole back, but now that I see the results, I can tell that I missed a spot.
We took a day off from the beach on Wednesday and went to the Ripley's Believe it or not aquarium. It was a lot of fun! We actually went twice...once in the morning and then again in the evening after we spent some time at the pool and after Cole's nap. We pet the rays, watched a couple dive shows, held some crabs and we really liked this moving walkway where it took us through the shark tank. They were swimming all around us and it was way cool!
The aquarium was located at "Broadway at the Beach" and so was Libby Lu's. So, me and my girl went on in and they couldn't get her into a hair appointment for another hour and a half, so she decided she wanted her ears pierced. She was all smiles!!

Vacation

Saydria, Kai and Brayden on the air jumper at our campground. We did the KOA campground this year as opposed to last year's resort on the beach, and we way prefer this way. There were so many things for the kids to do. The youth camp staff is so much fun and they are really good at memorizing the kids' names even. There were many activities, but we only attended a few: the outdoor movie night, the hayride and marshmellow roast, potato sack race, water volleyball (which only Brayden and I did) and a candy hunt in the dark with the flashlights. There were 4 activities a day and we just made it to the ones that we could if we happen to be back at the campground. The kids made friends at each of the activities but had fun doing other things there like fishing, catching crabs, swimming at the pool, and driving the golf cart around. Yeah, for a cool 150 bucks the thing was ours for the week. It was so much fun for the kids and they loved taking us for rides of course. :)
Brayden doing the bodyboard thing, it's probably his favorite thing to do at the beach.
Saydria just playing in the surf on the bodyboard.
Kids awaiting a movie before bedtime. Their bedroom had 2 bunkbeds so both Kai and Saydria were happy to sleep on a top bunk!

Say cheese!

Cole has found his patented cheese smile for pictures. He loves to flash this crooked smile (it's not so crooked here) and his right eye squints nearly shut for the smile. We are not sure if it's more funny than cute, but either way, we love it and it makes us smile!
Our friends are the proud parents to 20 new Golden Retriever puppies! (2 litters) My children cannot get enough of these cute little bundles, especially Saydria and Kai. The puppies will all have new homes soon, so they like to visit them often and cuddle them!

I heard a funny conversation between Kai and Saydria this morning. It went something like this:

Saydria: "Kai, did you know that when Mom's and Dad's die, then the kids get to keep their parents stuff?"
Kai: "Oh, yeah, yeah, I know."
Saydria: "Good. That's really good that you know that Kai. You're a smart boy."
Kai: "I know."
Saydria: "But you have to make sure that they have a will, or is it a Wii? Maybe it's a will, I can't remember."

Agency

So, I'm not a big time "blogger" if you will, I created this blog so that I could stay in touch with my fans (: and keep in touch with friends from stinkin' all over the world. I really try not to write about my personal opinions and deep thoughts because (1) I'd have no one caring to visit my site; (2) people would think I was crazy; (3) I may get threatening comments, that's why I don't allow anonymous bloggers, I guess... but I do feel a little compelled to share a story that was on the foxnews homepage. Here's the link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,365849,00.html

I feel thankful to not live in, around or even remotely close to this place. Seriously, is it necessary to have a law for everything, including what type of swimsuit you wear? Personally, I try to teach my kids a little modesty, knowing full well that they will be exposed to people who could care less, and I have some confidence that my kids will stick to what they know, for now. In the end it's their choice. To me, it's like teaching them not to do drugs or drink alcohol. They will know plenty of people in their life who choose to do those things, but it's their choice! Holy cow, just let them wear bikinis, right? Plus, I know some of you Utah girls look smokin' in a bikini. Right P90X? :) ha ha!!

Just HALF way...

As I was making dinner after breakfast today (putting stuff in the crockpot)...

Saydria: "Is today Fast Sunday?"
Kai: "No, today is a school day, except you and Brayden don't have school anymore!"
Saydria: "But can I just go ahead and fast? Yeah, I think I will just fast for dinner tonight."
Mom: "Why? You love white chili."
Saydria: "I know... but I think I will still fast for dinner tonight."
Mom: "I'm making rolls, too."
Saydria: "Well, I might not fast ALL the way."

In other news...

Brayden had a class play that they made on their own in little groups. It was really cute. Both he and Saydria had some really fun field days, but I didn't take many pictures. Other parents took pictures of them for me also, so that was really nice. I'm just glad they had their field days on different days so I wouldn't feel like I was rushing around, that would be ridiculous.
Here's my kids enjoying a little science experiment at our favorite science museum. They have a little cafe area where you "order" which experiments you'd like to do. This one was a homemade rocket and it was quite entertaining!
This was the evening after my first day of diving and we did s'mores over the firepit. Don't be fooled by the chocolate on Cole, I took care of most of his for him, he just had a good time with the leftover chocolate on his graham crackers. He just doesn't appreciate s'mores like I do...yet. Oh, and do you see all the white stuff in our grass behind me? Yeah, it's cotton time.

It's official!

I've finally completed my open water dives! I had to do 2 dives on Saturday and 2 dives on Sunday, which meant Kevin was super dad all weekend, while I was off playing all day both days. Kevin completed his a couple years ago after we both went through the SCUBA program, and then along came our little caboose, earlier than expected, so I wasn't able to dive until after he was born, then came the procrastination, but my instructor called on Wednesday and asked if Saturday and Sunday would work, and I was elated! I just needed a little push. :) Everything went so smoothly and the weather and water were perfect. At the end of my last dive, I had already unsuited and one of the divemasters yelled at me to suit up and dive with him a second because he found the famous 4 foot catfish in the school bus. So I suited up in lightning speed and I swam inside the bus and sure enough, that catfish was laying on the floor behind the second seat of the bus. It was what we had been searching for, so it was pretty neat to see such a big catfish. It was a super fun couple of days and the kids hardly noticed I was gone, they had so much fun with Dad. Maybe I should do this more often! :) Kevin was kept super busy taking kids to and from birthday parties and baseball games. He prepared and taught my Sunday School lesson for me and he had even made a couple of pizzas for dinner and put them in the fridge to bake for when I got home on Sunday evening. It doesn't get much better than that.