Time Well Spent and Serious Picture Overload

I must apologize for the long absence. I don't think I realized how busy I would be when Jason left. Much has happened since my last post. Jason has begun his deployment (we are now a quarter of the way done), Hyrum started walking, girls had their annual dance recital, the school year ended and Jason is now home on R & R.

While Jason has been home on R & R we took a much needed family vacation. We took the kids to Myrtle Beach. It was so wonderful. We had a couple of days that were rainy and we didn't get to do much (because of these we extended our trip one extra day), but the rest of the time it was warm and sunny. Our hotel was a one minute walk from the beach. The kids had so much fun playing in the ocean, well maybe not Hyrum, but he loved playing in the sand.

We also spent a lot of time at the pool (you can only take so much sand in your pants). The kids had a blast. They had six different pools at the resort. Two of which were perfect for Hyrum and Charlie (Charlie is still a little hesitant about the water). The girls really have begun to come along on their swimming. Emma now loves to swim with her head under the water and she loves to jump in the pool as well. Faith is quickly following in her footsteps. I guess their isn't a better motivator than your little sister doing it first (Faith was a little upset that Emma starting swimming under water before her).

We also enjoyed some really good food. Our favorites were the Brazilian Meathouse. If you've never been to one you need to go. If you love meat you have to go, they serve like 15 different meat dishes (they also had fruit and seafood). They bring them out on giant skewers (my favorite were the bacon wrapped chicken, the garlic steak, the chicken legs and the cinnamon covered pineapple). They also have a salad bar as well as an amazing dessert selection. All the kids ate free (my kind of place). Another favorite was a place called Friendly's. It was an awesome ice cream parlor. They had some of the best ice cream I've ever had. They also serve breakfast, lunch and dinner. But really for us the best thing they serve is their ice cream and sundays. We also took in a show called "Dixie Stampede". You sit in a giant arena and are served a four course dinner and you get to watch a horse show. The kids were mesmerized. The dinner they served was really good. It was a wonderful evening and a great end to our vacation.

We loved Myrtle Beach so much that Jason and I are hoping that when we reach the age of retirement we can buy a small home up there close to the beach and live out our golden years watching the sunrise and set on the beach (it would also be lot of fun for our grand kids to come and visit us for the summer).

This R & R has been some of the greatest times we have had as a family. I was pleasantly surprised that the kids were so well behaved. It really was the perfect vacation. In fact we only had one thing go wrong. On Monday (our first full day) we went to the beach. We placed our camera and sunblock in the diaper bag and went and had some fun. Well I bet you didn't know that SPF50 can eat your camera. The sunblock bottle (the new spray ones) blew up inside the diaper bag. It literally ate away at our camera. Jason was a sweetheart and bought be a new, better camera the next day. Thankfully the SD card survived.

Here are some pictures from our trip to Myrtle Beach. I will post pictures from the girls recital and end the year programs when I get them off our old computer (Jason also bought us a new computer, an imac).

Kids playing race car in our tub.

Faith loved playing in the ocean.

Daddy and his girls.

All my beach bums.

One of Mommy's favorite stores.

Give us the candy and no one will get hurt.

Can you tell he's been working out?

Hyrum was completely happy to just play in the sand.

Daddy and his little clone. I love those guys.

Hyrum just splashed Jason in the face and thought it was hilarious. So did I.

Just trying to gross ya'll out. Can you guess what is in his mouth. Answer is at the end of this post.

Getting some love while waiting to eat.

I just love this picture.

Answer: Hyrum has a piece of ham mashed with a blue peanut m&m in his mouth. Needless to say we had to fish all that out of his mouth. By we I mean Jason, that is totally a blue chore.