I'm back Y'ALL

You know the old running joke about being forced to watch slides of someone else's family vacation, right? Well, contrary to my username, I am naive enough to think that you've all been dying to hear the details of my trip to Myrtle Beach and see the evidence in pictures. Right? Yes? No? Well, if you aren't interested, just scroll to the bottom and comment anyway.

This is me on the way down before the kids started picking fights with each other, before the air conditioning broke and before the dog in the room above us where we stopped for rest barked all night long! You don't want to see the picture of me when we rolled into Myrtle Beach after an additional 12 hours on the road!

Once we were there and had a good night's rest, we were ready to hit the beach. The weather was extraordinary even though the water was freezing, but you can't go all the way to the ocean and not go in at least once. So we learned to boogie board and skim board until Molly got stung by a jelly fish and that was all the ocean I needed.

Since the waves were too rough for the little guy and the jellies were abundant, we decided to bring the ocean to Drew. He loved having his own personal oasis to play in.

No vacation would be complete without a trip to the emergency room. This was a mild emergency but I was unsure of what to do and erred on the side of caution. Just before a dinner show on Thursday night, Drew swallowed something. We have no idea what. About five minutes later, he started squeaking. Just like a dog toy. We weren't even sure it was coming from him at first, but every time we pushed on his tummy....the squeaking sound. Maybe whatever he swallowed was partially lodged in there allowing some air to pass through making the whistling sound. But what if it moved and blocked all air flow? So we headed to Seacoast Emergency, where he was evaluated immediately and then told to wait for an x-ray. Two hours later when we still hadn't been seen, and Drew had fallen asleep and quit squeaking, the hospital had a major trauma come in and we left. I checked with the triage nurse first and she agreed with my assessment, gave me a number to call if we had trouble in the night and sent us off.

Besides lazing on the beach, we saw lots of dinner shows and attractions. The Grand Cirque, which is a spin off of Cirque Du Soleil, Dixie Stampede and The Medieval Times Dinner Show, which were all awesome. We went to the Ripley's Aquarium which was also cool, but not worth the cost, in my opinion.

While dinner at The House of Blues was very tasty and the ambiance was extremely cool, I could've done without the dive-bombing BAT! At the very least, they could have comped our meals for having to dine with such a rabid creature darting and weaving throughout the place. I saw the thing before anyone else did and let out a small scream when it darted from the restroom alcove right at my head. That's when the waiter asked me to be quiet so I wouldn't cause a panic. Yeah, right! You can brink my check now. It wasn't long before the entire restaurant was covering their heads with their linen napkins and giggling, pointing and shrieking. We had much better luck at Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville restaurant. That place was so festive and of course I ordered a "cheeseburger in paradise" and a "frozen concoction to help me hang on".

With all this excitement I bet your wondering how I can successfully pull off an equally climactic ending to this vacation. Right? Well the most interesting event of the week by far was the piercing. Yes friends, me and Molly mixed a big blender of Pina Coladas, snuck away from the families and got our belly buttons pierced.

Even though the sign out front promised a 100% pain free piercing, it was far from pain free. Not terrible, but I did feel a little queasy when it was over. I picked out a clear sparkly ring, but the tech accidentally put the blue one that Molly picked out in me, so I'm sporting a blue ring for the next five weeks and I got my original pick for free.

WARNING****PLIMCO*****WARNING****PLIMCO*****WARNING ~ the following is not a half naked cartoon me, it's the real thing, so if you need to excuse yourself for a few moments, please do so and return after you've composed yourself. After all this blog is rated G. Well, okay, not really, but censor yourself.

DURING

AFTER

Because I'm sure I am boring you with these vacation details and because I'm sick of uploading pictures, I'm ending this recap for now. Besides, I don't want to be home just yet and looking at the pictures only reminds me of how nice it was to not have to work.