Fall break at Edisto Beach

We booked this trip in the summer after we got back from Anna Marie Island.  It was the time of school for Oliver and Isaac that was fall break.  Due to Isaac changing schools, however, it was no longer his fall break, and we had to pull him out of school for 3 days.  They were informed of this holiday before he started, so the repercussions of unauthorized absences have not been too great so far....

We picked the boys up on friday, Isaac at lunchtime, and Oliver at school finish, which was a half day.  Seb was already off.  We hit the road quickly, stoping in Orangeburg for a Bo Jangles.

As we got nearer the coast, the rain started getting heavier and heavier.  The meteorologists had already predicted that hurricane Joaquin wasn't going to hit us, but the state of South Carolina was in for a 1 in a 1000 year rain event which was going to affect the whole state.

But we went to the beach anyway! The rivers in the low country were looking a little high already.

We made it to Edisto Island safely.  The topography is not dissimilar to Kiawah Island, it is only about 30 miles down the coast from there.  But Edisto is public, and has no hotels.  It has a few apartment complexes, and only about 6 restaurants.  It is very family orientated. 

In the background you can see our house.  This is the first time we have stayed in a single family home, on the beach.  It is typical beach style, with the living area in the middle, and the bedrooms off to either side.  It has 4 bedrooms, so the boys decided they would all have their own rooms.  

We settled in for the night.  I had packed enough food and beer, so we should not have to go out on the saturday.  Good job too.  The Friday night, the thunderstorms were so loud, as was the sea. Seb was in and out of our bed.  We didn't sleep particularly well, it was very warm, and the air con in the house was not very good!  I got up with the boys at 6.30 on the saturday morning, to watch the rain and the sea.  It was ferocious! 

But it was not cold.  We stayed in the house most of the day on the saturday.  High tide was at lunch time, and there were flood warnings galore across the whole state.

To say the tide got high would be an understatement.  We all had fun splashing in it though.  The water was warm! 

It didn't take long for the tide to come up under the house.  It ran all the way through to the road.  Judging by the shells around the front of the house, this was a regular occurrence. 

The kids loved it though, and we felt pretty safe.  Later that afternoon, once the rain had stopped, we took a little walk down the beach, in the direction the tide came from.  The debris was scary.  A house had lost all of its decking, and some of its foundations.  Another had a huge slab of concrete slammed into their stairs.  Scary stuff. 

After the initial rains on the saturday, it rained on and off all day sunday.

Didn't stop the boys though.  They had great fun playing in the surf, hunting for shells and sharks teeth.

We even found a star fish! First time seeing one of these on the beach.  We weren't sure if it was dead or alive, so left it where it was. 

Most of the time the water was warmer than the air 

This was always going to be a relaxing break.  We really didn't do much other than sit around, play, read books, play, drink beer.  We went out for lunch a couple of times which was nice.

On the Monday afternoon, the sun actually came out! Then  it was warm.  Like, really warm!!!  The boys went for a final play in the sea.  Edisto is an amazingly beautiful place.  We got talking to the guy staying in the house next to ours.  They had been going to Edisto from Kentucky for the last 25 years!  They love it so much

He was a real beachcomber, and knew exactly what he was looking for.  He gave the boys a couple of sharks teeth, and found this one morning, and left it on the step.

It is a horseshoe crab.  We have only ever seen these in aquariums, though they are prolific along the Atlantic coast.  Once we had seen this one, we spotted a few others too. Think the hurricane out at sea may haves killed a few off. 

All in, we had an excellent time in Edisto.  But we had to contemplate getting home.  The severe rain and flooding had closed down a lot of the roads across the midlands and low country of SC.  We were fortunate.  We were only diverted off the interstate once.  But this is what the road closures around Columbia looked like the day we drove home.

Sheer devastation.  They are only now starting to open up some of the roads.  The National Guards have been around Columbia for the last week, and will be there for a while longer still.  Charleston also flooded, but they are better equipped to handle it, as it happens more often.  With Columbia, there is no where for the water to go.  There is also run off form the mountains affecting them.  A lot of the water is now making its way down into the low country.  There are still a lot of flood plains there, but a lot of people live near those flood plains.  A lot of people still don't have any ruining clean water.  This rain event really did affect South Carolina, but the state has come together and helped each other out, which has been  awesome to see. 

Friends and London

We left my dads fairly early on Saturday morning, and headed for the coast.  We stopped at a Harvester on the way down for some lunch.  It was tasty, and the service was very good.  Here is Oliver posing as an artist.

We had plans to meet some friends at the Flying Fortress, a soft play area in Ford.  Oliver had his 6th birthday party there.  Typically it was raining.  That did not stop many of our friends coming out.  It was so nice to catch up with Laura and Daniel, Philippa with Russell and Michael, Claire and Jack, Jane and Brandon, Emma and Connor, and Angela with Aaron, Kieran and baby Tate.  So adorable, nothing like a new born.... Paul disappeared for an hour to drive some Rolls Royce's, leaving me on my own with the monkeys,  never easy, especially when I wanted to catch up with my friends.  I still managed it, and we were one of the last left in the Flying Fortress.

We left and travelled towards Arundel to check into our hotel.  We had booked at room at Premier Inn at Crossbush for under 40 quid.  A bargain for a family room.  It is located next to a Beefeater, where we had planned to meet some more friends for some drinks.  We headed in at 6pm, found a good seat by the bar and ordered some more food.  We very rarely eat out twice in one day, so we ordered the boys a meal each, and we had some nachos to share.  The whole thing was very tasty, the service was prompt and accommodating.  Once we had finished eating, we gave the boys their various devices, and awaited our friends.  It was so lovely for me to catch up with Faye and Laura.  The whole time I spent with my friends felt like I had never been away.  Paul's friends turned up a little later.  Again, it was great to catch up with them.  

We left the bar about 9.15pm, with 3 tired and wired boys, and attempted to get them to sleep.  Thanks to the bribery of a prize, Oliver and Isaac fell asleep quite early, with Seb not far behind.  Paul and I sat up, drank more beer, and played monopoly on my pad.

We went back to the Beefeater for breakfast.  Apart from the staff messing up our bill, all went smoothly.  The boys ate free, and really pigged out on croissants, fruit, toast and yogurts.  Paul and I had big fry ups, with plenty of coffee, and the whole thing came to 16 pounds.

Again, we had planned to meet friends on the seafront for a morning stroll, and we certainly got the weather for it.  There were 6 boys in all, and they all had a great time.  Here they are on the beach

Here are Oliver, Isaac and Daniel on the longest bench.

We strolled down to Lions Den park, where they all played so beautifully together.  On the walk back towards the car, we bumped into Debbie and Sandra.  So nice to unexpectedly see these lovely people, and have a very brief catch up.  Beautiful to see all the children are doing so well.

We left our friends and headed into the smoke.  We had initially arranged to meet Paul's sister on the Monday, then his brother said he was about on the Sunday and suggested Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park, so we went with this.  Then Paul's parents said they would also be joining us.  On the way in, we received messages from all of them, canceling.  We were on our own in the big city....

We drove in through the south, passing Harrods

We had initially intended on doing an open top bus tour.  By the time we had parked, walked through Winter Wonderland (won't be doing that again....) and found the Open topped bus tour stop, it was nearly 4pm.  When we discovered that the tours last at least 2 hours, and are more hop on/hop off things, we changed our mind.  We grabbed a route map, and decided to head off on our own.  We headed out of the car park (right under Hyde Park, off Park Lane, where they store the cars for the showrooms opposite) paying the 10 quid, and joining the traffic.  Luckily for us, the boys only really wanted to see Big Ben.  We headed in that general direction.

First we passed Westminister Abbey

By now we were well in to twilight, which made the sights look beautiful.  I have never really seen them at this time, and they were so pretty.  We drove past Big Ben, over the river, and came back over Westminister Bridge.  Here i got great photos of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliment

We drove out of London to the west, passing Battersea power station.  It was nice to see this before it get developed into houses and commercial areas.

It didn't take long to get out of London to my dads.  Luckily for us, the boys did not sleep on this journey.  Something about the lights seems to keep them well stimulated and awake.  We stopped for a McDonald's before heading back to my dads for a night of rest.

McClellanville and Myrtle Beach

Hello.....

Sorry this has been so long coming, I have been throwing myself into Uni work since coming back from the coast.  I think I will start this there.

The house

We left on thursday morning, had a nice leisurely  drive down.  Stopped for some lunch at Wendy's.  It would appear we have a regular stopping area around Orangeburg, which is full of fast food restaurants.  It is about half way from here to the coast, so that worked well for us. We were staying in a small fishing village called McClellanville, about an hour up the coast from Charleston.  It was very picturesque and small, with very few houses, many of which were holiday homes.  We arrived just after 3, the boys got settled in and awaited out friends who we were sharing the house with.  Whilst we were settling in, we took a walk down to the end of the garden, onto our dock.  As I looked down the sides, I thought I could see lots of big bugs.  On closer inspection, they turned out to be crabs, and there was hundreds of them.  We got to the end of the dock and were just debating the likelihood of there being dolphins in the water when, literally 20 feet in front of us, the backs of 2 dolphins appeared.  Magical.  They were swimming up the water, and we saw them again.  It is so amazing to be able to see dolphins so close in the wild.  It is something I think I will never get used to seeing on the coast here.

The dock

Our friends arrived just after 6, so we fired up the barbie.  The boys (there were 5 boys aging from 1 to 6 in the house, thank goodness out nearest neighbors were a good distance away)  ate dinner well, and continued to play while we cracked on with the beer.  Got all the children in bed by 9, and settled onto the screened porch to enjoy some adult time, and compare plans for the next day.  Prior to booking this trip, my friend had expressed a very keen interest on taking a trip to Bulls Island.  Initially I thought it was a great idea for us too.  At the last minute we decided not to do it.  We did not think the boys would enjoy it, and would moan the whole time.  Also the price of the ferry for a family of 5 was pretty steep.  They were very organized, and lucky in the fact their children are still young enough to be carried.  I could not imagine Oliver's stamina.... It would have been a nightmare.  We discussed lots of interesting topics, always nice to find out peoples view points and history, especially if you have not known them long.  We all turned in fairly early.

Ferris wheel as Myrtle Beach

Instead of doing Bulls Island, we decided to do Myrtle Beach.  This has been described to us as a redneck version of Blackpool.  We were already aware that there was a biker convention going on in the town.  We left the house about 9.30, and headed up that way (it was 60 miles away).  About 30 miles from Myrtle Beach, we became aware of the numbers of bikers on the road, and this increased proportional as we approached the destination.  The best way I can think of to describe Myrtle Beach???  At first glance in reminded me of a very small version of Miami.  If I had to describe a British coastal town that it is like, I think I would say Southend-on-Sea.  We drove through it first.  Loads of big hotels, some slightly better quality than others.... Obviously there was the bikers to factor in, the place had a busy vibe, despite the big amusement and water parks not being open yet (that happens this weekend).  We decided to look for somewhere to park, and went with the most convenient (definitely not the cheapest) option of parking right under the ferris wheel, practically on the beach.  We took a little stroll down the broad walk, man it was HOT.  We turned back to the car, and Paul went and grabbed the beach stuff.  The beach was lovely, though the sand quite grainy.  I later discovered, if you dig down about half a foot, you reach a layer of shells.  The sea was refreshing after the heat, with all 3 boys going in at some point.  Oliver loved the water, as did Seb.  Isaac, not so keen.  We managed to persuade him.  The tide was coming in by then, so we had to move up the beach. The sand near the broad walk was baking, too hot, lunchtime.

the beach

Paul chucked all the beach stuff back in the car, while we waited, in the shade on the broad walk (trust me, it was HOT).  We went to Landshark on the beach for lunch, I will not say too much, as I hope to blog about it fairly soon.  This was just under the ferris wheel.  After lunch we decide to try and walk to one of the piers, but we walked on the street front, until we found an arcade.  The boys were ever so keen, so we took them in.  Of all the games I had the change for, they decided to play an old fashioned levers and pull back baseball game.  Isaac was awesome, though he was just pulling levers and pressing buttons.  Think Oliver is too used to working out a strategy, so he went through quarters very quickly. Once my coins had run out, we exited on to the broad walk, and continued to the pier.  It was a fair distance. We got about half way there when we realized it was too hot, the boys would never make it, and neither would we.  We decided to turn back towards the other one.  En route, I stopped in a souvenir shop, hoping for my usual magnet and mug combo.  This place was full of shells.  So many shells.  There were a few  I liked, but the shear volume put me off..... I felt a bit funny.  I know people take from the sea all the time, it has been going on as long as humans have been on this planet, but this felt extreme.  Its almost like I got an attack of the conscious.  I know these items have already been taken from the sea, but I didn't like the magnitude of the destruction for pure commercial gain.  I left the store quite quickly, and we continued our merry walk past the ferris wheel to the other pier.  It was nice to see the hotels from the beach side.  Most of them had good pools, and a few even had beach bars.  And they were all pretty busy.  We reached the next pier.  Of course you had to enter through the gift shop, then pay a dollar for the privilege of going on the pier.  As my cash was all gone, we had to skip it.  But the boys were greta, very understanding.  I think by then they were all wilting in the heat, as were Paul and I.  We had seen quite a few mini golf courses on the way in.  So with the promise of mini golf, we were able to get them in the car, and leave Myrtle Beach.

I will say now, I really like Myrtle Beach.  I would like to go back there again before our time here is up.  I want to stay in one of the beach front hotels with an awesome pool, and chill, catch some rays and let the boys play.  I would not want to do it for more than 3 nights, I think we would all be bored by then.  It would be nice to park the car in a hotel car park and walk everywhere for a few days.

We stopped at mini golf for the boys, they enjoyed it.  Oliver has a good swing, Isaac's needs work.  He is so left handed it is unreal, but tries to swing like a right handed person would.  We don't keep score, neither of them are good enough for it (yet...).  They really enjoy it.  We passed more bikers on the way out.

We arrived back at the house, where Liene had ice cream waiting for the kids.  They sure were grateful.    We took ours to the local park, a 10 minute walk from the house.  This was next to McClellanville museum, which was closed, but looked very interesting.  There was a big look out tower nearby, and we took a little wander on to the community dock.  By now the boys were in need of dinner, so we took them back to the house, just as our friends were getting back from their walk down our dock.  We fed them, bathed them (they were covered in sand) and got them into bed as quick as we could.

Lessons learnt this weekend

Saturday dawned a lovely bright sunny day.  I got up just before Paul, and let him have a bit of a lie in.  I sent the boys up to wake him just before 9, as we had sooooo much to do (people are going to get really bored of hearing me say that).  We managed to get a lot of stuff sorted, ready for the evening when we would have people sleeping in every bedroom.  As you can imagine prior to this our house was a tip, with stuff everywhere.  I like to think of it as organised chaos.

My mum and Lee arrived about 11.30am.  The plan was to go out for some food for Lunch.  First we had to wait for Sebastian to wake up....  He eventually woke about 1.15, so we headed to the Harvester down on Littlehampton seafront.  We had a nice meal, and everyone had desserts.  The boys didn't quite finish theirs, but they had a good go.  We finished by going for a short walk along the seafront and down the river.  Will miss it.  Although we don't go very often, it is still nice to know that it is there if we fancy it.

About an hour after we got home, the Tatums arrived with their kids.  Thank goodness it was a good day, so the adults were able to hide outside from the chaos that is 5 children under 6....  Our boys were tired, the  Tatums boys were tired, they were just feeding off each others excitement.  I got dinner on for the boys very quickly, they sat down to eat, whilst Paul and Paul supervised, and Nicola and I got ready to go out.  They finished their dinner and the 2 Pauls went to get some dinner for Nicola, Paul and Dave (Pauls Uni mate)  who arrived while they were at the fish and chip shop.  They ate their dinner after their youngest, Ethan had gone to bed.  By now Isaac and Seb were already asleep in our room, as the Tatums were having the boys room with their boys in the bunk beds and an airbed on the floor.  Oscar T went to bed shortly after, but when Nic and I were heading out the door at 7.30, both the Tatums boys were atill awake.  The men hung back, to be sure that all children were asleep.

Nic and I headed to the Empress for Paul and my leaving do.  The place was packed, as they were also having a charity event on that evening.  Luckily the owner T had put some reserved signs on some tables and Vicki was already there.  We got ourselves a drink and sat down.  Next to arrive were our next door neighbours, Chris and Gemma.  They were very lucky and had managed to get rid of their kids for the whole night!  Then Paul's work mates started to arrive, there was a fair few of them....  Then the mums from school, then Paul, Paul and Dave turned up, just as my 2 very good friends Laura and Suzie arrived with their other halves.  It was great to see them, especially as I hadn't seen Suzie for nearly a month.  So we got down to the serious business of drinking, and sat waiting expecting more of my friends to turn up.  Not one more did..... The school mums had to go, as they had things on, but it was so lovely of them to make the effort and come along.  Gonna miss you girls.....

A VERY drunk us....

Paul decided he wanted to make things 'interesting', so decided to get some shots in (Tariq and Tony, I fully blame you for Pauls renewed interest in shots).  So we all had a sambuca each.  Still no sign of anymore of my friends.  Vicki had to head home, she had left Paul on babysitting duties (so many Pauls), but she made me open her little pressie before she left.  Thank you sooooo much for the rock, postcard and fridge magnet.  The magnet will look fab on out huge fridge, and I have already packed it ready to go on the air freight.

By now I had already decided that most of the people who said they were coming, weren't.  So I got on it.  I sat down had great chats with Laura and Suzie, before they had to go.  Then I sat with Nic Chris and Gemma and drank lots of alcohol......  The drinks kept coming, and we stayed till the bar closed at 12.  Pauls workmates headed home, everyone staying in our house headed to our next door neighbours.  I got the contents of our alcohol cupboard from out house and took it round, where we continued to do various shots from egg cups.  I put Paul to bed about 1ish, Paul T put himself to bed about 12.30, and the rest of us kept drinking.

this morning was not fun.  The kids all woke about 6am.  Mum had to come and get Seb from our room as he was being really loud, and me and Paul were just sparko......  We got up about 9, after having a lengthy discussion, about why I had so few friends come the night before.  I was pretty p**sed off this morning.  I have calmed down now.  People have sent their apologies, but when I think about the fact that it is going to be a few years till I see some of these people it does make me sad.  I know a lot of people are going to read this and then laugh, cos that is what I would probably do. 

Mum and Lee left quite early, after taking down the paintings that will not fit in our boxes.  the walls seem strangely bare....    Us and the Tatums had breakfast.  Then they had to go.  Man that was hard.  These are good friends, Paul and Paul have known each other for 30 years.  I did well up.  if it was difficult to say goodbye to the Tatums, saying good bye to my good friends around here is going to be VERY hard.  Saying goodbye to family, I don't even want to think about that...

So this week coming..... we have the packers in on Wednesday to take all our stuff for air freight.  Our new suitcases should arrive by then, so once the air freight is gone we can start packing the rest of our stuff to take into the suitcases.  Next saturday we are off to my dads to deposit LOTS of things, then on to Birdworld.  My dad is flying my nan over, so it will be nice to see her.  Then on the sunday Mum and lee are down again.  They will be taking most of our suitcases back with them....

Its all happening now... 12 days and we will be in the states....