Vacation Day 3:

Day 3:

We got up super early and drove to the beach.  It takes about 3 1/2 hours to get there and we slept for most of the way.  THANK YOU for driving us, Supa! 

Once we got there, we parked in the hotel parking lot and went straight inside to the lobby to see how early we could check in.  The nice lady at the desk said that we could check in earlier than the normal time (3 PM) if they had a clean room ready for us.  Until then, we could use the hotel pool, restrooms and other amenities while we waited.  Perfect!!  

It was a sunny, beautiful day and the beach looked super inviting so we got right down to the water and tried to walk out in the waves.  WELL, there were sea shells EVERYWHERE and about a foot thick.  They were cutting up the bottoms of my feet (Yes, I do have sensitive, baby feet.  The shells didn't seem to be bothering anyone else much.)  I decided this wasn't going to work and I needed some water shoes.

The kids wanted to go check out the hotel pool so we got them settled playing poolside with Mama while Supa and I walked to the nearest beach store (about a block down the street) to get some water shoes.  I was expecting to spend a fortune on some shoes at the beach but I found some nice, hot pink ones for $12.  Sweet! 

I wanted to go frolic in the sea shells with my new water shoes on but by this time, the kids were having a ball swimming in the pool so we hung out there for a few hours, while periodically checking to see if the room was ready.  We also sat in the hot tub and relaxed for a while and floated in the lazy river.  Good times. 

Finally, the room was ready so we unloaded the van and went upstairs to check it out.....

The room was very nice.  We had an ocean front balcony room with an awesome view:

I like all the different colored beach umbrellas lined up in a row.  Heehee!!

The pool/lazy river.

I originally posted this pic on facebook when I took it.  I like how Uncle Darling notices details.  He asked me what was up with the lady in the pool humping the hot, pink float.  LMAO!  I was there and I didn't even see her!

The lazy river was directly below our balcony.  I kept wondering if I could clear it from the 4th floor.....Hmmmm....

We unpacked, organized our stuff, took showers, got beautiful and decided to venture out.

We took a walk down the strip to see what kind of stuff surrounded us.  The kids were pretty amazing by all the snack shops, beach shops and other attractions. We took note of all the Ripley's Believe It Or Not stuff.  Supa and I have been to the Ripley's attractions but the kids had never experienced it so I figured we would check it out another day. 

I had originally picked out a few restaurants in the area for dinner with the help of www.urbanspoon.com.  If you have time to check it out, do it!  You enter the zip code of wherever you are going and it tells you the top 100 restaurants in that zip code, has some menus that you can view and tells you a price range of how expensive the places are.  It is definitely one of my favorite websites for travel now! 

We hopped in the van to go check out one of the places I chose for dinner.  It was called The Noisy Oyster and it was CLOSED.  WTF?!  At dinner time?  Whatever!  So, we went to Plan B and ended up having dinner at Mr. Fish. 

Mr. Fish was a little hole in the wall restaurant (those kind of places usually have the best food!) that also had a seafood shop located next door where you could purchase fresh seafood.  We waited outside for about 20 minutes for a table in a very crowded, little room.  We ordered our food and waited not very long before it came out to the table.

Mama ordered a seafood dish that had mussels, clams, scallops, and shrimp in a marinara sauce over pasta. (yum)  She also ordered some kind of sushi roll (since I don't eat sushi, that's about all the description you're going to get).  I took ONE picture of our food and it was of the weird looking sushi.


I almost forgot to take a pic of this!  Notice, it's half-way eaten.  LOL


I ordered crab balls (yep, they were balls!) and fried shrimp.  The balls were crispy on the outside and perfect, warm, mushy crab like on the inside.  They.Were.SO.Good!  The shrimp was good too but the hush puppies were gross.  They were grease soaked and very unappetizing. 

Supa ordered shrimp and grits which he had never eaten before (how the hell you grow up in SC and not eat shrimp and grits before is beyond me).  I had a few bites and it was super good. 

Dazzle had chicken fingers and fries.  Neon, hot dog and fries.  Chicken fingers, WIN!  The hot dog was deep fried and disgusting.  The fries were even gross.  Apparently, they were having a grease issue that night. 

All in all, I give Mr. Fish a B- at best.  Some things were amazing and some were gross.  Inconsistency at it's finest.  It wasn't the most we spent on food at one time but the bill came to $85.  Whew! 

We returned to our room, got our swimming suits back on and headed to the lazy river to float our full bellies around for a couple of hours.  When the pool closed, we went back to the room to hang out.  Mama, Supa and I sat on the balcony for a while, taking advantage of the free wi-fi and just hanging out.  The kids passed out as soon as they laid their little heads down. 

That is the moon in the left hand corner.  This was the best picture I could get.  It was a super clear, very pretty night.

I went inside to have a snack and my boyfriend was on David Letterman!  WOO HOO!  The night couldn't have gotten any better.


Channing Tatum discussing Magic Mike.  Hallelujah, sweet baby Jesus.

Supa even watched it with me :)  What a sweetie!

I quite enjoyed falling asleep to thoughts of Channing swimming in my head.  :O

To Be Continued.................