Lego Day in Raleigh

We packed up and moved out of Myrtle Beach this morning. It was a three hour drive to Raleigh but we kept busy with conversations and a little audiobook. This book isn’t so good though. That’s a crazy thing about art, not everyone enjoys the same stuff!

So in Raleigh we met my sister and her crew at a Costco to grab lunch and swap cars. Katie and I went with Tina, Colin, and Kenzie to a Lego art exhibit, and Todd took the rental van with Em, Jacob, Kieran, and Gemma to play disc golf nearby. 

I didn’t go discing so I don’t know much about that, other than they had fun. The course was great. And Em got a killer shot through a bunch of trees. 

The Art of the Brick was a cool immersive traveling exhibit. These have become popular with Van Gogh if you’ve seen that traveling exhibit come to your town. So this is legos but it’s all set up like an art gallery. It was really cool to see the detail and different ways that the artist is able to create sculptures. 

Aren’t those just amazing?!? We were really impressed and found that many of the pieces were replicas or inspired by famous pieces that we were already aware of. The kids had fun building legos at the end of the exhibit, so overall it was about an hour experience and absolutely worth the entrance fee. 

Next up was the hotel! Yeah it was already past 3pm and I was up late playing Catan on my phone…trying to beat the bots and practice playing. I have not succeeded yet…

We are staying at an awesome Staybridge Suites with a full two bedrooms, two bathrooms, living room, and full kitchen so we had plenty of room for everyone to hang out for a few hours. Tina dropped us off and went to Trader Joe’s since there isn’t one closer to her house (which is about 90 minutes from here). 

She came back with some great freezer pizzas and flatbreads so we could have some light fare for dinner and the kids quickly settled in with card games and snacks. 

So much energy in that photo. The hours passed and as we chatted and caught up, yawns started, and Tina and the kids headed out since they needed to drive back home, and our alarms are set for 3:30am 😳 It’s going to be an early flight home!

We have had a great time on this trip. We have eaten a lot of amazing food (minus one icky pizza place in Virginia Beach). We got to see family and connect with cousins. We got to see some new cities in an area of the US that none of us have ever visited before. And we got to get away from work and responsibilities for a little bit. Back to real life we go!

Soaring into the New Year

We started out slow this morning with showers and coffee over the sun filled balcony. Watching the sunrise every morning over the ocean is a pretty beautiful sight. 

We headed out to a breakfast joint to enjoy eggs Benedict, chicken and waffles, an omelet, and pancakes. Everyone enjoyed their food and it was nice to have something new as most days we’ve started off with toast, cereal, or bagels. 

After dropping the leftovers off at the condo, we headed to the helipad. Yes, we saw some billboards for $20 rides and we thought that’s crazy, so after researching it last night, we decided to go ahead and give it a shot. The kids opted for the level above the $20 ride which is only about 4 minutes. This one was 10 minutes and while it may not have been long, where else are you going to even ride in a helicopter for $40? 

They came off the helicopter smiling and it’ll be something they hopefully remember forever. Priceless moments. 

Next up was Brookgreen Gardens which is a compilation of four former rice plantations totaling 9,100 acres that were owned by Joshua John Ward, the largest slave owner in the US with over 1,000 enslaved people in his estate when he died in 1853. 

The sculpture gardens were created by the Hurtington’s who purchased the 9,100 acres in the 1930’s with the vision of creating a sculpture garden. Anna Hyatt Huntington was a sculptor and she envisioned this property as a huge area to showcase her work. Of course there were the outdoor sculptures but there were also indoor art exhibits with wooden sculptures, bronze, pretty much any medium. She didn’t have kids, so lots of time for artistic endeavors!

The gardens are massive, but only cover about 300 acres of the 9,100 estate, so needless to say, we did a lot of walking. They even have a zoo! Seriously. Owls, foxes, ducks, a bald eagle, pretty much small stuff but all injured and unable to be rehabilitated and released back to nature. 

We missed the holiday light show called a Night of a Thousand Candles, which from the website looks amazing but also busy. One worker told us that nearly 100,000 people come through to see those lights on the special event nights. Today, in the winter, we nearly had the place to ourselves. 

And after that, we was tired! We drove back to the condo where butts were quickly planted on couches and an even a few snores were heard. We had a few hours of rest before the show…

We went to a murder mystery dinner show called Riga Tony’s. We hemmed and hawed about paying the money to go, but ultimately decided that this is a local place, with local actors, and the reviews were decent. 

I’m glad we went. The food was quite plentiful with salad, soup, manicotti, a meatball, and a cannoli to end. I was stuffed. Some people didn’t even finish their plates. 

Actors continued acting during the food service so the pace kept going. Todd was of course chosen, as he always is, and Jacob even got to do a little dance number which I snapped a photo of. 

I looked around at our table often to see smiles and laughs. That’s all a mom’s heart wants right? To see her family happy. It warmed my heart to see them having a god time. And when it was all said and done, we wrote down our guesses of who done it, how, and why. And lo and behold…who won in the whole room???

Our miss Katie!!! She has a lot of experience in this field and I heard Todd saying as we walked out “next time…” so I guess he wants to go again.

We had fun. It was a pretty good show for local theatre and I found myself wondering if my own town could take on a show like this. Maybe a high school theater class? Maybe a Rotary Club thing. It’s a cute idea and if you get a few drinks in people, they certainly have a better time!

Winter in Myrtle Beach

We had a leisurely morning with coffee, bagels, and cream cheese. Nothing quick. Hot showers and slow mornings are what vacations are made of right? I listened to my audiobook “The Measure” while watching the sunrise over the Atlantic. 

We set our eyes on Splinter City Disc Golf Course and headed out around 10am. If you sleep in until noon, vacationing with us might be a challenge. 

It was a decent course but there were some frustrations today. Jacob shot 5 over, Todd 6 over, and Emily up 11. Katie had fun and I took videos for the Gram. You can see two birdies in there which made them happy.

We’ve been playing every other day which gives their arms a break in between. Afterward we needed grub, such is the life when vacationing, so we yelped a poke bowl place and found ourselves in a little outdoor mall that is probably packed in summer. 

The poke bowls were yummy and my Thai green curry was spicy and delicious. Everything was awesome and we agreed that we have had some excellent meals on this trip.

We stopped by the local Walmart superstore for essentials, and got back to the condo for some afternoon rest and relaxation. I started a load of laundry…only to find that the agitator didn’t appear to work. Hence the impromptu broom agitator. Ugh. So much for clean clothes!

Katie worked on her credential classes, Todd worked from his laptop, Em crocheted, and Jacob watched How Things are Made, and I listened to my book. 

As the sun set, tummies growled and we scoped out the bar and grill next door to our condo, Bummz Beach Cafe, while the laundry ran in the communal laundry room on the main floor. The airbnb host said he’d reimburse me for the inconvenience but really it’s just a few bucks. 

Their specialty were the grouper fries so that’s what Jacob got. He approved! A few burgers and chicken tenders were devoured and we are full again, ready for the couch and some boob tube as our Grams would call it.

Vacationing might just be finding food in different cities. Today when I received the poke place on Yelp, it gave me a badge for reviewing three Thai places in one month 😮 I guess we like Thai food! The real question is, can I get paid to do this? Eat and travel? That’s the dream, right?

The rest of the crew is watching Total Recall in the other room while I listen to my audiobook in the hopes that I might finish it on this trip. It has grasped my attention and I can’t wait to see how it ends. 😬 

And in a last minute decision, I ran to Ross at 8pm to get swimsuits so Katie and I could use the hot tub. Sadly they didn’t have swimsuits so sports bras and biker shorts were the purchase and we had the hot tub to ourselves! This condo complex has three and the indoor one had kids in it, but luckily the outdoor one with the waves crashing behind us was wide open and all for us. 15 minutes of soaking relaxation finished and now we are showered off and ready for bed. 

USS North Carolina & SC

Today we cleaned up and moved out of New Bern, leaving maybe my favorite Airbnb behind. We drove 1.5 hours south to Wilmington, NC to visit a WWII battleship. We have just an afternoon in this town so we picked one thing to check out. 

But first, we needed lunch! Todd found a little taco shop called Taco Baby and whoa baby were they delicious! It was a tiny place and it seemed dead when we walked in, but after sitting for a bit, the place filled up with what must be people who already knew about the amazing Taco Tuesday deals. 

$2 tacos, beers, even margaritas, and $2 hush puppies and Mexican corn. Our entire lunch was $47 😮 But what’s better than a deal is delicious fresh food FOR a steal! The Mexican corn was awesome. I had a Brussel sprout taco that was literally my favorite. The chicken tacos were good and when Todd bit into the hush puppy he said, “oh my gosh they’re so good.”

So, aside for the cute decor, their food was bomb. 

After lunch, we headed over to the USS North Carolina where we boarded a Navy battleship and explored the many stairs and levels. It’s amazing that these ships were essentially floating cities with post offices, stores, kitchen, storage rooms, dry cleaning, communications rooms, the list goes on and on and on. I don’t think any of us had stepped onto a battleship so the sheer size of it was astounding. 

After seeing those close quarters for sleeping, I can’t say that I’d be signing up for this job. It sure puts into perspective how much privacy you enjoy. 

After milling around for over an hour, we went through the gift shop and said our goodbyes. It was well worth the $14 entrance fee to check it out and learn about life aboard a ship. 

We drove another 1.5 hours south and found ourselves in Myrtle Beach, SC. So now we are in state number three for this trip! And the view from the Airbnb is stunning. 

We chilled and vegged for a bit before thinking about food. The kids watched How it’s Made and saw an episode with hydro farming, gummies, and bronze. I laid in bed and started writing this. 

We found a sushi place for dinner that has half off rolls on Tuesday nights…for locals :/ Well I wasn’t excited about that part but we didn’t fib and say we lived here. 

We started with miso soup which was a huge cereal bowl size. I’ve never seen miso soup in that large of quantity. Maybe that’s a Southern Carolina thing? 

We ordered the lemon roll, shrimp tempura roll, dragon roll, and a fat crab roll. Katie ordered Nigiri Balls. Everything was eaten and at the end I ordered a sweet potato roll. Imagine sweet potato tempura in a sushi rice roll. It was actually delicious and reaffirmed my idea from lunch with the roasted brussel sprout taco that I could totally live a vegetarian lifestyle.

We had some full tummies and we still needed to stop at Walmart for some coffee creamer and condo snacks. After that pit stop we were back in the condo for a rousing game of Phase 10. I’m tired y’all. It was a busy day and a lot of learning.