Our Two Week Wrap Up: Vacation to Myrtle Beach

We went on vacation to Myrtle beach in the middle of these last two weeks.  We spent the day before vacation trying to tie up loose ends in schooling, packing, cleaning, and... oh yeah... vacuuming up a ton of water from our basement when a pipe broke!  Luckily it happened before we left and not while we were gone but we did spent a not so fun day cleaning it all up and checking to see if we had any water damage.  We also had a sick kid and spent a few days wondering if we'd make it on vacation.  Luckily we were able to go as planned and had a wonderful time.  We drove to South Carolina and the boys got to see so much of the countryside while we drove.  We had perfect weather while there and enjoyed ourselves tremendously!  Be warned there will be MANY posts on the blog about all that we saw and got to do together.  Then we spent the days after vacation unpacking, cleaning, grocery shopping and birthday planning.  Rest assured we start back to school on Monday, and surprisingly enough, I can't wait to dive back in and get started.

Math/Logic:  Alec and I spent an afternoon playing Stratego and Rummikub.  Ian had finished up his percents books before vacation and took the mini test in the back of the book but I knew he was still struggling so the whole week we were on vacation I had him figure out 10%, 20%, or 15% of our restaurant bills applying percents in real life to leaving a tip and by the end of the trip he really seemed to have gotten it down.  The younger boys played all sorts of games while waiting for their food at each of the restaurants; lots of mazes, tic tac toe, & Dot and Boxes games.  Alec and Evan played a few games of giant chess and checkers at the hotel pool.

Life Skills:  Our basement flooded the weekend before we left and the boys helped us use shop vacs to suck it all up; learning how to deal with minor crises.  Ian went to work with his father another day making metal doors for our new shed.  We all learned a lot about riptides and swimming in the ocean.  There was a tropical storm off the coast and we had HUGE waves so we had many discussions on staying safe in the ocean.  We also learned about treating jellyfish stings (don't ask!).  The boys practiced driving skills at the go kart track and were thrilled that they were all tall enough to drive themselves!

Reading: We finished up The 39 Clues book we were reading the day before we left for vacation.   Evan and I read three more chapters in Night of the Ninth Dragon.  Alec read Percy Jackson's Greek Gods while driving down and finished before we even reached Virginia!

History: Ian watched quite a few of the 9/11 remembrance shows learning all about the events of that day.  We learned quite a bit about the history of pirates in South Carolina while we were down there.

Learning about pirates at Pirate Voyage Dinner show

Geography:  We read the book South Carolina; learning a bit more about the geography of South Carolina and how it got it's name.  We also enjoyed watching the changing countryside outside our windows.  We drove through the interior/ mountains on our way to South Carolina and then drove along the shoreline home seeing a lot of geographical changes.  We enjoyed checking out all the local plants around our hotel and saw so many fields of cotton, tobacco, and soybeans on our drive.  We also enjoyed driving over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel and seeing all the different types of bridges that there were through all the states.

Science/ Nature:  We had a great time at the shoreline and saw a lot of birds, found a sand dollar, a crab, and all sorts of beautiful shells and rocks.  We spent an afternoon at the aquarium learning about horseshoe crabs, jellyfish, sting rays, and more. We read all about Virginia Creeper vines too as we saw so many trees, fields and shrubs just covered by it all as we were driving.

Crab we found on the beach 

Osprey circling overhead at our hotel 

Petting sharks and horseshoe crabs at the aquarium 

Alec named each and every sandpiper we came across each morning

Virignia creeper vine 

Family fun:  We played mini golf, went swimming, hung out in the hotel water park, and enjoyed a lot of time in the lazy river.  The boys learned how to play pool and shuffleboard.

Heading out to play Dragon's Lair Fantasy Golf 

We had a wonderful week and there will be so many more posts about our vacation yet to come!