We left here on a Thursday evening and headed to my mom's house.  On Friday afternoon, we all packed up and headed for North Carolina.  Since it's a long trip, we stayed overnight in Mt. Airy, North Carolina, which is about halfway from mom's and the beach.

Mt. Airy is better known as Mayberry.  It's the home of Andy Griffith.  Of course, we did a little drive through town and a bit of sight-seeing before heading to Holden Beach on Saturday morning.

At the Andy Griffith Playhouse.

Our days at the beach were spent the same every day.  Get up, feed the kids, head to the beach, eat lunch, put the kids down for naps, go to the pool, eat dinner.  The only exception to that routine was on Tuesday when Juliana came down with a stomach virus complete with middle of the night pukage.

 

The beach totally wore the kids out every morning.  She was so tired in the bottom picture that she fell asleep standing up shortly after I snapped this.

 

Holden Beach is a very small island beach on the Intracoastal Waterway.  There are no hotels, just beach houses.  Holden Beach is a sea turtle sanctuary.  We didn't get to see any turtles returning to shore to nest, but we did see the turtle patrol roaming the beach every morning looking for nests.  Holden Beach is very much a family destination and is not the touristy-type place that Myrtle Beach is.  There are a handful of seafood restaurants and a mini golf place or two, and that's about it. 

These are shrimp boats on the IC Waterway.

We had one stormy afternoon.  I tried to get a picture of the lightning but had no luck.

 

 

 

On one of our last mornings, my sister and I got up early and went down to the beach for sunrise.  We were the only people that we could see for a while.  Even during the day, the beach was never crowded.

The kids had a blast.  Liam loved the beach.  He loved the waves.  He had no fear of the ocean at all.  Both kids loved the pool.  Other than the one day of sickies, we had a great time.

I'm ready to go back.