Vacation 2016 - All Recapped!

Good morning, afternoon, evening - whatever suits ya!  I'm back from vacation and not too very well rested but that's what happens when you go on vacation with kids right? HA!  I cannot complain about this trip because we had a nice time and made some sweet memories.  

Today I'm the granny pulling out pictures of my grandkids.  OK, not really but as for this post, it is a vacation recap.  Please tell me thank you since I'm not sharing every single picture I have on my phone with you!

There is also no real rhyme or reason to this post so let me work on it a bit!

I had a lot of $#it this vacation as far as food and drink goes!  I left my healthy twin behind and took down my junk eating foolish self straigh to the South Carolina Coastline!  Boy did we have fun together lol.

My first margarita of 2016.  We were at Nacho Hippo - a trendy little tex mex place that is found at North Myrtle Beach and Myrtle Beach at The Market Commons.

Salt is key to surviving the sun.  I swear I heard that somewhere.

So maybe we went to IHOP one day.  Maybe I'm totally against chains when you are on vacation.  Maybe I don't care and we ate those pancakes.  OK really that's my son's plate.  I had eggs and sausage.

Go ahead, judge me.

I drank a lot of beer, I had some Coca-Colas, I hate chips and other junk, I enjoyed Krispy Kreme.
You can say this about me as far as food is concerned:
On vacation - she lived... unhealthy.

For about five years we have been saying we're going here.  Well we did it. Brookgreen Gardens is a beautiful place to visit and tour.  I'll save you the history lesson but it is an old plantation turned into a living museum for sculpture and horticulture.  If you're curious as to what type of plantation - well it is South Carolina and the low country so yes it was a rice plantation.

Do I recommend you stake this place out if you are on Pawley's Island?  Yes, I do.  A family of four will pay roughly $40-$50 to enter the plantation and that rate will allow you to come back for an entire week.  I suggest you visit in the spring or fall and not the summer.  South Carolina's coastline is not known for refreshing summers but more sticky, hot, humid, and a bit uncomfortable are better adjectives!  The garden offers amazing sculpture, gorgeous indigineous horticulture and floriculture, a children's area, and a zoo to view animals who call this part of South Carolina home.  

This is my favorite sculpture:

If you cannot make out the info card I apologize!  This was created in Michigan when a man asked for a sculpture depicting a regular local reading the newspaper.  If you see this in person and you're from a small, rural town this man is the bronzed subject of so many men you have had in your life.  I immediately thought of my grandpa - Dadd-o - who I grew up seeing reading the daily paper every morning over a bowl of corn flakes.

Wildlife - I spotted him first!

I found the gecko.

One slight let down for me over this awesome garden and sculpture museum is that the house is gone.  I could have ventured across the street to see Atalaya Castle but I didn't.  The plantation house is no longer around and that just breaks my heart.  I love old architecture to an unhealthy degree.  The one remaining structure we could find was the old kitchen.  Many of you know that back in the day kitchens were built away from the house.  Well the same goes for this piece of property.  Below is a picture of the kitchen that served the Huntington family.  Today it is a refreshment spot.  We all picked a treat and sat and enjoyed the shady cool of the oak trees.

Here are some other fun pictures I took at Brookgreen.

Look at my little thugs in front of the panther.  Don't worry, we won't tell Gronk his future wife is all ghetto resting on the panther.  Have I told you guys about that yet?  Haha I'll save it!

DO you like Legos?  Or does someone in your household like Legos?  Well this is all for them.  Around the zoo there were sculptures made of Legos that coincided with the native animals to this region of South Carolina.  There were more than this but I didn't want to overload you with them.  Not pictured are the White Tail Deer family, tortoise and bird, and butterfly.

So let's talk about the beach...I'm a beach freak.  I love to get in the ocean - totally on board with sharks swimming around no biggie!  However, this trip we had to share the water with a bajillion jelly fish who seemed to have an infatuation with stinging me.  All in all I was stung five times.  Seriously, it wasn't a big deal and it just feels like a wasp sting (or do they bite?)  My son would pick the jellies up and tote them around without ever getting stung.  HA!  He's such a dare devil!

I really got some great photos on my morning walks.  If you follow me on Snap Chat (abullnojoke) or Instagram (abrownieworld) you may have had a chance to see them.

That girl is turning nine in two weeks.  That girl got some Justice birthday love while on vacation.  (Necklace)

So the beds were horrible in the rental.  The kids got the best bed in the place - the sofa bed!  I was very jealous.

One of our last adventures was taking the kids to Georgetown.  My husband and I love Georgetown...well we did.  This time around it wasn't quite as sweet as before.  Georgetown has historical significance and was vital in the rice trade as well as being an important port.  There is LOTS of good eating in this fishing town.  But stick with Murrell's Inlet for the best food.

So that's our vacation in a nut shell.  It was so great to get away and be semi disconnected from gadgets (no wi-fi)!  Now we will switch into back to school mode and try to enjoy this last week of summer vacation 2016!  There is a lot on the agenda....my little man will be turning four in a couple of days, my daughter is prepping for third grade and swim team, I'm working on my fall schedule, and the hubby will be starting his new position soon!

xo -
Amanda