There's No Place Like Home

We've been home for almost a week

from our first REAL family vacation in five years,

And I'm just getting around to posting about it!

Friday, September 19th we loaded up and

headed south to

Chincoteague Virginia.

Lovey works for an Architechtural Engineering firm

that designed the Education Center on the

Assateague Island National Wildlife Refuge.

He actually did the fire alarm, security and

power distribtion work,

so we

Oooh'd and Ahhh'd

over all the cool stuff

that was mounted on the walls...

that NO ONE else ever notices...

UNLESS there is an Emergency, of course.

The Education Center is designed with

ALL GREEN TECHNOLOGY,

so it is pretty cool.

The displays were awesome, too.

Very Interactive.

I liked the one where they told us how important

Tidal Areas are both for

Providing Shelfish,

and also cleaning impurities out of the water

by being

FILTERED THROUGH THE SHELLFISH!!!

Not sure if the meant people to notice that little problem.

On the Island:

we saw the "Wild Ponies" of Assateague,

drove on the beach, watched the wild surf,

learned about sea creatures on display...

those that were alive and not so much,

hiked out to the "Pony Viewing Area",

saw special boxes built as "squirrel house" for

the endangered squirrels that live on the island,

and took lots of photos of the birds of the island...

none of which I can access right now : (

We also took a ride up to the beach after dinner

and allowed the children to get out and see

How Many STARS you can see on a clear night

with NO light pollution.

Saturday, we noticed that our hotel had a cute pony

in the "back yard".

Snorkie kept showing Daddy the "Wild Pony"

...He just didn't get it!

(we got it on tape though!)

We hiked to the Light House,

drove back to the beach,

let the girls have a pony ride on ponies

that were"veterans" of the yearly

"Pony Swim"

(I'm bad at linking...but look it up, it's worth it).

We packed up and headed FURTHER SOUTH

to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Wonderful friends of ours have a condo down there,

and they let us "borrow" it for a week!

We "hung out", went to the Ripley's Aquarium,

"Mini Golfed" with Giant Dinosaurs,

Played at the beach for two days...

collecting shells and digging big holes,

Watched movies, played "Clue"

and discovered that Snorkie LOVES to

"draw numbers" for BINGO using the "tumbler".

He even likes to match up the numbers

with the board used to

keep track of the numbers already called!

We also attended:

Dolly Parton's

DIXIE STAMPEDE!!!

It was really silly and really fun and we had

food left over for DAYS

We came home again in one straight shot on

Friday the 26th...getting home around 9:30pm.

WHEW!!!!!

Luckily, there is a washer & dryer in the condo,

so I didn't have to come home with

suitcases filled with dirty clothes!

We had a Grand time,

and I am SO glad to be back in my

OWN BED!!!