2022 Surfside Beach Trip

This year for our annual beach trip with Paw and Rae Rae, we went back to Surfside Beach, SC for the second year in a row. Surfside Beach is definitely not as easy to get to as the Gulf Coast beaches, but it’s hard to rival the wide beach, tide pools, and the waves that are great for boogie boarding. The girls loved it there in 2021! Rae Rae rented the same house for us to stay in again this year, so we already knew what to expect before we arrived. Our trip was July 16th-23rd, which gave us a little over a week to recover before school started back ;) Here’s a recap of the fun:

Abigail got a little power nap in on Friday night while we were packing and loading the car ;)

We were determined to get off to a better start on this year’s beach trip than last when the van’s battery was dead and needed to be replaced before we could hit the road. We had the car loaded by 9:30 pm on Friday night except for a few last minute things to pack on Saturday morning. Travis and I woke up at 4:45 AM and got the girls up at 5:30 AM. We hit the road by about 5:50 AM!! A new record for the Grant family ;)

The drive went smoothly, and we didn’t have bad traffic except north of Atlanta, which slowed us down some. We made it all the way through Atlanta and stopped at a Freddy’s in Conyers for lunch. The girls did great on the drive! We made it to the beach house at about 6:40 PM. It wasn’t dark yet, so we felt like we really did well! ;)

The next day was Sunday, and we started the day by going to bible class and worship at a church about 20 minutes away. After a quick stop at Walmart on the way back for some groceries, we ate lunch and got everyone ready to head to the beach. It was about 2:30 by the time we got down there with all the gear. The weather felt perfect, and the sky was beautiful.

Brooklyn and Savannah wanted to get in the water first thing. Abigail wasn’t sure about the waves at first, but she got braver as the day went on. They all tried boogie boarding and had a lot of fun. Abigail also mixed up some “vegetable soup” in a bucket for us ;)

Brooklyn and Savannah went on a walk with Travis, and they found a good-sized crab and enjoyed watching him for a few minutes. Abigail was content to eat a pop ice or two while they were gone. The girls jumped a lot of waves this afternoon! At one point, Brooklyn put her hand down on the sand when she was in the water, and she felt something bite her. Her finger bled just a tiny bit, and she had two pin pricks in her finger. We are wondering if a crab got her.

We had spaghetti for supper after we got back to the house. Jenn and Chandler got to the house late…after the girls had gone to bed.

Brooklyn made a card to welcome them and laid it in front of the door ;)

Paw is a very popular guy on our annual beach trips! :)

On Monday, it started looking pretty cloudy when we were all getting ready in the morning, and then it started to rain pretty hard. We decided to go ahead and make our homemade ice cream during the rain shower and let the girls watch a movie while we waited for it to stop raining. They watched Fox and the Hound upstairs. They also had time for a game of chess.

After the movie, the sky had cleared up, so we ate an early lunch before heading to the beach around 12 PM…

It wasn’t very crowded at all, which was nice!

The waves were really rough, and there was a strong undertow. The girls did a lot of boogie boarding and jumping waves, and the waves would carry us down the beach before we knew it.

The wind was also blowing pretty hard, and the girls had a hard time hanging onto their boards.

Abigail was brave and did some boogie boarding too in the shallower water.

The girls also enjoyed digging in the sand today…

Around 3:30 PM or so, the wind started blowing so hard that sand was blowing across the beach, so we decided to pack things up for the day. It started raining hard about the time we got back to the house, so it was good that we packed up when we did.

We saw a rainbow after the storm passed!

Brooklyn enjoyed playing chess with Uncle Chandler that evening. We had Frogmore Stew for supper and homemade vanilla ice cream with Reese’s Pieces mixed in. It was yummy!

On Tuesday morning, I went running on the beach, and there were a surprising number of people out before 7 AM (even though you can’t tell it from this picture). It was very quiet and peaceful though!

The girls said they wanted to do the beach before lunch today, so we got ready after breakfast to head down. It wasn’t crowded when we got there, but it got super crowded as the day went on.

The waves were calmer in the morning but got stronger by the afternoon…

Nothing better than a Pop Ice on the beach! ;)

Savannah taught Abigail to make “cookies” and “cake” in the sand today, and Abigail made some “pizzas” for us too.

Brooklyn and Savannah also buried Abigail’s legs in the sand…

We ate lunch on the beach, and Abigail ran out of steam shortly after that. She couldn’t stop crying, so I finally had to take her inside early to get a bath and a nap. She hadn’t napped all week so far, so she was probably overdue for one. Brooklyn and Savannah stayed out with the rest of the family until about 3 pm. Savannah dubbed Aunt Jenn her “beach partner” after Brooklyn named Daddy hers. They played in the ocean and jumped and rode more waves. It apparently got very windy, and one of the umbrellas almost blew away!

Champ even came down to the beach for a few minutes, and the girls really enjoyed that.

That evening, we ate dinner at Wahoo’s, the same restaurant as last year. The food was excellent again!! We decided they don’t make anything bad. Savannah tried a bite of Travis’s sushi and said it was “good and bad.” Haha!

We played mini golf after dinner. This course seemed easier than last year’s. Rae Rae won again as defending champ!! 2 years in a row!! Travis came in 2^nd. Brooklyn and I got the same score, so I guess it’s no longer a given that I’m automatically better at sports than our kids…haha.

Savannah got frustrated when it was taking her 5 shots to get it in the hole several times in a row, and there were lots of tears for a while. Brooklyn did better this year at just having fun and not getting too frustrated, so maybe Savannah will be there in another year or two. She did seem to enjoy it more toward the end of the night when she got a 2 on a few holes. She is very competitive.

Abigail was more into it this year, but couldn’t remember how to hold the club right. We had to show her at each hole ;)

It was a fun night!!

On Wednesday, we got down to the beach around 10 AM, and the girls played for about 1.5 hours until lunch. They enjoyed digging in the sand as well as playing in the water. Brooklyn tried to body surf and actually caught a wave or two!! I think that was her first time. She says she likes body surfing more than boogie boarding now ;) The bigger the waves, the better…in her opinion. She likes to push the limits and go out as far as Daddy will let her.

Abigail spent a lot of time walking back and forth to the water to fill up her bucket. She’s at such a fun age right now!

The waves weren’t too rough in the morning, but got a lot bigger in the afternoon. It also got much windier as the day went on.

The girls were having a blast!

We decided to eat lunch on the porch today since the girls spilled a lot of food yesterday in the sand when we ate on the beach ;) It was also a good excuse to eat some leftover homemade ice cream!

Brooklyn has freckles on her nose year-round, but they are especially prominent in the summer. I love her freckles so much!!

After lunch, we headed back to the beach for a little more playtime. Savannah is very versatile and is happy to boogie board with either one of her sisters. She and Abigail tried to boogie board while holding hands, but that didn’t work too well ;) It was funny to watch though! Brooklyn and Daddy were out in the big waves, and he lost his *expensive* sunglasses. He spent a long time looking for them and never found them. Maybe next year he will just leave his new sunglasses safe in the chair when he goes out in the water ;)

Brooklyn and Savannah also worked on a digging a big hole…so we had to get a picture, of course.

Around 2:30, it started looking like rain, so we decided to pack up and head to the pool to see if it would blow over. It thundered a few times but never rained, so we stayed at the pool until about 4:15. The girls had a lot of fun playing “fish fry” with Daddy, and Abigail practiced her swimming skills.

That night, Travis’s forearm started burning really badly, and the pain went all the way up his arm into his chest. We were pretty worried about it at first because it started suddenly without any explanation, and then a little while later, we noticed a red bite mark on his arm with a rash around it. It burned pretty badly until Friday morning when he woke up and it was feeling some better and the rash looked like it was going away. Even on Saturday it was still hurting off and on. We aren’t sure if it was a spider bite or what it was, but it was the craziest thing!

On Thursday, Travis, Jenn, and Chandler went to play golf at the same course as last year. They left around 11:15 and were gone until probably 6:30. It sounds like a tough course, and Travis hadn’t played since last summer, but he survived and had fun :) Paw, Rae Rae, and I took the girls to the pool in the morning for a couple of hours until lunch time. We decided that would be easier than trying to do the beach without enough adult help to keep up with everyone.

Abigail practiced her swimming some more, and Brooklyn and Savannah showed off the strokes they’d learned in swim lessons this summer. They also had fun sitting on a boogie board and trying not to fall off when I made it rock back and forth in the water.

After lunch and a bath, Rae Rae and I took the girls to a couple of beach stores in Myrtle Beach to do some shopping. We were on the hunt for some boogie boards. We’d been using ones that were in the storage closet at the house, but they weren’t in great shape and none of them had the Velcro straps still attached. Now that all three girls enjoy boogie boarding, it was definitely time to buy some boards of our own! I also got an adult size one for Travis and me. The girls also picked out a t-shirt and a “souvenir”…guess what all three of them picked? A stuffed animal that has nothing to do with the beach…haha. They cannot resist a new stuffed animal ;)

Afterward, we decided to go to the same water park we went to last year and try out “bumper boats”. You could buy tickets separately for that and not have to enter the water park. We got in line, and the kid working there didn’t even take our tickets…he told Mom just to keep them.

Brooklyn rode in her own boat, I rode with Abigail, and Rae Rae and Savannah rode together. It was fun once I figured out how to drive the thing…haha. I think this might have been my first time to ever do bumper boats!

Brooklyn took it very seriously and liked bonking into us as much as she could! We didn’t get too wet, despite there being a waterfall area. None of us had swimsuits on…haha.

I couldn’t get a picture of Abigail since she was with me in the boat, so I got one of her after we got out. She enjoyed it!

Afterward, since we still had our tickets, we did go-karts too! Brooklyn and Savannah could have driven, but chose not to, so I ended up riding twice and taking Brooklyn and Savannah once each, and Rae Rae rode with Abigail. They all enjoyed it! That night, we ate leftovers for supper and the adults played Wizard before bed. It was a good day!

I got up early again on Friday morning to run on the beach…

I also had time to read my bible on the porch before the girls got up and were ready for breakfast. A good start to the day!

We got the girls ready after breakfast and headed down to the beach about mid-morning. I wanted to get some pictures before they got all wet and sandy :)

Love my girls!

Had to get a picture with Rae Rae and Paw, of course!

This was our first day to be out there with the tide pools! I think we just missed them on the other days.

The girls collected lots of shells today. Brooklyn buried her legs into a “mermaid tail” of sand :)

We ate lunch on the back porch before heading back to the beach in the afternoon. The waves were bigger, and the girls had a blast riding their boogie boards.

We bought some frozen lemonade that was just as yummy as I remembered from last year.

Travis and the girls with our new boogie boards!

We got rained on a couple of times, and there was some lightning and thunder off and on. We waited it out the first time but ended up going in around 4 pm when another storm started to roll in.

Savannah rode some bigger waves right before we went inside and caught a big wave that took her really far! Wish I’d gotten it on video. Champ also came down to the beach for a few minutes and rolled around in the sand ;) We got pizza for supper from Pizza Hyena and played another round of Wizard after getting things packed/organized to go home. The week went by too fast!

On Saturday morning, we got everything loaded/cleaned, and we were all on the road by 8 AM! It stormed while we were packing up and rained pretty hard during the first part of the drive, and then it rained some off and on the rest of the day, but nothing too bad.

We ate at Chickfila for lunch and were able to wait until we got home to eat a late supper of sandwiches. We made it home by 6:50 (central time!). It was nice to get home and have time to get the van unloaded before getting the girls in bed.

This was definitely the easiest beach vacation we’ve had since having kids! It really helps that the kids are a little older now and can help/do more for themselves. Once Abigail is swimming well, it will be even easier and less stressful. We had a great week and really enjoyed spending time with the rest of the family. Our annual beach trips are one of my favorite weeks of the year!