So last month I was able to go to Surfside and Myrtle Beach with my family in Maryland! It was so great being able to spend that week with them! I had a great time! Thank you all again for taking me!!
I didn't take a lot of pictures, but luckily my grandparents and aunts did so their blogs are a little better than mine lol.
Here are some pictures of our first beach trip, one of many trips to the beach :) The water was so nice! Our group had tons of very colorful umbrellas (which made it very easy to remember where we were when coming out of the water).
Down the beach from us..
There were a lot of fishers down on the pier all throughout the day. Some people were catching sharks!
One of the days that we were down there we decided to see some of the different attractions. My Aunt Trudy and Uncle Steve went with their kids to see alligators and snakes, and the rest of us went to the Brookgreen Gardens. It was a really hot day, but the gardens were so pretty! There was a lot of art and poetry mixed in with all the plants and beautiful landscapes. These aren't in any particular order, I had a hard time choosing which pictures to post from the gardens..
This sculpure of the pegasus is the biggest sculpure they have there..
Samson and the Lion..
Cool palm tree bark. This palm tree is actually SC's state tree..
Little pond with a little boy holding frogs in each hand..
Big great oaks with spanish moss hanging from the branches..
The muses..
another pond I can't remember which sculpture this one is..
Grandma next to a huge plant!
An outside sculpture gallery of sorts...
One of the many fountains, I really like this one!
Spanish moss..
Some turtles sunning themselves..
Freaky sign lol. We later learned that sometimes alligators will wander into the park
These little guys were all over the place, my uncle Lincoln picked this one up and when he went to put it back down it really did not want to leave his hand lol
Big nasty spiders that were everywhere when we got to the zoo part of the gardens!
Native birds in the swampy area..
Tree climbing red foxes! I guess the native fox to SC is the gray fox and when the English first came here they were really excited to start up their fox hunts till they found out the gray fox climbed trees. So they imported the red fox for funner sport, but to their dissapointment the red fox started to learn to climb trees too lol
Otters going after the fish being thrown in by the guide
Big ole alligator that has been in the park since it was first established.. She didn't feed this one, it's against state law for anyone other than zoo keepers to feed alligators because they don't like the alligators associating food with people, and they had a problem with civilians feeding them as well. So our guide said that he knows it's feeding time when he hears the golf cart of the zoo keeper. He swam right up to us! Luckily there was a fence and we didn't see any more alligators through the rest of the park! lol
We ended our trip at the gardens with the butterfly house, it was kind of hard to get good pictures of some of them but they were beautiful!! By the end it was getting ready to rain so it was cooler and we were able to take our time to enjoy the butterflies.
We went mini golfing, spent lots of time on the beach, spent some time in the lazy river at the resort we were staying in, played lots of games, and had a great time during that week in SC!! :)
Last month I was in NC for the battalion memorial to honor the 8 men who gave their lives this deployment. 2 sailors and 6 marines. It was a very moving ceremony and couple of days. At the ceremony they had speakers including a friend of the men who died to give a speech about their friends, we listened to the different prayers (for marines and corpsmen), listened to the final role call, taps and amazing grace on the bag pipes. An artist does portraits of the troops in all branches who have died, all 8 of these were paid for by a veteran who we didn't get to meet because he wasn't able to make it. At a dinner after the ceremony we were presented with the portraits as well as meeting the men on the committee of the Purple Heart Foundation (I do believe is what it's called? correct me if I'm wrong) and were presented with Purple Heart coins with our loved ones names, date, and location of death. Today I got the portrait of Ryley from the FRO for 1/6 and it made my day :) Now I need to decide where to hang it up!
Wyatt is totally into all of Ryley's medical stuff, which Ryley was super excited to show us all. We had his med bag out for most of the night and he did some fun demonstrations with the tourniquets. :) It was fun for me and Susan, but Wyatt was in a lot of pain when Ryley was putting all of his weight on his inner thigh and shoulder. There Wyatt is with the tourniquets and Ryley either just got done checking for a pulse, is about to, or is just poking Wyatts arm because Wyatt says it was tingly and numb. 
Both Wyatt and Susan were here for the twins birthday. :) I made them German Chocolate cake and much to their dismay put candles on it as well.
Wyatt was supposed to be flying out that night, but his flight was canceled (luckily for him he had applied for his leave and it had been approved or they wouldn't have worked with him on being a day late).
We went out to eat a couple of times while he was home too. His favorite so far is Texas Roadhouse. We went there once with his mom and Wyatt and the second time we went with his buddy Bullis.
Then it was time to say goodbye. It was not a fun day at all! Tried to put on a good face (which at the beginning was easy). We were on base all day getting ready for them to leave.
