Week of Christmas holiday in Myrtle Beach & Dim Sum

We headed down to stay with my parents in Myrtle Beach on the Saturday before Christmas. We hit a fair bit of traffic and the journey took us 9 hours. Indigo was really super and did not get cranky until about the 8 hour mark - who could blame her, we were cranky by then too.

Our time in Myrtle Beach was really super. We took some time almost every day to take a walk on the beach with my parents and the dogs. Several times we were joined on the beach by my sister Clare, her dog Meathead, her boyfriend Josh and his son Jacob. We love being on the beach and it was especially special to have Caleb there with us, where he really enjoyed himself.

Christmas Day was fun with Indigo really enjoying receiving presents and the family all having a roast lamb dinner. One of Indigo's favorite books is Goodnight Gorilla - she loves it. Granddad taught her to pound her chest when she sees a gorilla so one of the gifts from Granddad and Granny was a plush gorilla. They also gave her an adorable oinking/walking pig and a very special gift of a music box with a spinning dreidel. The dogs both got new toys too!

One day we took a drive out to Huntington Beach State Park where we enjoyed a walk along the boardwalk through the marshy wetlands, checking out the bird life. While there we also went to Atalaya, which was a winter home of Archer and Anna Huntington, built around the early 30s and last visited by them in 1947. Atalaya was really interesting as it was built in a Moorish architecture similar to that of what is along the Spanish Mediterranean coast. It is now essentially ruins but the layout and rooms are all essentially intact and there are all these beautiful arches and tall palmettos. From there we walked right down to the beach which is awesome because there are no houses. Some people were feeding gulls and Indigo was fascinated watching them. On our return home we drove through Myrle's Inlet and enjoyed the sunset and the pelicans. One evening Mom and Dad were kind enough to watch Indigo and we got to go the movies! We saw Charlie Wilson's War which was really superb and we highly recommend. We left the next Saturday. The journey home was pretty good until about the last 40 odd miles out from Washington and then it was dreadful. David drove the whole way on both trips and he did a superb job.

On Sunday we enjoyed a great brunch of Dim Sum with a couple of the families with whom we had traveled to China. The girls had a fabulous time and were all very cute.