We are home after a wonderfully relaxing 10 days off, 7 of which were spent at the beach!  Heaven, I tell you- it was heaven. We were in South Carolina- the beach was gorgeous, the water was warm, the waves were big enough to be fun but not too big to scare the kids, the company was wonderful  and the weather was perfect for 6 out of the 7 days.  Really, what more could you ask for?

I did, of course, learn a thing or two on vacation- I mean, how can you not when you’re driving 13 hours and staying in a house with 18 people for 7 days?

> 5 and 3 year olds can be rock stars in the car for really long periods of time, but only if you have a DVD playing. If not, they have amazing accuracy when throwing things at each other- things like markers, crayons, baby dolls and flip flops.

> 7 hours in to a drive, I frankly don’t care if they were throwing things as long as it wasn’t at me and they weren’t screaming.

> Jelly fish stings don’t hurt as much as I thought they would, but I wouldn’t recommend them (and no, you don’t have pee on them to make them stop hurting).

> Hunting for awesome sea shells never gets old.

> Having your kids share a room is hysterical especially if you have the baby monitor on to overhear them. My favorite is when Scorch some how got his foot stuck in the slats of the Bean’s crib when he was asking her smell his feet (no, I don’t know why- they are odd kids).

> Big cousins are the coolest people on earth and they can get my kids to do anything- even overcoming their fears to jump into the deep end of the pool. That is how we found out that Scorch can keep himself afloat without his floaties- nothing like trial by fire (and yes, a few years were shaved off my life when he pulled that stunt).

> Ice cream at the beach tastes better then ice cream anywhere else.