Zero to Boston

This past weekend we went to Myrtle Beach. Dean was running the Myrtle Beach Marathon and making his third attempt to qualify for the Boston Marathon. We all went with him. We stayed at a hotel right on the beach. It was a two room suite with a balcony overlooking the beach that we never could have gotten in the summer time but in the winter it was only about $70 a night! The two rooms were necessary because it was extremely important that Dean get a good night sleep since he had to get up at 4:30 in the morning! The race started at 6:30. At about mile 18, the course passed our hotel where the kids and I were waiting outside to cheer him on. The kids made posters for him.

After he passed, we hightailed it to the finish line. In order to qualify for Boston, he had to finish by 3:15:59 and his time was approx. 3:15:07! He did it! Yay, Dean!!! He immediately pulled out a Boston cap from his bag and had people start signing it. Everybody is very proud of him and all the hard work he put into accomplishing his goal. Congratulations, Dean! We love you! (As you may already know, Dean has a blog called ZeroToBoston detailing his journey. Check it out for an entertaining and enlightening glimpse into the runner's subculture.)

The finish line was right next door to Broadway at the Beach, so afterwards we went over there and had lunch at Johnny Rockets, then walked along the boardwalk to the aquarium. On the way we stopped to feed the catfish:Kinda creepy, huh? Also, I spent the whole weekend trying to get decent pictures of the seagulls. This is a lot harder than one might think! Here's one:I'll be putting another on my photo blog along with a couple other pics from the weekend within the next day or two.

We had fun at the aquarium. We've been before, but it's been a while. We especially love the Shark tunneland of course the kids love touching the stingrays:If you are a fan of SpongeBob you may recognize this character:LOL! The kids pretended he was Cyclops from "Sponge Bob - The Movie". Here are a couple more pics: After the aquarium, we went back to the hotel so Dean could rest a bit. After all, he had just run a marathon! Later, he took the kids to the indoor pool for a while, then we went to dinner at Carraba's.

The next morning, Kai and I woke up at 6:30am to go watch the sunrise. Of course, I took my camera. Two of those pics will be posted on my photo blog. When we went back to the room, I went back to bed! Dean took the kids to the indoor pool one more time, then we all went for a last walk on the beach before checking out.

Before leaving town, we drove up to Calabash where Dean's Nana used to live. It's also kind of a tradition to visit the huge Christmas store whenever we're in the area. We always buy an ornament when we're there. This time we found some ornaments that we fell in love with. They were handpainted wooden ornaments. We couldn't decide which one we wanted. There was the snowman with the beautiful snowflake pattern as well as other snowmen. There were beautiful angels, even a couple different Mary & Joseph with baby Jesus. But this is the one we HAD to have. This was IT. This is the one we bought:

LOL! We just had to have the cow with the quilt on its' back! We love it!

Next we went to lunch at a seafood restaurant that Nana used to take us to, then we finally drove home. We had a wonderful family weekend!