Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Myrtle Beach Vacation

WELCOME HOME RACHEL!

After serving the past six months in Afghanistan, my sister, Rachel, is home! We celebrated her homecoming with a much needed vacation with the family in Myrtle Beach!

Nate and I decided that we would take our time driving down to South Carolina...a road trip! We left on a Thursday evening and drove from Grand Rapids to Cleveland, OH. Neither of us had ever been to downtown Cleveland and decided to check the city out and an awesome restaurant, Lola. This restaurant is owned by Chef Micheal Simon, who won The Next Iron Chef America reality show last year. Since Nate and I both love The Food Network, we decided to check the place out and it was great! The food was very unique and amazing...we had some bacon ice cream for dessert! If you're ever in the Cleveland area, it's totally worth checking out!
From Cleveland we drove through Ohio and Pennsylvania to Charlottesville, Virginia. Here's a picture of the beautiful scenery we drove through...I think this is somewhere is Pennsylvania. The fall colors were beautiful! We decided to stop in Charlottesville, VA because that's where University of Virginia is and that's where DMB got it's start!

As many of you know, my husband is a huge Dave Matthews fan and has since converted me! Every year we try to see Dave (yes, we're on a first name basis) a few times and Nate really wanted to check out the bar, Miller's, where Dave played before becoming famous. It was a very cool place and we drank a few beers in Dave's honor!





From Charlottesville, VA is was on to our final destination, Myrtle Beach! We spent a week with the family enjoying the sun and the beach, drinking lots of cocktails and playing with our nephew Ethan. We stayed in a beautiful condo right on the beach, Ocean Blue Condos, with two pools, a lazy river, and hot tub! It was very relaxing and great for catching up with everyone. While we were in Myrtle Beach, our nephew, Ethan, got his first haircut (which he didn't like very much) and we spent a lot of time playing in the sand, floating in the lazy river and just having fun. We ate lots of good food, went shopping and just had a great vacation!