August is for the Beach!!!

We decided to begin and end the month of August with beach trips with the girls. After a full summer of activity, it was nice to go to the beach and relax! Ken and I love the beach. Some of my favorite memories as a girl revolve around water of some kind, but I absolutely loved it when that water was the ocean.

The Crystal Coast

We started the month off by going to one of my favorite beach areas: The Crystal Coast. This is an area of about 85 miles that have some of the most beautiful beaches (in my opinion) of North Carolina. The thing I truly love about this area is that it isn’t over developed, with huge hotels and cheesy putt putts. There are so many quaint beach communities that make up the area and it is so relaxing.

We stayed at The Inn in Pine Knoll. This is located between Emerald Isle and Atlantic Beach. We usually try to get a house or condo but due to my work schedule this wasn’t possible so we stayed at this small inn. The inn is right on the water and all the rooms have a beautiful view of the ocean. The rooms are nice sized and we loved that they had a dining room in the hotel that was open for all three meals. They also had beach service with chair and umbrella rentals which made it super convenient to not have to do that ourselves. The Inn also has a small swimming pool which made the girls both very happy.

This location was perfect! We were about 15 minutes from Emerald Isle, 10 minutes from Atlantic Beach, 15 minutes from Morehead City and 20 minutes from Beaufort. We really liked having so many options available to us to go find places to eat or activities after our day at the beach.

We got there later in the day Thursday afternoon and with us came the rain so we decided to go grab a bite to eat in Morehead City. We ate at a staple restaurant in the town, Sanitary. It has been there since the 1930’s. It is known for great seafood at what I consider reasonable prices. It was fast on service and had beautiful views of the water. It was the perfect place for us to go to kick off our beach trip. After dinner we drove over to Beaufort and walked along the water and did some shopping. We also found out that weekend was the annual Beaufort Pirate Festival and we made plans to go with the girls.

Friday was so so much fun! The weather cleared up and the girls were excited to get to the water. We ate both breakfast and lunch at the restaurant, so we wouldn't lose precious beach time. The girls had a blast playing on the beach. Abbie is a shell collector and she loved walking around looking for them and this beach had more than enough to choose from. Abbie also loved learning to boogie board with her dad. She really started to get a knack for it. Ellie loved playing in the waves. She kept running in and out of the water. My favorite part of that day was Ellie crawling into my lap and falling asleep willingly (doesn’t happen very often anymore) and watching Abbie play. That afternoon the girls had fun with Nana and Daddy in the pool. We ended the evening by going to grab a bite to eat in Emerald Isle.

Beaufort Pirate Invasion Festival

On Saturday morning we got up and drove over to Beaufort for the Pirate Invasion Festival held annually as a reenactment of an event that happened in 1747, when the town was caught up in a battle to defend itself from Spanish privateers. We were looking forward to what the festival had to offer us. We were trying to get there before the “parade” started. We were able to get there with about 40 minutes to spare. We went to the Dock House for breakfast. They had two options: buffet or shrimp and grits. I elected to have the shrimp and grits and the rest of the fam had the buffet. It had a nice variety and included softball size biscuits (not an exaggeration). We sat outside on their covered patio and had a nice view of the street where the parade was to pass by.

The “parade” consisted of a group of pirates marching towards the ”jail”. They gathered the crowds and everyone marched with them. Once you got to their destination a brief overview of cannons was given. Ken and the kids left before the reenactment. We did a little bit of shopping and headed back to the beach.

We end our last night by going to the pizza joint by the local movie theater and taking the girls to see Dora the Explorer. The movie was super cute and both Abbie and Ellie enjoyed it. What we didn’t count on though was Ellie learning a new expression: shut up. She was quite proud of herself and proceeded to use it three times in a row during the movie before we got her to stop. Fortunately she has forgotten it too.

Folly Beach

We ended the month of August with one final beach trip: Folly Beach, SC. It’s hard to believe this was my first time to this beach, especially since I lived in a Charleston my freshman year of college. I was really surprised at how quaint it felt. I am not a huge fan of South Carolina beaches but this one won me over. We stayed at The Tides and it was the perfect location. It had a room over looking the beach and all the food was within walking distance.

Since we arrived later in the evening Friday, we decided to stretch our legs and walk around for an hour or so before we called it a day. We ended up eating at a place called Taco Boy for a quick snack. It was soo good. The girls enjoyed the queso and Ken and Mrs. Brenda split a quesadilla. I just grazed on chips and queso. The inside was very eclectic, with a strong Day of the Dead vibe. It was very popular as it had a 40 minute wait at about 8:30.

Saturday morning the weather was not our friend. It was rainy and overcast. So we ate in the hotel restaurant for breakfast and went into Charleston for the morning. We decided to take the girls to the aquarium. Again as many times as I have been to downtown Charleston I have never been here and I can’t believe I didn’t know what I was missing out on.

There were a lot of fish but what was also cool was watching them rehabilitate injured sea turtles. I didn’t realize how many turtles are in and around that part of South Carolina and it was nice learning how they are working to protect this incredible species. They also had a neat aquatic LEGO sculptures exhibit to see as you moved through the aquarium.

Abbie really enjoyed getting to touch and hold a starfish, sea urchin and hermit crab. She also got to experience a wind tunnel, look at a huge tank with fish, sharks and sea turtles and pet some rays. Ellie enjoyed doing her own thing as well as playing in the play area.

Afterwords we drove back to Folly Beach and grabbed something to eat and waited for the weather to clear. Once it cleared we had about an hour window before our dinner reservations. Ken and I walked the girls next door for some ice cream and a walk on the pier. Then we went back and got ready for dinner.

For dinner Ken took us back to a place we ate at over New Year‘s, Coast. This place is incredible. Their seafood is amazing and the service is superb. I am a very picky person when it comes to shrimp and grits so when I say this place has one of this best versions of shrimp and grits, know that I am not saying that lightly. It was light and tasty. Both Ken and Mrs. Brenda enjoyed their fish dishes as well. If you are looking for food recommendations in Charleston, I would highly recommend you add this place to your list, you will not be disappointed!!!

Sunday morning we woke up to the most perfect beach day. Ken took the girls to a playground nearby and we went across the street to a place called Rita’s. Their breakfast was great and had great portion size.

We spent the rest on the day playing on the beach. The waves were huge thanks to Dorian, which was still far away. I have never seen waves like that on any Carolina beach. It wasn’t as bad once the tide went out but the current was still quite strong. Ellie loved running to the waves and letting them knock her down and then popping back up to repeat. Abbie kept working on her boogie boarding skills. We walked to collect shells and then ended the afternoon in the pool.

That night the girls were so tired they they didn’t want to go eat. Mrs. Brenda was so sweet, she offered to give Ken and I a date night and we gladly took her up on it. We went to the Wiki Wiki Sandbar, it was a nice change of pace from all the seafood. While we were there she texted us to say that they were evacuating the island on Monday at noon for the arrival of the hurricane. So Ken and I weighed the pros and cons and decided it would be better to leave that night and get home in about three hours than wait and get stuck in traffic with everyone else. We made the right decision. It gave us a day to rest and get ready for the week.

We will be back at the beach I’m sure this fall. I‘ll share more tips in future posts.