Myrtle...

A couple of weeks ago my family went on our first family vacation in about 6 years. We went to

Myrtle Beach and it was most of our first time being down there. It was super relaxing and we got to go with my sister and her husband, my brother-in-law's family and my godmother. It was so good to see everyone again. We went the day after school let out so my brother and I drove 8 hours down to NC and then the next day we drove another 3.5. I have decided I'm not a huge fan of the idea of a road trip. If I ever go on a major road trip I think we will have to make a lot of stops to stretch and sight-see. Plus being gluten intolerant makes traveling even that more

complicated because it's hard to pack gluten-free food since a lot of it is perishable.

Regardless of traveling woes (which really weren't anything to complain about anyway) it was wonderful to finally arrive at the beach and not have any classes to go to or anything to do at all actually.

After the tide would go out we would see so many starfish. I'd never seen any live starfish. I felt bad for them so I threw a few back in.

I hadn't been to the beach in quite some time and it was beautiful. There is something so powerful and mysterious about the ocean.

Some of those mysteries include the things that inhabit it. We saw a lot of jellyfish along with the starfish. My older sister and I went out to play in the water and saw one floating around where we were swimming which prompted a lot of shrieking and us running out of the water. I'm sure it was a sight. I've been told before that I run funny. I'm sure that I looked really funny running

out of the water. Jacqueline not only saw the jelly fish, she also caught sight of a shark swimming below the pier and an octopus.

After that I mostly stuck to walking along the beach and wading. I did manage to get one good swim in with the boogie board. It was fun. But since it was early May the water was a little cold and I was happy to just enjoy it by walking in it and by it.I also enjoyed being with my family. This is my younger brother (Adam) and sister (Holly). There is a 4 year age difference between them and they're pretty funny together. It was also fun to see my niece's reaction to the water. She didn't like it. Or the sand. She is only just 2 years old and when we asked her if she wanted to go down to the water she would say, "no-ooo" like "are you crazy?" We took her to a little amusement park where she rode on the carousel and she LOVED that! She actually rode it twice. We think that with all the times she has seen Mary Poppins she was expecting to ride off into the country side. She was so upset when the ride was over.

Jacqueline and Olive are just so beautiful. So is Holly. My sisters and niece are really lovely.

So was the carousel.

And now we're back in NC. Job hunting. Right after I had filled out a bunch of applications we got our phone numbers changed and I've been going back to the places I applied to update my contact information and I've been re-visiting my online applications to update.

Dear NC Employers,

Please give a broke art student a summer job!

I promise to use part of it to stimulate the local economy!

The rest I will use responsibly. Pinky promise.

Thanks,

Grace