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We were out driving the other day - lost as usual - and passed the entrance to New Horizon Church.  I’ve just looked it up on the web and found this web site.  It must be the same one.  I also found a link to a blog by Dave Bowman whom I’m guessing is the pastor.  It looks like an exciting church and I think we will probably have to try it out next Sunday (if we’re about).

Next Sunday they also have a special meal for new comers with information about the church etc.  I’m not sure how often they have those, but that is good timing.

We drove through lightening one day. It was scary.  The storm was long and big. The clouds were very very big. In fact they were they were the biggist clouds I ever saw. The lightening was very big as well. The rain was pouring down hard. As soon as we got very very wet. There was a big flood. There was big drops of rain.

Got into a conversation with Elmo in work yesterday and found out he went to local baptist church - Ridgecrest Baptist.  So I’ve arranged to go visit there this Sunday and see what it is like.

Also, a prayer request - my mother-in-law had a heart attack the other night and it’s difficult (especially for Liz) because we are 3500 miles away.  Pray that she recovers quickly and is even stronger than before!

Shouldn’t really let it go so far without updates as I forget what we’ve got up to.  Here’s a quick recap of the last three days.

Wednesday

Liz fancied some steak for dinner, so we went to Southpoint and ended up in Firebirds.  The food was lovely but we had no room for dessert.  The boys were so tired that night, they hardly said a word.  Bliss!

Thursday

We went to Kohl’s and we got some clothes (Liz), and the boys got a transformer each and a nerf gun.  We got three guns and it was funny at the checkout when the girl asked “and who’s this gun belong to?”.  She sure didn’t expect me to put my hand up for the third gun.

After Kohl’s we went to the Cheesecake Factory for dessert.  I’d been here before on a previous visit to the states.  It’s really nice inside and the food is great.  Everyone laughed when Nathan was handed a huge dessert to eat.  We had to help him out.

Friday

Last night we checked out Chapel Hill - the area itself, the schools, the shopping, etc.  Cary is still by far the nicest area.  We still have Raleigh to check out yet.  On the way home we went to Bob Evans for some food.  It was quite nice - family style restaurant and food plus it is very reasonable.

Ok, so we got cold feet or something, but we somehow talked ourselves out of visiting that church I mentioned.  I think we also might take it easy this weekend instead of going to the mountains as planned.  We’ll do that the weekend after perhaps.  All the activities are starting to catch up with us - well, me at least!

Tonight we went to look at a couple of houses.  We drove into a thunderstorm on the I40 - the car was literally vibrating with each bang of thunder.  Bolts of lightening were striking through the sky.  Rain was coming down so hard that it was near impossible to drive.  We drove slowly along until we were out from under the storm.

There was one house in Cary and one in Morrisville.  The house in Cary was much nicer and is convenient enough to the I40.  Morrisville was ok, there was some nice housing developments there, but the outskirts were a bit rough.  It wasn’t as quick onto the I40 either.

We need first of all to pick a good school, then find a house in that area with access to a pool and good shopping areas.  That’s the criteria for now.

The kids feel asleep on the way back, so Liz and I sneaked a chicken sandwich from Chick-Fil-A drive-through.  Naughty!

p.s. The car dried out well after the episode the other night.

Didn’t get up to much today.  We’re going to make more of an effort now to cook in the apartment even so it’s so cheap to eat out.  Work was ok today - I expressed our wish to stay out in the states to my manager today.  So we will be making a start on processing the forms.

Also, I can take a day off to look at houses in the area.  Liz is online at the moment taking down houses to check out.  We’ll go visit some this week after I finish work.

Tomorrow night we are going to try a church out down near southpoint.  It’s called New Life Christian Center.  They have a web site at http://www.theprevailingword.org/.

I’m tired today.  I should be in bed already sleeping.  I’ve an interview to do tomorrow morning.

Liz spent Friday morning in the apartment entertaining the kids and packing our bags for our trip to Myrtle Beach. I got out of work about 3.30pm. By the time we left the apartment it was around 4.30pm.

We plugged in the GPS and pointed it at Springmaid resort. It reckoned 4 hours to get there. Liz and I took turns driving on the way down. We headed off and everything was going quite well until we got close to Cary on the I40. It was like a parking lot. It took close to an hour just passing the Cary exits. It wasn’t until we hit the I95 that things started to flow a bit better.

After a while on the I95 we decided to stop for a break. We came off at one of the exits and went to the restrooms in Burger King. When we started back out the GPS had changed it’s original plan and was guiding us now towards US Route 17.

This road took us through miles of deserted single lane highway between fields of corn and scattered houses. The sun was setting and we kind of got the feeling that if we broke down now we’d never be found alive.

It was pitch dark by the time we joined US Route 501 which took us into Myrtle Beach. This section of the journey was really busy. It was quite difficult driving in the dark.

We arrived at Springmaid and checked-in. Before dropping the bags in the room we drove up and down the sea-front to see where everything was. The place was buzzing. Everyone was out walking up and down, people were out cruising in their cars, guys on motorcycles with girl hanging on behind and so on.

We were hungry so we grabbed some food and headed to our room. The room was ok - not luxury, but comfortable. It had a fridge, coffee machine and a microwave. We had a balcony with a nice view over the sea and the Springmaid pier. The air conditioning worked too, so we couldn’t really complain too much.

We tucked into our KFC bucket which came with biscuits (scones). Chicken biscuits seem to be very popular in North and South Carolina. It’s essentially a piece of chicken in a scone. I haven’t tried one yet, but when I do I’ll let you know what the fuss is.

We went to bed after we finished our KFC and cleared up.

Day Seven

The next morning we went for breakfast. It was a buffet breakfast which introduced us to a whole new range of breakfast foods. Grits, corn beef hash, muffins, doughnuts, waffles, and lots more. Since I consider myself responsible for reporting back as much as I can I had to try out most of these. I skipped on the grits - the name alone puts me off.

After breakfast we headed up and down the seafront again to see it in daylight this time. We were going to take the boys to the amusement park but it wasn’t opened yet. So instead we came back to the hotel and went to the pool and the beach.

The hotel has a number of pools - a toddler pool, a couple of big pools and a lazy river. The boys spent most of the time on the lazy river - floating round in big yellow rings. I got quite a bit of sun burn during that couple of hours (yes, I did have factor 30 on). We then went down and swam in the sea for a while. The waves were very strong. At one point poor Noah was swept off his feet.

It probably was the sun, but we all were exhausted after that. Katie and Liz had a short nap in the room. After the nap we went for something to eat in Damon’s. It was very nice - excellent service.

In the afternoon we headed to Ripley’s Aquarium. The most amazing thing here for me and the boys was the horseshoe crab. It is like something out of Aliens. It freaked Liz out to no end.

The walkthrough tunnel was also very good. The tank has lots of sharks and sawfish and even a giant sea turtle. The aquarium wasn’t as big as I thought it would have been, but there was still plenty there to see.

The aquarium is part of the Broadway at the Beach mall which is an amazing mall. One of the best I’ve been to out here. We walked around a section of the mall before heading back towards the hotel.

It was about 10pm. We stopped off at a crazy golf place called Captain Hook’s and placed a round of golf. It was great! You walked around the course through skulls, past Captain Hook’s ship, through Peter Pan’s hideout, etc. Lots of flowing water and obstacles for the balls.

By the time we finished it was almost midnight. We decided to call it a night and headed back to the hotel. The boys fell asleep straight away - they were zonked. We couldn’t get them up in time for breakfast the morning after.

Day Eight

In the morning we went for a walk down Springmaid pier.  There was lots of people fishing.  We watched as a young lad, no older than six reel in a baby shark!  I couldn’t help but notice all the “No Shark Fishing” signs along the pier.

We then headed back to Broadway at the Beach. We grabbed some breakfast there and then had a walk around the whole mall. What a great place - we all loved it - well, Liz and I did anyway. The kids don’t care too much for shopping. It was a bit hot though, nearly too hot.

We grabbed some ice cream in Ben and Jerry’s. Nathan’s fell on the ground soon after leaving the shop. Some large American lady decided to stand in it and then give off. Whatever!

We started the journey home around 2pm. We did most of the journey back on the US Route 501, joining the I95 just before hitting the border. Then from the I95 to the I40. This was a much better route than we had taken on the way down. Even with a couple of stops we were home for 6pm.

We drove to a local mexican restaurant that evening and brought some food back. It was very nice. I’ve been suffering with a bit of heart burn since I’ve come over here. Can’t figure out why!

Myrtle Beach - we will be back…

We took 5 hours to drive to the beach. We went to the beach for 2 nights. We stayed in a hotel. The waves were very very rough.

We had 2 beds in our room in the hotel. There was a crazy golf and a swimming pool. We went to them.

We went to a pier. We saw a baby shark. A little boy cought it.

Last night we had our first big thunderstorm here around midnight.  The wind suddenly picked up and the rain poured through the night.  The sky lit up with lightening every so often.  We stayed by the window to see if we could see any proper fork lightening.

After half an hour I had a funny thought that I left the sun roof open in the car.  I put on some clothes and went out to look.  ARRGGGHHH!   I had!  The inside of the car was soaked!  The carpet was drenched.  I took a towel and managed to dry up most of it.  The rest we aired and dried during the remainder of today.

No-one will ever know… shhhhh!

(Myrtle Beach update coming later tonight hopefully).