Friday, April 20, 2012

The Beach!

The beach was calling.
"Come, get my sand in your toes
and let my waves crash over you."

We listened.

Our destination:
 Carolina Beach.

Specifically, this adorable pink beach house:

LOVED it.
And, unbeknownst to us, a family from our
same subdivision rented the other half!
Small world!

And, lucky, lucky us.
We got to spend it with not one, but BOTH sets of Grandparents.
 YES!

We spent three fabulous nights.
Here's how we entertained ourselves.

*Flew kites.
Caroline adopted this panda as her own.

Look at that concentration!


B getting a little advice from Grandma.

He managed to get it all the way to the end of the string.

Then we broke out our two-stringed kite.
It was tricky.
And FUN to fly.
*The girls showed off our best model poses
Whit


Me

Caroline

Care Bear also showed me her sweet dance moves.
There's nothing like dancing in the sand...
to the rhythm of the waves.

It was chilly.
A little too cold for most of us to get in the water.
But not for these two!

 This was as far as Care Bear was willing to go.

*Whit and B-train spent some quality time with their boogie boards.

 They caught some perfect kid-sized waves.

Too bad both of Whit's sessions ended like this.  Oops.

*We also spent lots and lots of time in the sand.
Have I mentioned that I love sand?
Whit got buried.

We worked on group projects.

Whit and our neighbor-friend dug a "hot tub."
THAT took some work.

 Look how deep they got it.

*FRISBEE!
Check out these sweet catches
by Andrew,

Grandma S,

and Grandpa S!

*We enjoyed strolls on the beach.

*Did a little geocaching.

*Explored the Boardwalk.


*Sat in our beach chairs, reading and relaxing.

*We visited Ft. Fisher, a civil war battle site.
The girls hung out on a cannon.

Caroline was ecstatic to find B-train after his fifteen-minute
absence while geocaching with Grandpa G.
(How cute is that???)
 *And we found a secret hideout/enchanted forest to explore.
C kept looking for magic wands.

B climbed some impressive trees.

 Grandpa and I thought it was a short-person hideout.
But after ducking through the entrance,
we found it was spacious enough for our tall bodies.

*I took lots of pictures of B-train jumping off things.


Love these!!

*Visited the NC Aquarium.
I'm always a fan of throwing in some education on your vacation.

They had sea anemones in the touch tank.
They would kind of try to pull your finger into their mouths.
Whit and I were fascinated.

Care Bear loved the HUGE tank.

Yep, the one with sharks. Awesome.

Whit got to dress up as a land turtle.
We learned how dangerous her hot tub is to sea turtles.
Found out we were supposed to fill it in before we left.
Another oops.

*Ate AMAZING seafood at The Deck House.
Lobster,

crab,

and more crab.
Brandon made another comment about "heaven on a fork."

*We also spent lots of time playing 25 Words or Less
and Wits and Wagers.  But I didn't take any pics of that.
LOVE board games!

Before we left town, the guys and the girls split up.
The guys went kayaking/chowder-cook-off-tasting.
The girls headed into Wilmington to drive through
their beautiful, historic downtown.

We ended up at the Cotton Exchange,
where they were celebrating the Azalea Festival.
We had lots of free entertainment from dancers and cloggers.
AND, they had free bounce houses.
W and C would have stayed all day if we let them.

Most random part:
The "Elephant" ride.
When we first saw this, I thought it was two people in costume.
Turns out it was a robotic elephant.
Crazy stuff.
Also saw an Elvis impersonator working the revival tent.

HUGE thanks to both grandparents for flying all the way across the country to spend this wonderful vacation with us.  Thanks for all the memories!

10 comments:

  1. keeping the best photo for last... laughed SO HARD when i saw that elephant.

    and i just want you to know that when i programmed your number into my new phone, you were not entered under "andrea" but "show pony" - i think the above photo proves the point. :)

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  2. I love the elephant, but where's a picture of Elvis?

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  3. Looks like everybody had a lot of fun...There's nothing like the coast (beach), east or west.

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  4. So fun! You guys did so much. Are you sure you weren't there for a whole week?

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  5. What a great post! It looks like you all had a wonderful time, and you have some awesome pics to show for it. I want to go to the NC coast!!

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  6. aww, i miss the beach. glad you had so much fun!! : ) and that whit got to dress up like a turtle. bonus! : )

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  7. Carolina Beach is my favorite NC beach.
    Looks like you had nice weather, even if the water was chilly.
    Ha! We are still wearing winter coats!

    Jayne

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  8. So glad you guys had a great trip. Man, you crammed in a TON of fun in one weekend!

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  9. We had so much fun with you guys and the kids and Grandma and Grandpa G! It was just the perfect vacation and I felt like we left all of the cares and worries behind and just enjoyed everything every moment while we were with you. Thanks for being such great fun and such a wonderful family (and Happy Baptism Whitney dear!).
    XO
    Grandma S

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  10. We really enjoyed this post. Great pictures of so many different activities. Good to see lobster and clams being enjoyed. And burying Whitney...."tradition!"
    Thanks for sharing.

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