The Beach

Ready for a picture overload?  Good, because here one comes.

First, some words.  In my last post I mentioned that North Carolina has this silly tradition of "going to the beach."  The beach is about 2 to 3 hours from here--same distance as Santa Cruz is from Tracy.  But in North Carolina, you never just go for the day the way we do in California.  No, it's a week at least.  Most people do this during the summer--they rent houses right on the beach and get nice and dark.  We waited for the price to go down.  We picked the cheapest week to go--Thanksgiving.  So, while we were only a block and half from the beach, we didn't really go to the beach.  But we had fun.  And we didn't go to the beach 3 hours from our house, we went to the beach 6 hours from our house.  The outer banks.  Where the Wright Brothers first flew.

Next, overall analysis   Good.  I think things went pretty well.  Greg and I planned this whole trip with most of his family and my parents as guests.  We didn't have any fights (among the adults that is; the kids...well, they're all still alive).  We didn't have too much food left over.  We didn't break anything (but we did lose a few pool balls and 3 forks).  Alice and G-Ma are besties now so we got lots of pictures of her.  Rex, well, he spent most of his time with his cousins or watching TV in our room on his top bunk (he was so excited) so we didn't get many pictures of him.

Sunday we went to church, as mentioned.

Monday we went to the Wright Brother's Memorial.

G-Pa took the kids on a run down the same path the Wright Brothers originally flew--and in the same amount of time.  Good job old man.

This is where the Wright Brothers took off on their first 4 flights.

 For the first few days of the trip, Rex carried around this shank--its really a nail file, but Rex was using it as a knife.  Finally Greg got annoyed with it and gave it back to G-Ma, who was then afraid to give it back to Rex.

 I even bought Alice a coat for the trip (it's been sweater weather here for months)  and I love it.  I even paid full price--what?!?

 It was super windy at the Memorial (which was on top of a pretty step hill), so Dad (Brian) and I tried to fly using our coats as wings.  Dad didn't think to get any embarassing pictures of me.  HAHA.

 T

Mom, Dad and Alice cheering on the Wrights as they flew.

Dad catching a ride with Orville.

Alice played with G-Ma in the mornings while I ran.

 Tuesday we went to the Cutterick County Lighthouse and even paid $7 each to walk to the top.

 Rex was terrified once we got to the top though.

G-Ma and Alice didn't want to climb the lighthouse.  They waved to us from the bottom.

 The house had a pirate ship in the back yard so when not watching TV, Rex snuck out there.

Rex's best pirate face.

Have I mentioned how much I love Alice's coat?

 Wednesday we went to the beach where Greg and his dad flew kites and the kids ran around.  Then we all went mini-golfing.

 Rex and Alice took a bath with glow sticks--my kids go through at least a million glow sticks every time G-Ma and G-Pa visit.

 Thursday, Maurine and I ran the Southern Shores turkey trot.  I finished in 4th place at 22:38.  Not my best time, but it felt good and I had a lot of fun.

And, yes, I still run like a duck.  Get over it.

 Rex was sad that he didn't get to race so Rex and I put together a race for the cousins.  He made bibs for everyone with their name and number on it.  We marked out the course with construction paper and chop sticks.  Greg marked the start line and yelled "GO!"  The grandmas marked the finish line and let everyone run through toilet paper at the end.  The kids ran all the way around the house.  Long race.  They finished in order of age.  Fancy that.  Then we did the whole thing again.  Then the kids got tired and went inside.

 Friday, we spent the morning at the beach again.  The wind was gone and the sun came out.

Then I drove my parents to the airport.

Saturday we packed, cleaned, and drove home.

Today, I thought about all the unpacking and cleaning I still have to do here.  I am NOT looking forward to tomorrow.

Did I mention how much I love Alice's coat?