Ocean Isle Beach, Toll Family Vacation

Samantha: 61 Months, Week 1
Aedan: 25 Months, Week 3

After spending most of the day out at Brookgreen Gardens on Monday, we decided Tuesday would be another beach morning with a more relaxed afternoon back at the vacation house. Neither Ben nor I took our phone to the beach to take any pictures, but we had a really fun morning. It was amazing to see how much the kids loved the beach. They were all able to find different activities that they enjoyed. The kids dug in the sand and build castles, Samantha and I walked along the beach together collecting seashells, and Ben, Jeni, and I were able to enjoy some time out in the deeper water where the waves got too tall for the girls. It was a fun, relaxing morning, and we were really enjoying being close to the beach.

That afternoon, once getting the kids down for naps, Tim, Jeni, Ben, and I went to a local coffee shop to get some coffee and talk for awhile. However, I was finding it really difficult to even concentrate because I was feeling so tired. I think I got more sun than I realized that morning, so when we got back to the house I decided to lay down to take a nap and ended up sleeping for over two hours. I felt much better when I woke up and hadn't realized how tired I was.

After eating dinner at the house, we decided to take the kids to a Turtle Talk at a community center in Ocean Isle Beach. We thought it might be interesting for the girls, and it was free, so we figured we could check it out. Once the program started they invited all the kids to sit up in the front so they could see better, and Samantha and Alaina did a good job sitting still and quiet during the entire program. Aedan sat on Grandma's lap for a little while at the beginning of the program, but that didn't last very long, which we expected, so Daddy took him out of the room for a walk so he wouldn't disrupt everyone else who was trying to listen.

At the end of the program, a person dressed up as a turtle came out to say hi to the kids, and they were able to get their pictures taken with the turtle as well.

Then, they were able to hold a preserved turtle that someone used to have hanging on their wall as part of a collection. The girls thought that was pretty cool as well, a good way to end the evening.

While we listened to the Turtle Talk, Daddy took Aedan to play on the beach. Daddy told him he could throw seashells in the water and play on the sand, but not go in the water, so Aedan would point at the water and say, "No in gahter (which is how Aedan says the word water right now)." Aedan definitely loved playing on the beach. He couldn't get enough of it.

On Wednesday, June 15th we decided to try out a small Children's Museum in Wilmington, North Carolina that we heard good things about from a local dad that we met at the playground the other day. Ema and Papa decided not to come with us, but we were able to use our Cincinnati Museum Center pass to get Jeni, Alaina, and our family in at half price. The kids were a bit tired that morning from being out later in the evening the night before, but each kid found their own favorite activities and had a fun morning playing.

Samantha found the art room first and did some watercolors for awhile.

There was a pretend ship, an underwater sea room, a dinosaur dentist office, a teddy bear doctor's office, a pretend grocery store and restaurant, lots of little rooms with interactive exhibits for the kids to explore and pretend. It was a small museum, but was well put together and had a lot to offer.

We went outside for the kids to have a little snack, and there were some toys outside for the kids to play with as well as a real bus they could climb on and pretend to drive. However, it was so hot and humid outside that it really was not enjoyable to be outside for very long. You can tell in these pictures how red their cheeks got from being inside the bus for only a few minutes. Ahh, the North Carolina climate, certainly much different from where we came from in the UP.

We decided we would play at the museum for a little longer before heading to eat lunch somewhere. The girls found a pretend rocket ship where it was lit by only black lights, and they pretended they were on rescue missions, spending quite a bit of time in there. Aedan didn't like being in the dark room, so I took him to a different section to play with some train tables.

The children's museum was a good morning excursion for the kids, especially since it would have been too hot and humid to have done anything much outside. After dinner on Wednesday night we went swimming in the pool affiliated with our vacation home, as a way to cool off and enjoy the water. Aedan really has fun swimming around with his Puddle Jumper, and all three kids enjoyed jumping off the edge of the pool into the water over and over again. Jeni, Alaina, Samantha, and me played together once Aedan was done in the pool, and we pretended that I locked the girls up and they kept escaping or being set free so I would have to go get them and lock them back up again. Again, it was fun for me to play with just the girls while Aedan was not around. I don't get the opportunity to just focus on them very often. The water was nice and warm, and the kids had a blast getting some energy out in the pool. We were blessed with wonderful weather on our vacation. It was warm, but it's supposed to be warm when vacationing at the beach. There were a few days with periods of rain, but it only happened during the afternoon or at night when we weren't outside anyways. I was really enjoying our vacation and time was passing by much too quickly for my liking.

On Thursday we spent one last morning at the beach. I made sure to bring my phone so that I could take pictures of the kids playing in the waves and sand.

Aedan again had a blast digging in the sand. He could have stayed at the beach much longer than the rest of us, as long as he had all his beach toys to play with.

All along the beach you could find these roped off areas where there was a turtle nest, so that way people wouldn't bother the eggs hidden underneath the sand.

Aedan was so cute in his little sun hat. I think these pictures of him are great.

And here's my little girl, so excited to be able to run around and play on the beach.

We took the opportunity to get a family picture taken of us while on the beach, and it turned out pretty good even though Aedan wasn't looking at the camera. It's pretty rare that we get a picture of all four of us together.

Here are some more pictures and videos of our morning playing on the beach.

The girls were digging around in the sand, pushing down little holes that formed as the waves receded, and they even came across a pretty decent sized crab. Another man on the beach helped catch it in a net and release it back in the water, but the kids thought it was neat to see such a big crab right around where they were playing.

There was a lot more cloud cover on this day at the beach, making it warm but not as unbearable as it could have been. The views over the ocean were still beautiful, and I tried to soak it all in before leaving in a couple short days.

One of the last activities the kids chose to do was to cover Daddy/Uncle Ben with sand mud. The thicker they smeared it on, the better; and they often referred to it as poop. They thought it was great fun, and Daddy was a good sport.

Then towards the end of our morning at the beach, when the kids were starting to become a little aimless, the sun came back out.

Earlier in the morning, while Aedan was digging with Grandma, I went farther back in the sand with Samantha and Alaina so that Aedan wouldn't destroy our sand castles and moat that we worked so hard on. It was fun for me to have this time to bond with just the girls. We had a great time working together as a team, and our sand castles got better and better the more we practiced.

Here we are back at the house after getting washed up from our time at the beach. I sent Aedan out into the living room with his shorts on his head, but they didn't stay on his head long enough for us to get a picture.

Thursday afternoon we had another relaxing time at the house and getting coffee and the local coffee shop. We cooked out for dinner before going back to the beach to see what it looked like at high tide. It was amazing how much farther up the beach the waves got, leaving very little dry sand behind.

Aedan was happy to be back on the beach again and sat right down to begin digging in the sand. Man, isn't this little guy a cutie?

And here are some cute pictures of the girls together, our last moments on the beach.

After a little while, Ema and Papa began to walk down the beach, and when Aedan saw them walking away, he got very concerned and ran after them, calling out to them. He did not stop running at full speed until he caught up with them, then strolling along the beach with two of his favorite people in the world: Ema and Papa.

Whenever Aedan is around sand, he just gets covered, requiring a shower every time he comes back from the beach. Aedan doesn't mind though because he really likes being able to get naked and rinse off in the outside shower. Well, Thursday night was no exception, but instead of putting new clothes on him again, we decided to just let him hang out in his diaper until it was time for bed. Here he is playing with Ema and looking at a book. It seems like I have a lot less pictures of Samantha, but I think that's just because she was always off playing with Alaina, and they didn't really care too much about having adults play with them. It's nice that they are finally at the age where they can go off and entertain themselves without getting into trouble.

Friday, June 17th was our last full day of vacation, and we didn't have any grand plans for the morning since we had plans that night, so we decided to just lay low around the house. We took the kids to the swimming pool in the morning, got everyone cleaned up, and then worked on getting laundry done and doing some things around the house in order to be prepared for our departure on Saturday morning. Here is Aedan sitting at the coffee table, still wearing his cool sunglasses, and enjoying his afternoon snack.

We also had a group reading session of a Dr. Seuss book. Ema and Papa were reading it together, and Aunt Jeni had most of the book memorized. I'm not sure what Aedan thought about everyone reading the book all together, but he was very interested in it all.

After nap time that afternoon, we decided to do our annual Toll family picture. Ben figured out how to set the timer on my iPhone, and he was able to balance it up on the high chair for a pretty decent picture. Here is our serious one, and everyone is looking at the camera, pretty unbelievable!

And here is our silly one. This one is my favorite, not because of the silly faces, but because of how Aedan is just standing there looking at everyone else make silly faces with a very confused look on his face. He must be thinking, "What is going on with my family?"

Then, later that evening after dinner, we went to the shopping area of Ocean Isle Beach where they were having a free, live concert. We decided it would be fun to try it out and see what the kids thought. Plus, it was right next to the playground we had visited earlier in the week, so we figured we could always go there if they got bored.

It took awhile for Alaina to warm up to the idea of dancing with Samantha, but it didn't stop Samantha from dancing around like a crazy girl. She certainly has no fear or shyness around crowds of people. She spins around and leaps, dancing in her own special little way.

I love this picture of Samantha and Alaina holding hands. They are so sweet together and love each other so much. These vacations we have are precious times for these girls to spend lots of time together. They are so lucky to have each other and the be so close, as cousins and friends.

Eventually Samantha requested that we go up to the front, right by the stage, where some adults were dancing, so that she could dance around in the front as well. Aedan and Alaina were there with her, but Alaina wasn't so sure about the whole concert experience.

Aedan just stood and watched everyone for quite awhile before getting into the dancing himself. I love how he just bounced up and down and then spun around in circles. I just enjoyed sitting there and watching Samantha and Aedan dance and have fun together.

We decided to pay the few dollars to walk on the Ocean Isle Beach pier, and it was just a beautiful evening to do so. Just look at this gorgeous sunset.

The kids were getting tired, as it was getting close to bedtime, but we walked down to the end of the pier, and I'm glad that we did. For at the end of the pier, some men were fishing and one man caught a baby shark. He pulled it out of the water to show it to the kids, and Samantha couldn't wait to get an up close view of it. She was even brave enough to touch it, especially after hearing that it didn't have any teeth yet and couldn't bite you.

As we stood on the pier, we also saw a porpoise swimming around in the water, which was really cool. You had to look very carefully, but you could see it's back and fin pop up out of the water every once in awhile, which was a really fun added benefit of our evening excursion. We also heard from the fishermen that they saw a shark that was five to six feet long swimming right around there a few days earlier. I'm glad that I didn't hear that story earlier before swimming in the ocean because it probably would have made me a lot more nervous for going out into the deeper water.

June 18th was the day we left our vacation house in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. We had to be out of the house by at least 10:00 a.m., so everyone was up early getting last minute packing done and getting the house back in order. The kids took a last picture with Uncle Timmy before he left to drive back to his apartment with Ema and Papa.

Our flight from Myrtle Beach to Detroit wasn't until that evening around 5:00, but we had to be out of the house by 10:00, so Jeni, Alaina, and our family decided to take a trip back to Brookgreen Gardens. The tickets we got earlier in the week were good for a week's admission, and there were still parts of the gardens we didn't get a chance to see, so we figured it would be a good way to use our time, allow the kids to walk around and play, and make sure they didn't get all dirty or sandy.

Our first stop at Brookgreen Gardens was the actual garden area with lots of pretty trees, flowers, plants, and statues. They had tons of hydrangeas, which are my favorite flower, so I took a few pictures of them. The weather was slightly cooler and less humid that day, so it was much more pleasant to walk around and enjoy ourselves. The gardens were very lovely, and I'm glad that we came back and were able to see them.

After walking around the gardens, we had lunch at the restaurant inside Brookgreen Gardens and then took the trolley back over to the Storybook Forest where the kids could run around and play for awhile. Then a little after 1:00 we got in the car to head to the airport so that we could return the rental car and get checked in for our flight. The kids took very short naps in the car on the way to the airport, so that helped a little, but everyone was definitely suffering from lack of sleep after a busy, full, fun week long vacation. We had quite a bit of time to kill in the airport, but we found some chairs to sit on to watch planes and a bench that changed colors when you touched it, so that kept the kids occupied long enough. We ate dinner at Subway in the airport before boarding our plane. We were a little concerned at how Aedan would do since he hadn't napped much that afternoon, and it was really too late in the day to get him to nap again on the plane. However, he really stayed pretty happy through most of the flight. He ate his sucker on take off, which he was super excited about.

Alaina got to sit by the window this time, and the girls did well playing dolls and coloring together.

After awhile we got my computer out and played a little Veggie Tales for Aedan, but all we had were Daddy's little ear buds, so the didn't stay in his ears very well. However, it kept him amused for fifteen to twenty minutes, so that helped some.

All was going well, and in fact our plane actually landed in Detroit early. However, it took awhile for the luggage to come to baggage claim, and then we had all our stuff except for Aedan's car seat. We waited and waited, and I even asked someone from the airline to be sure it would indeed be coming on the luggage carousel, but it never showed up. Finally, another lady who was travelling with her two young kids actually brought our car seat over to us because she found ours along with hers in a different area where they put oversized luggage. Who knows why it was over there, but we were just glad to have found it so we could get back to our hotel and get the kids to bed.

It was already their bed time by the time we got to the hotel where we used their Park and Fly service. Then, we discovered that the suite we booked for ourselves had been taken away, and we were placed in just a regular two queen bed room, which just doesn't work for our family right now. Ben and I needed some space away from our kids to relax and decompress after a long day. Plus, that was what our reservation was for, so it was frustrating that we were given such a hard time about it. After much discussion with the hotel employee (while our kids were running around the hotel lobby and not listening very well since they were so tired), they finally gave us the room we requested. We got into our room, got everything set up, and got our kids to bed as quickly as possible.

After a pretty good night's sleep, we at breakfast at our hotel on Sunday morning, said our sad good-byes to Aunt Jeni and Alaina, and hit the road for our five hour drive back to Sault Ste. Marie. It was kind of strange thinking about going back to Sault Ste. Marie as our home since we were only there a week before leaving on vacation so it doesn't really feel like home to us quite yet. Who knows what the kids think, as our lives have been pretty crazy over the last couple of months with packing up all their belongings and moving to a totally different part of the country. We were looking forward to getting even more settled in to our new house and exploring more in and around our new town.

Here are pictures of the kids napping in the car on our way back home. Aedan woke up crying several times, and so that he wouldn't wake Samantha up, I reached around the seat and put my hand on his leg until he fell back asleep.

It was good to be back home, get everything put away, and start getting settled into our new routine. Daddy mowed the lawn on Monday morning, and Aedan followed him around with his own little lawn mower the whole time. We continue to enjoy our outside space, and once we are finished hanging pictures inside and painting the rooms in the basement, we will start working on getting rid of the weeds, cleaning out the landscaping areas, and cutting down trees that have started to grow in the wrong places. That's the one good and bad thing about home ownership. You can really make a house your own, but there always is some project to work on or some way you can improve your house. It is definitely a work in progress, but the good thing is that we hope to be here for a long time, so we have plenty of time to work on it and we don't have to be in a hurry.

(Blog about June 14-20, 2016)