Beach Vacation 2011

Our vacation last week was fabulous! It was very helpful to have an extra adult along this time since our girls are small. Even though the car trip was longgggggg, it went well. Chloe is SO observant of things outside and pretty creative with toys. Just before we went on this trip, I taught Chloe how to make 18 wheelers honk, so we enjoyed trying to get the truckers to honk. We played the license plate game, of course, and saw some interesting cars. Chloe learned what a camper is and that trailers can carry cows and horses. Autumn slept quite a bit and was pretty pleasant the entire trip. In this picture, Chloe was teaching her "just made by us" felt monster (named Cookie monster by her) to color!

Saturday night, we stopped just outside of Raleigh, NC, and spent the night with my uncle Bubba and his family. His daughter, Lily, had been hospitalized, so we didn't get to visit with her or Lisa, but we enjoyed our visit anyway.

Sunday, we worshiped with the congregation in Fuquay-Varina and were warmly welcomed and enjoyed our time with them. Unbelievably, we sang 6 songs and Adam nor I knew 3 of them!!  They were great hymns, we'd just never heard them.  Then it was on to Washington, NC, to visit with Mom and Pop. Pop has improved immensely since we saw him last. He is better able to respond and really enjoys the visits he receives. I am so glad we were able to make our vacation into one that was able to show our love to him and give some joy to Mom. Pop really enjoys visits from children.    Chloe was a little shy, but eventually played "ball" with him and gave him a card she made.

Autumn liked hanging out with him on his bed :)

After a short visit with Mom and Pop, we were beach bound!  I had gotten Chloe REALLY excited about taking a trip.  It was about this point in our journey we realized that Chloe was not going to realize when the "trip" was over since we had been making so many stops along the way.  So, we tried to prepare her for the climax of our trip.  She often behaves so maturely it's hard to remember that she doesn't always completely understand what we are talking about.


Atlantic Beach, North Carolina was just as I remembered it! I was afraid it was going to be one of those sentimental things that was not quite as I remembered it being. However, I was pleasantly surprised. No, the condo is not the newest one on the shoreline, but it is the one we stayed in when I was a kid and held lots of memories of water gun fights, Nintendo playing, and hanging out with family. Here is a picture of our room. This is from the balcony and the bedroom is on down the hall.

This is the view from the balcony. The 5 of us ate breakfast out there every morning. Chloe really enjoyed playing on the balcony when we were indoors. She could see birds, people walking, and observe the waves from afar.

We didn't get out on the beach until it was almost dark.  After checking in and getting beds made for the girls, it was dusk.  Chloe was very excited to go see the water!  She was surprised by how loud it was and she didn't want her feet to touch the sand :(

The days following were filled with digging in the sand, walking in the shallow edges of the waves (the water was downright frigid!), building sandcastles, swimming in the pool, watching dolphins swim by, and birds dive for fish, and just having a good time together.  Adam was the only one of us willing to brave the cool temperature of the water and actually swim.  

No, Chloe was not about to let her feet touch the water!  Adam and I can not figure out what her fright was about.  She normally LOVES the water and even in this instance was excited to go out everyday.  2 YEAR OLDS!

Chloe was content on the beach as long as someone was holding her or she could sit on a towel.  I have NO idea what caused her to be leery of the sand, but we decided to choose our battles and this was not one we were willing to fight.








Chloe and Ninny built quite a few sand castles.  This was a GREAT photo of the fun she had :)

No, Autumn did not spend all of her time inside!  She got to enjoy some time on the sand and in the water too!  

This is my favorite series of photos from the week.  Autumn was first intrigued by the feel of the sand between her toes.  The water sort of surprised both of us.  I thought we were far enough back that it would just barely get us...I was wrong :)  

Our afternoons were spent playing in the pool and rinsing all the day's sand off.  Chloe got pretty bold with her swimmy wings on and would "swim" every so often.  She's definitely a water baby!  Autumn enjoyed the water too.  I am very excited about that since the rest of us love the water.

Adam and I did have the opportunity to go on a date while we were gone :)  Our 6 year anniversary was that Thursday.  We went to a local seafood place.  The food was mediocre, the service pretty shabby, but we enjoyed our time alone!

Wednesday we went back to visit Mom and Pop.  Thursday we went to the aquarium.  It was right near the condo and our Nashville zoo membership got us in for free!  Chloe was thrilled with all the fish and to see someone swimming with sharks!

Our best finds of the week: a whole starfish (or seastar as the lady at the aquarium told me), cinnamon twists from BoJangles, and God created a GREAT vacation spot called the BEACH!