2021 Spring Break: second half

 Since Brandon is taking this semester off of school, I had hoped that maybe he could join us for spring break. With that hope in mind, I booked a house that was big enough for him to join us. With him working a new job, he wasn't able to take the time off to come out. Since we had an extra room, I invited Marianne to join us for a couple of days. And she did! Patrick was working out of town for a couple of months, so it was just Marianne and Eden. We loved having them join us.

The three of us headed to the beach as soon as they got here.

We flew a kite.

Took Eden's first jumping pic. :)

And played in the sand.

I've never seen this happen before, but while we 

were hanging out on the beach, a big wave came

and somehow stranded hundreds of little fish on the shore.

We saved as many as we could.

And the seagulls had a feast with the rest...

Fun, fun, fun.

The girls had fun playing with Eden.

It's not often that they get to hang out with three year olds.

The next morning, Andrew and the girls watched Eden 

so that Marianne and I could go for a long walk on the beach.

Even though we talk every week, we loved having face-to-face time.

AND we saw more dead wildlife than I've ever seen on the beach.

Crab head

Most of a crab

A PUFFER FISH!

What the heck?

We walked down to the Surf City Pier,

which made for a fun photo spot.

Headless shrimp

Mermaid's purse (skate egg case?)

And most of a horseshoe crab!

Wow.

Eden and Andrew were waiting for us when we got home. :)

We found creative ways to play Azul with Eden.

The weather got COLD on Thursday, so instead of

going to the beach, we went mini golfing.

It was fun!

Andrew won by two strokes and Marianne and I TIED for

second place behind him.

After that, we found a fun playground.

Eden especially loved the spinning equipment.

Those are the types of things that make both moms sick.

We did a little shopping after that.

AND found our 100th geocache! Yippee!!

We got dinner at Surf Dogs.

It was tasty, but a little pricey.

After dinner, Marianne, Caroline, Eden, and I headed

back to the beach for one last walk.

Care Bear flew her kite all the way to the end of the string.

There was a beautiful sunset.

When you bury half of C's legs, she's a lot closer to E's height. :)

More fun shells.

Thursday night was also game night.

The girls like playing games that they can beat us at:

Anomia and Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza

Marianne was not a fan of either of those. Ha!

Then the adults stayed up late playing Pandemic and Winslow-opoly.

It was a fun little jaunt down memory lane, with properties like

La Posada Hotel and Standing on a Corner Park.

Then Andrew went to bed and Marianne and I stayed up talking until FOUR A M.

Are you kidding me?

I don't think I've stayed up that late since college.

It was kind of ridiculous.

So many shared stories when you've been friends for 30+ years.

On Friday, it was time to check out of our paradise.

We did a little more shopping.

We had to stop by the store with the gator-mouth entrance!

Then we toured the Sea Turtle Hospital.

It was pretty cool.

They take in turtles that are sick or injured from

all up and down the coast and rehabilitate them.

Hooray for a fun spring break!

Now we just have to get through one more

quarter of school and hopefully this darn

pandemic will be over and life will be back to

some sort of normal.

2021 Spring Break: Topsail Island: first half

 When we made our spring break plans for this year, we still weren't sure what would be happening with the pandemic, so we decided on a more laid-back trip than usual. We booked a beach house at Topsail Island. When we first moved here in the summer of 2003, Ang and Forr were vacationing at Topsail with Darren and Katie and their families. We drove out for a quick day trip to visit them. It was our first exposure to the beautiful NC beaches. But we hadn't been back since then! When I looked for beach houses this year, our favorite one ended up being at Topsail, so we went back after 18 years. And, oh, were we happy we did!

Road Trip!

We left Sunday after church.

It's a little less than 3 1/2 hours to Topsail.

It was a quick, easy drive.

We got there right as the sun had gone down.

Of course I wanted to go for a walk on the beach as soon as

we pulled up. The beach was just a short 5 minute walk from our house,

but it started sprinkling on us as we walked and we didn't want to have to unload

all our stuff in the rain, so we turned around. Boo.

We woke up to a bright sunny morning on Monday!

The forecast said we should have sunny days on M and T and

the weather would get cold and rainy after that.

We'll take what we can get.

Our beach house was called Thee Riviera.

The location was fantastic, but there were a few hiccups when

we first got there. We had to wash towels and unload the dishwasher,

which isn't my favorite way to start vacation.

There was a slight cigarette smell when you walked in. Ugh.

The owner was very responsive and apologetic.

It had two fantastic decks with spectacular ocean views.

I ate breakfast AND lunch outside almost every day.

So fun.

Andrew and I went on a long walk on the beach in the morning.

Look at this place! There was hardly anyone there!

It was like we had our own private beach!

This was my attempt at a panorama to show how empty the beach was.

We love the beach!

We headed down to beach in our suits after lunch.

The girls tested the water.

It was a little too chilly.

We played in the sand a lot.

We dug one of the biggest holes we've ever dug.

It was pretty awesome.

Andrew got in some good reading time.

He never reads at home anymore, only

when we're on vacation.

The girls only like to spend an hour or two at the beach.

Andrew and I could stay all day.

It's nice when you have older kids, because

you can just send them home and stay.

We had a great time flying our two-string kite.

Since the beach was so empty, we had the best time playing bocce!

We could throw the balls as far we wanted without being afraid

we'd injure someone. So fun.

That night, Caroline and I went back to the beach to watch the moon rise.

Oh.

My.

Gosh.

It was unforgettable!

This video does NOT do justice to how STUNNING it was.

Such a special moment to share with my little Bear.

Loved it!!

Did you know that the moon rises about an hour and ten minutes later each night?

I asked Andrew to go back with me the following night,

but it was cloudy and we couldn't see a thing.

Boo.

We also had fun playing with her light-up-color-changing beach ball.

On Tuesday morning, Care Bear and I woke up and tried to go play tennis.

The facility only had two courts and both were taken.

So we drove to the pickleball courts instead.

They were also both taken, but the ladies there were super

welcoming and invited us to join them to play doubles.

I told them we were beginners, so they split us up.

Me and my partner went up 8-2 on Caroline and her partner.

And then they somehow came back to win 11-9! What???

It was fun.

We stopped for shaved ice on our way home.

That afternoon we went back to the beach.

Whit actually got in the water!

She's crazy!

It was COLD.

Care Bear made herself a cute sand skirt.

Oh, and we got to see dolphins both days that we were at the beach!

Loved that! We haven't seen beach dolphins in a while.

They were far enough out that we had to use our 

binoculars to get a good view.

I tried to take a pic with my phone camera through the binoculars,

but it didn't work great. Here's my attempt...

Can you kind of see them?

There must've been BIG schools of fish swimming by

because the birds were dive-bombing like crazy and 

there were several dolphins out there, too. Fun!

We relaxed and played some family bocce.

I did a little seashell artwork:

TI for Topsail Island.

We headed out for seafood that night.

It's not the "on" season for Topsail yet, so lots

of their restaurants are only open on the weekends.

I had picked out all of our restaurants before we headed

down, but then they ended up being closed. Boo.

We ended up eating at The Shuckin Shack.

It was no Deck House, but Whit and Andrew

were happy with their seafood bucket.

We got a happy meal for Caroline before we went.

I had fish tacos, which were pretty good.

On Wed morning, we all got up and headed back to the pickleball courts.

The same older ladies who had played with us the day before were back at it.

But they let us join their games again.

In the afternoon, I booked a tour boat for us.

We went up the intercoastal waterway to an 

uninhabited island called Lea-Hutaff Island.

The ride was fun.

Captain Mike was entertaining and taught us

all about the history and nature of the area.

Our Tiki Tour boat!

I WISH I would've taken more pics on the island.

It was magical!

We only passed a couple of other people there.

It was super windy.

Andrew tried to put down a blanket to read some more

and it was instantly covered with a thin layer of sand.

Look at that WIDE beach!

And it had FANTASTIC shells.

So fun to walk around shell hunting.

One hour on the island went by too fast!

Look at the size of some of those shells!

Huge!

The water was more shallow here, so felt warmer.

Both girls got in a for a bit.

We saw a few ospreys on their nests.

AND more dolphins in the intercoastal.

The girls are I are still sad that we missed out on last year's spring break trip to Universal Studios, but we sure are loving this relaxing time at Topsail Island. Andrew's already talking about retiring here.