Coastal Excursions

Not at lot of words, but I want to get caught up with the blogging--I've got so many posts waiting to be written, which is a nice change from the last few weeks. A morning at Wrightsville Beach--cute little town, very busy on a holiday weekend! I had a nice jog along the coast while the kids got busy building sand castes.

The Poplar Grove Plantation--pretty good looking plantation, but I'm still wanting to find one of the huge ones, like you see in movies, like Gone With the Wind. There have to still be some around, right?

The kids favorite part--they had a playground. Well, that, and the ponies.

The Aquarium--fun stuff, and we got a membership since it also works for the zoos around here, so now we can have animal fun.

More Wilmington

We seem to be drawn to these horse-drawn carriage tours. Maybe its because our kids are entertained and quiet for at least a few minutes, until Bugaboo decides that at that exact moment, he absolutely has to see the wheels of the carriage, even if it means trying to hang off the edge.

Whatever the reason, we liked the tour of the restored homes near the river--I love old southern houses. Too bad a lot of other people do, too, and then fix them up and they turn into the million-dollar old southern houses, which puts them very far out of our price range.

Lots of shady, tree-lined streets and big front porches.

Next up was a visit to the magic shop where the kids got to dig through the pirate chest for a few $0.25 treasures. And let me tell you, they became instant treasures--when Bugaboo lost his yellow jewel the next day, it meant that we got to make another trip to the shop to replace it.Now, for all the WB/CW fans: Anyone know where this next shot was taken?

Yes, I'm a dork and I took pictures when I saw this place.

Since One Tree Hill still films there (I'd forgotten all about that one, which considering that was my most recent naptime addiction, is hard to beleive), it was a lot more obvious what areas they use than where DC used to film.

The infamous river court, without the backboards--wonder if they have a problem with people vandalizing the set?And the record store.

And now, I'm sufficiently embarrassed :) It is fun to recognize stuff, though, in a place you've never been.

Wilmington, NC

I've been a very lazy blogger lately. I'm going to try to get our weekend trip up in the next couple days, but for now, here's a few shots of our initial stop in the downtown historic district. We had a great time, the weather cooperated beatifully, and we did find a place to stay for a very good price. I will say that you get what you pay for, but its not the worst place we've ever stayed, so we just appreciated the fact that we could afford to go out for a nice dinner while we were there.

We got there right at lunch time, so had a picnic on the river and then walked around for awhile. There was a 1800's ship replica parked at the docks that we explored for awhile--the kids had a great time poking their heads around.

And then they spent the rest of the time we walked along the water trying to climb on as many of these ship ties as they could. We can always count on them hunting up the cheap entertainment.

So Much To Do

That pretty much sums up our week :) With the end of preschool, late night NBA finals, and some things around the house that needed to be taken care of, we've been pretty busy and are all just tired. The kids both crashed on the way home after a morning of errands and lunch and playing at a friend's house today.

Bean finished preschool yesterday. I think I was more sad than she was, although she didn't want to say goodbye to her teachers, so I'm guessing she was feeling a little more overwhelmed by it all than she was willing to let on. I told Daddy-o that I'm not sure if I'm sad because my baby girl is growing up, or because I now have her home with me every day for the next 15 months.

They had a picnic at the school for all of us yesterday and presented us with the books of our kids artwork and pictures from this last year. And then we gave the teachers and director their gifts, which I was in charge of for our class (which is a big part of what has made this week so crazy). We gave the director a print of the class painting since she was the parent that we'd been in the bidding war with at the auction. Only her version, while only a copy, was framed much nicer. Daddy-o wanted to trade and give her the original, but I think that we'll just be reframing ours here soon.

I got a chance to do a little crafting and made these cards for the teachers--always nice when I can sneak in a little hobby time which has been pretty lacking lately.

Daddy-o's Lakers will just not lose. Good for them, but makes for a lot of really late nights when some of the games don't even start until 10:30 p.m. This east coast time zone is really not good for his health. Work hasn't been so kind lately. And in his spare time he's been installing our new microwave--it's going about as smoothly as it looks :) Too bad things like that aren't completely standardized, but thank goodness for the internet where people can tell you that there are actually hidden bolts on some of the older models that need to be removed before you'll be able to lift it off the wall bracket, before you just tear out the entire wall.

Bugaboo had an entire week without any potty accidents, so I declared him officially potty-trained. And then we've had a bit of a fallback these last few days. But I guess that happens. Bean would point out that I occasionally still have accidents, but mine are all due to that lovely birthing stress.

Now we're off for a couple days of relaxing at the beach. We're going to Wilmington, NC (of Dawson's Creek fame :) ), for the weekend, assuming that we can get a room on such short notice. Not that I care so much about seeing where DC was filmed, but I did watch it and it always looked so beautiful, so I'm excited about seeing that area, and a real historic southern plantation, since the last one wasn't quite what I'm looking for.

Water Day

Fun times for all at the preschool today.

Under the Sea

I made this cake for an auction to make money for the Boy Scouts in our church to go to camp this summer. Some of you might recognize this one--I made a very similar cake for Bean's second birthday. I just didn't feel like stressing so much about this cake and it is always easier to do one I've already made. Although as I was making 4 different colors of fondant and then the blue buttercream frosting, I was really wishing that I just knew how to make a good, gormet cake that doesn't take special decorating because it tastes so divine that who cares about how it looks. But we're not a cake family, so birthday cake is about all I know how to make.

Yesterday was a great day--breakfast in bed, flowers (both real and drawn), a seafood dinner, cheesecake. . . I even got a good snuggle in with my wiggly little boy while he slept in my arms after church. And Daddy-o is taking me to Phantom of the Opera this summer when it comes into town. Not a bad Mother's Day.

But now its back to work :)

For All the Moms

Daddy Daughter Bonding

No, they weren't getting ready to play tennis. This would be my bug-blasting team.

We have these huge carpenter bees who have taken up residence in our deck (they actually burrow into the wood and then make tunnels through the wood!) So Daddy-o goes out there with his tennis racket to take out as many as he can. And Beans job? She likes to smash the ones that he's knocked to the ground. She drew a detailed diagram of all the bee-killer supplies needed--net to cover her face, long shirt and pants, socks and shoes, gloves, sunglasses, a jar, and of course, don't forget the tennis racket!

Strawberry Picking

We went out to Patterson's Farm to pick strawberries with a couple families from Bean's preschool. I will say that sending her to preschool this year has been great for all of our social lives. I have met a few of the other moms who I really enjoy spending time with and who Bean likes their kids, and they all have a younger sibling around Bugaboo's age, so its perfect for get togethers outside of school.

Bean could still remember when we went picking in Michigan 2 years ago, so she was very excited. And she was a lot more helpful this time around--we got 2 gallons of berries in just a little while. I have to say that the strawberries in NC were much bigger and prettier looking.

Bugaboo wandered around with his gallon carton, but by the end, he'd eaten every single berry that he'd picked. I didn't even want to count--hope they include that in the cost.

We also got to watch the baby goats playing--Bugaboo is now very interested in "butting" and even tried it out on me that night. We both ended up hurting so I don't think we'll actually play that game anymore.

The kids had a lot of fun together. Bugaboo has a little crush on Bean's schoolmate, Taylor. I love this picture because that's pretty much what he looks like whenever she's paying attention to him.

Thriving Thursday

I'm pretty happy with my day today.

I've
*run 3 miles
*made a diaper for a baby doll in Bean's class
*baked chocolate chip banana bread and blueberry muffins for Bean's teachers
(and these first 3 were before 9 am!)
*dropped off the dry cleaning
*picked up our new microwave
*read for a couple hours
*pulled a few weeds and found new things sprouting in our garden
*made a delicious angel food cake with a berry compote
*invited our neighbor, Mary, and her grandson, for an impromptu birthday dinner
*rescued a sad little boy after he fell in the toilet (the potty training is going pretty well, by the way, so long as he doesn't wear underwear)
*hurried two tired little kids into their jammies and off to bed

More Green Things

Trees are all green now, and this little monkey has learned to climb the ones in the front yard.

Other wildlife we've seen in the yard:

It's pretty exciting to find a turtle while getting ready to mulch the flower beds. I don't think there were a lot of turtles around where I grew up--at least, I never saw one. We had lizards, the occasional snake, lots of gophers, deer, and possums, and even some rats and mice, but no turtles.

Garden is mostly in, and things have grown a lot in the last two weeks--I can't believe how big our tomatoes have already gotten--we even have a couple small green tomatoes on there!

Flower seeds have started coming up--I'm really excited to see how these do since I'm always skeptical of seeds actually growing.

This is more pink, than green, but our roses have bloomed. These were still in bloom well into fall, so its amazing to me that they are already back. And we have a bird living in this little box. Hope there will be babies soon.

I've spent a LOT of time working in the gardens these last 2 weeks--and am happy to say that our 2 cubic yards of mulch are now out of the driveway, thanks to Daddy-o making a zillion trips up and down the stairs on Saturday while keeping the kids from getting into too much mischief so I could stay outside pretty much all day.

My other "green" adventure on Saturday was the neighboring community's yard sale. I have to say that even though I do care about the environment, and its green to buy used and more economical, I have decided that I'm just not a yardsale person. I keep making myself try it because I hear the awesome bargains that other people find. I was hoping to find some great deal on patio furniture since we really can't afford what we'd like, but don't want to just buy some cheap plastic set, but of course, when you go out looking for a specific item, you never find it. My second mistake was taking both kids with me. So I had to drive from house to house, along with the million other cars that were trying to make their way through the crowded streets. And in the process of letting a car squeeze past me, managed to lose a hubcap. So now our car looks ghetto and we still can't eat dinner out on our deck. Oh, and I convinced myself to buy a $3 easel that is missing the paint trays and doesn't have a rod for a roll of paper instead of just getting the $25 one from IKEA that is all ready to go. I hate finding a bargain.

But the kids made a couple good finds. The hours they've spent playing with Cheer Bear and "Dumbo" have been worth the $2.