Carolina coastline, oh, how I've missed thee. As much as I love California, I will always appreciate a good trip to the beaches of the south, where the water is warm, the surf is gentle, and you can walk for miles on clean, gently sloping sand.
Our beach house was pretty much picture perfect.
It wasn't right on the beach, but was at an access street, so we still had a good view from the porch, and a short walk to get to the water.
And that beach house was the home of a lot of good times. Peanut adored the guitar-playing,
and ukulele playing and song making-up.
Daddy-o got in on the drumming.
The kids also spent hours and hours playing games--so much Exploding Kittens and Bears vs. Babies. And lots of Studio C, and clips from The Office. And lots and lots of laughter.
But, of course, the beach was the best part. Ben worked his magic and made a beach movie with all the kids.
He is so great with them and the final products are really fun. And he inspired them to make their own movie trailer as well (video coming--and you do NOT want to miss this.)
This castle was built for the film.
There was also kite flying,
which I think was a first for this kid. He was in heaven getting to hold the reigns (I think Ben was pretty much his favorite this weekend.)
And then so much water fun. It makes my heart happy to see those smiles.
Our kids haven't been in the ocean past their knees since we moved. We need to buy them wetsuits, but until we do, the Pacific Ocean is just too cold for these east coast kids.
But the Atlantic, even this early in the season, was already a balmy 76 degrees which felt pretty amazing.
The kids, and most of the adults, boogie boarded, and swam, and waded a big chunk of the time.
(Although there were some lovely breaks under the umbrella, too. Not for the kids--they couldn't sit still for a moment--but the over 14 crowd enjoyed the shade.)
The kids also caught hundred of fish.
They had that net out for hours.
Bug and V. were especially persistant.
And fish weren't the only thing they found--this beautiful blue crab was their biggest catch. Bean wanted to try to catch a sting ray (we saw a few that were about 1-1.5 feet across), but I don't think the net could have held them even if she could get close enough.
We also found this floating piece of some type of foam board, home to a community of gooseneck barnacles.
It's so fun to watch them searching for food.
This cannonball jellyfish washed up early one morning. I hadn't ever seen one of these before--they're so much more solid than other jellyfish I've seen.
We also hunted for shark teeth, and found quite a few. Chrissy is the shark tooth savant, and I've been dying to go to the beach with her for years so I could learn from the master--and I think it worked. After watching her (and getting one lucky shark tooth from her to start me off), I found three in the next little bit.
As usual, I got out early one morning for a sunrise walk. I wake up early on vacations even more than I do at home, but I don't mind when we're at the beach because I love having that quiet time to walk and take pictures. Some of my favorite vacation memories on many of our trips are the times I'm out before 7 a.m.
That 30 minutes before sunrise was so colorful.
And then I realized that because of the angle of Oak Island, there wasn't going to be a sunrise over the water.
But the sunrise over the trees along the marshy Intracoastal Waterway was also beautiful.
This trip was really something special. These feral kids got to run wild together for 2 1/2 days. Days full of activity and nature, playing and creating, and most of all, friends.
And then, we woke up to this on the last morning. The porch facing the ocean was too wet, but there was a lovely view of the river and the rain out back. And it made it a little easier to say goodbye. We've had that same experience almost every beach trip we've taken--
the forecasted rain holds off until the last day, and then it storms all the way home.
