Happy Easter from the Beach!

We packed up and headed for the beach on Wednesday after work. Grandma and Grandpa had been out there since they stayed with us, and we decided to wrap up their last weekend and spend Easter weekend with them.

The girls did pretty well with the 5+ hour car ride. Best value ever? The $5, 3 hour Curious George DVD. Thank you, Target! Except for the fact that, about 10 minutes in, *something* freaked Julie out and she started crying and did NOT want to watch the monkey. I had to take her DVD screen down so Becca and Emma could still watch it.

We got to the beach around 11:30, and the girls wanted no part in sleeping in their pack-n-plays. Julie finally got in hers, and as much as we praised her, the other two insisted on sleeping with us. It was a long night. Well, a short night, since after falling asleep at 1am, we were up again at 6:30.

The sun was strong on Thursday morning, so to get out of it for a while (I'm a bit of a fanatic about sunscreen... but I'm also really lazy), we went to the NC aquarium at Fort Fisher. It was nice, and small enough that the girls weren't overwhelmed they way we were at Atlanta. But they weren't quite as interested this time, either, once we got into the aquarium.

Julie telling me what the albino alligator says ("snap!" with a clap of the hands)


J


E


Fish


Jellyfish tentacle



Psychedelic jellyfish


R


We stopped and got some lunch, and then made a somewhat impulsive (so not us) decision to venture into downtown Wilmington to see what was there. It seems like it's always night time when we drive by, and we were curious what it looked like in the light. We didn't stay too long, since the sun was still bright, and the only nap the girls took was ~20 minutes on the way to the aquarium. We walked along the river for a bit and saw lots of boats.




And then we got some ice cream. Chocolate, of course.


I swear Julie looks like a pirate.



We tried to go out to the beach for a bit on Thursday afternoon, but it was cool and very windy. We didn't get to the end of the boardwalk before Julie said, "I don wan to see the ocean." So she and I turned around and went back to the house. Apparently got a few steps from the end of the boardwalk, but that was it. Emma went a little further, but only briefly. For the most part, they've been content to see the ocean from the windows.

Friday ended up being a lazy day. It was overcast, and rained in the afternoon, so we spent the day around the house, doing silly things.

Like, say, playing with the pop up laundry basket.


And decorating bear for Easter.


And playing a particularly spirited game of "I'm gonna get you!"









We played some music on pots and pans.


And then we used those same pots and pans as stepping stones to jump off of.



Saturday started out kind of gray again. We thought we'd take the girls to the park in the morning to burn some energy. We got them fed, dressed, all sunscreened up, and loaded into the car. We hit some traffic getting to the park, and a few scattered raindrops. We were still going to try to make it work, but when we got to the park, there was a huge Easter Egg hunt going on, people everywhere, and nowhere to park. So after promising the girls a big "adventure," we came home after spending 20 minutes in the car. Emma was annoyed. "Need venture." She didn't want to get out of the car.

We did eventually get her out of the car, and came upstairs and played on the deck for a while.


After nap, the sky had cleared a bit, and it was bright and sunny again. We reloaded our sunscreen, and headed out to the beach. I wasn't brave enough to take a camera out there, but we played in the sand for a bit, and then and walked along the ocean's edge. Becca wasn't terribly impressed. She kept complaining that her hands were dirty and wanted to go inside. Eventually Grandma took her in. It took Emma and Julie a long time of being held before they'd get their feet wet. Eventually, though, they had a ton of fun jumping over the waves as they came in and splashing around. We finally came in when Julie started shivering.

And of course today was Easter. I will have to say that Greg and I did a much better job at Easter than we did at Christmas. That still haunts me. The girls got up, and it took a few seconds for them to see the eggs, but then they were off. And done in about as much time as it took me to switch out lenses on my camera. (I wasn't quite prepared for a 6:45 Easter Egg Hunt.) A few pics before we packed up and headed home.

E


Julie finds one!


Emma's motto: "No egg left behind!" I swear, at one point she was carrying one under her chin.


Becca with the basket grandma made(!) her, "ma mo," and her "puppy dog."


"Do I have a little chocolate over here?"


R


J


Ma mo, savoring the spoils of his victory.


Yes, that's right. My child is having Kashi cereal, jelly beans, and m&ms for breakfast. Of course it was her idea to mix them all together.


Quite a look, huh?



We got home around dinner time, at which Becca said, "I need chocolate."

Feeeeeeeshhh!

We'd been planning to take the girls to the Georgia Aquarium for a while now. It was part of their birthday present, but we've just been so busy lately that it got pushed to the end of February. We drove down on Saturday morning and got there around 10. We used the DVD players in the car, and the girls did great. Emma saw the DVD player when she got in the car, and I asked her, "You know what this means?," meaning a long car trip. She said, "gamma?," as in, the last time we used these was on our car trip at thanksgiving to see grandmas and grandpas. Smart kid. And I'll have to say I'm pretty happy with how long my $5 Curious George video was. I kept waiting for the DVD to end, but it kept going.

The girls were super excited by the idea of seeing fish. In fact, when we were driving into downtown Atlanta and the aquarium came into sight, Emma yelled "feeesh!". I'm actually not sure what she saw, if it was the logo for the aquarium or what. As soon as you take the obligatory green screen photo and enter the museum, there are large fish tanks on both sides of the hallway, and I think that's when they "got it".

We decided to do the tropical fish first, since we thought they'd be colorful. It was pretty crowded, so we skipped some of the early, smaller displays that we'd have to pick them up to see. When we got to the first huge tank, though, the girls were mostly just scared. I don't think it helped that there was a diver right up against the glass, cleaning.


Once we got past that, there was a more kid size tank that they could stand and look right in to. We spent quite a while here while they warmed up a little bit. Lots of smiles here.



Next we did the part that had the tunnel through the tank. I was a little afraid they were going to freak out in there, and it was packed, but they did great. We took it slow and waited a bit for the crowd to thin out, and got further down the tunnel to a place where they could get up against the glass and watch the fish.



I love this one of Becca's reflection.


Emma discovered the air vents.


Lunch break after that, and it's good we ate when we did, because a line backed up
all the way through the cafeteria while we were eating. We thanked Julie for her foresight by dirtying her diaper when she did and forcing us to take a break that turned into our lunch break. The big new lunch adventure was that the girls had to drink their milk out of bottles - no straws allowed in the aquarium. Apparently they are bad for fish. (But it was still a little weird when they searched our bags when we got there and they asked if we had lighters, matches, or anything with a removable straw.). They did ok with the milk bottles, though Becca really wanted to just stick her tongue in the bottle.

After lunch, we hit the cold water display and saw otters, beluga whales, and penguins.
This is one of my favorites.


She had to get down on the floor and get nice and cozy to talk to the fish.


penguin


Things were starting to go downhill at this point. Julie didn't want to walk anymore, so she just starts going limp while holding your hand and makes you drag her. Becca started running away from us. She thinks it's sooooooo funny. We pressed our luck and went to the Georgia area next, thinking it was a bit more kid friendly, but they were still really too young for it. They had a shrimp and horseshoe crab tank that Becca was enamored with, but Julie and Emma wanted no part of. A quick "bye bye fish" and we were out of there.

Well, after stopping to get the photo.

And getting 3 little penguins from the gift shop.

They were asleep before we got on the highway.