Oak Island Beach Trip

When the kids were born someone told us that going away with kids is a trip.  A vacation is when you go away without your kids.  With that being said, we just returned from a TRIP to the beach!

Overall we had a great time in Oak Island with Mimo and Aunt  Anna.  We love the beach and we now have two little beach bums.  They loved playing in the sand and playing in the water.  Going to the beach is a thousand times better/easier now that they are older. 

We got down there last Sunday evening (Aug. 1st) and stayed until Fri. (Aug. 6th).  We went to the beach every day except Wednesday when we decided to go to Fort Fisher to the NC Aquarium.  We had a fun time at the Aquarium seeing all the fish.  The highlight for Will was riding the ‘big boat’, the ferry, home. 

The kids were great when we were on the beach but they were less than stellar when we were back at the beach house.  Lots of little temper tantrums and attitudes going on.  Will has turned into a horrible sleeper.  He woke us up all night long, which made us very tired people most days.  Telling the kids 8 times to do something and then having a tantrum about it was getting old.  I have to give props to Mimo for sleeping with the kids the last night so Drew and I could actually sleep.

I am going to say Will is 100% potty trained.  Not to say we won’t have accidents here and there but I think they will be pretty infrequent.  He now does ALL his business in the potty.  He stays dry at naps and he stays dry all night long.  The boy night trained himself.  Which I honestly think is causing some of his sleeping issues.  I think he is stirring at night because he needs to pee.  He cries out and wriggles all around.  Sometimes he cries enough to wake himself up and yell to us that he needs to go potty.  He has definitely learned that pottying can delay bedtime.  He started doing this 3-4 times a night.  The little stinker actually goes every time though.  We had our first public potty trips on Wednesday at the aquarium.  I’ve been dreading it but I knew it would happen sooner or later.  We also had the fun of dealing with pottying at the beach.  I put him in swim diapers each day but I didn’t want to tell him to just go ahead and pee in it.  I thought that would really send mixed signals.  Therefore I brought our little IKEA potty each day to the beach with us and it turned out to be pretty useful.  Especially the last day when he had to poop while at the beach!

Even though the kids were difficult at times, we hated to leave the beach.  Mimo and  Aunt Anna were huge helps and the kids had so much fun playing with them.  I came home the unofficial Farkle queen – a new game Mimo introduced us to.  The low point of the vacation was when we were on our way home and got rear ended.  Thankfully we had already slowed down to let one car turn so no one was going very fast.  No one was hurt and there was very minor damage.  The kids actually slept through the whole thing.  It was more of an annoyance than anything.

Without further ado……..our August 2010 Oak Island Beach TRIP pictures.  I’m so bad at narrowing down pictures.  Here are more than you ever wanted to see of our trip!

Lindy takes her sunbathing seriously.  What girl doesn’t love to read trashy mags at the beach? Taking care of business on the beach. Hey, look, I was there too! White albino alligator. The sea horses were so cool.   On the ferry. The Linvilles got the kids shirts when they were at the beach.  Will’s says, “It’s the smile that keeps me out of trouble” and Lindy’s says “I’m the princess, that’s why.”  

Is that Mimo or Lindy?  Looks like Mimo with her visor and iPhone! Our beachy family. Since coming home the kids have gotten to play with some of their birthday presents.  We tried out the water table and they got soaked!    Will kept saying, “Mommy wipe me off.”  He wasn’t sure about soaking his clothes.  Mommy doesn’t normally let them do these kinds of things! This morning our cleaning crew showed up.  I’ve been wondering when they were going to come. A sweet picture.  The kids were telling Drew bye before he went to church this morning.