At the Beach, Take Two

Well, to say this beach trip went better than the last one sums it up quite nicely.

Everyone had a great time, we went swimming every day, headed to the beach one afternoon, and nobody vomited. That's my new definition of a successful vacation.

Although it was a lot of driving. Almost 5 hours on Sunday, 4 hours on Monday, 4 hours on Tuesday (we tried to take a short cut back to Wilmington from Emerald Isle - who knew they wouldn't let you drive through Camp Lejune?) and another 4 hours home on Wednesday. The beach at Emerald Isle was amazing, nothing like the commercialized giants that I'm used to seeing in South Carolina. Perfectly peaceful, beautiful white sand, and the fishermen outnumbered the sunbathers. And not a Wings or Eagles store in sight. In fact, it was so de-commercialized that we had a somewhat difficult time finding a place to eat lunch. Finally we came across Flipperz, a tiny little diner in a strip mall that reminded me of the Food Shack in Jupiter. Seafood? I'm happy.

I think Katy went on Sesame Street withdrawal about half way through the trip. Public broadcasting in Wilmington doesn't carry it, at least not while we were there. We got home Wednesday afternoon and (wanting a bit of a rest) I played an old episode for her that we had taped before we left town. I think she squealed for five minutes nonstop, she was so excited. I thought her head was going to explode when Elmo came on. Needless to say, I didn't get a lot of rest.

Back home, back to work, back on the blog. At least this vacation didn't take us back to the hospital.

Try Try Again

Before I forget - major kudos to Alison for sending me the link to this Sesame Street Aliens classic bit. I really thought there wasn't an aired minute of Sesame Street I hadn't seen, but she proved me wrong. It is hilarious.

We're packing for the beach this evening...let's hope this trip goes a little smoother than the one to Florida. As in - maybe we'll actually see the beach this time.

Thanks to CVS, we're taking the whirlwind tour of the southeast corner of the state. Tomorrow we'll hit Lumberton on the way down to Wilmington, Monday I have projects from Carolina Beach to Clinton, and Tuesday I have to drive up to Hampstead and on through to Emerald Isle. I'll have approximately 41 mintues of free time each day - just enough to walk past the pool and wave hello to Matt and Katy before it gets dark. Now if she could only learn to use an engineeer's scale on those blueprints...

Okay, so maybe 41 mintues was a bit of an exaggeration. But I hate that the two of them get a nice vacation together and I don't get to enjoy it with them. Well, at least we'll get some quality time in the car together to talk and tell stories and whatnot - it's 4 1/2 to 5 hours each way. That is, unless Katy is bringing her iPod.