Beach Bliss

We spent last week at the beach. Some friends joined us. Before leaving, we thought that Tropical Storm/Hurricane Emily would cause rain, but it ended up being a nice week.

The sea turtle nest right by the house was well guarded. People camped out by it nightly

in anticipation of witnessing the hatching of the eggs. We kept a check on it each evening but they did not hatch during our stay.

Boogie boards and skim boards were put to good use.

Well, most of the time.

me and Steph

Syd really liked the beach!

The Everhart's stopped by on their way to the Fort Fisher Aquarium.

Corinna met the girl staying next door and hung out with her all week. It was a blessing considering there were 4 boys in the house.

Grace, who's from Texas, even spent the night at our house one night.

on-the-bed ballet

The hot spot on Oak Island for family entertainment is the jungle golf course. Several of the kids got holes in one.

Our trip to OKI wouldn't be complete without a trip to the....

Leaky Teaky. Noah sings for the crowd. Hayden and Stephanie sang as well.

Now our beach gear is packed away and the new school year begins next week.

However, I do hope to return to the Sixpack in the fall.

OKI

We spent last week on Oak Island. We had an enjoyable vacation.

The turtle nests are marked and under protection. Maybe when we return in August we'll see some baby turtles.

game time

We went to see the Wilmington Hammerheads play soccer. Afterwards there was a fantastic fireworks show!

There was a wonderful breeze on the beach most of the week, which was nice. It was hard to keep the umbrellas intact.

Only mean confident in their masculinity can sit under a pink umbrella!

She's been weatching her daddy pose.

Hayden is running from a jellyfish here. There were LOTS of them. One morning there were hundreds washed up on the shore.

napping in the shade

Hayden turned 11 on the 8th!

I confess that I'm a beach nerd. I read five books last week.

We visited our favorite local hang out on our last night.

We are thankful that JJ's mom went in with some friends and family members to purchase the Six Pack (name of the house) back in the 1980's. We are blessed to be able to spend several weeks a year at the beach. We're looking forward to our return in August!

Destination Disney: This Is It

Well, here's my last post about Disney. It was so hard to condense our trip... and it's taken me three weeks to get some of our memories recorded. But, I've been busy teaching Kindergarten. I'll tell you more about my Kindergarten adventures later.

We stayed at Disney's Pop Century Resort. It is a value resort and met our needs and expectations. We got 2 adjoining rooms and honestly were only in them long enough to sleep. Our long days at the park were exhausting and we had little trouble falling asleep in our double beds.

The resort highlights the decades beginning with the 1950's through the 1990's. Pop Century features giant icons that salute many of the 20th century popular culture crazes--including toys, gadgets, music, movies and catch phrases. We stayed in the 1990's section. Currently, the 2000's section is under construction.

The dates we selected for our trip qualified us for free dining. We chose the quick-service option and had so much food. I am so thankful we did not have to pay Disney food prices. We got 2 meals and 2 snacks a day per person. I think we brought about 40 snacks home because we could not eat them all while there!

Here are some of the pictures from the Pop Century grounds:

The pools were heated!

After begging to go swimming all week, we finally let them in.

J.J. used to have one of these phones!

I had a big wheel!

One day it poured down rain. It was the only day we returned to the resort for a few hours. We dried our clothes and some of us took naps.

The food court at Pop Century had a variey of offerings. We ate there several times and most nights went for some ice cream or another late-night treat.

This picture was taken the morning we arrived. We really got a lot of use from our refillable mugs that were included in our dining plan.

Kay and Corinna do the twist!

We have no complaints about the resort bus system. We parked our car when we arrived and didn't move it until departure. Most of the time our wait for a bus was under 10 minutes.

We did a little shopping, but not too much. The kids received gift cards that they used.

Ma Ma bought each kid a special souvenier.

Hayden and Drake found their treasures in Downtown Disney.

We splurged a bit and paid for a couple of meals that weren't included in our free dining package. We headed to the Polynesian for a luau. It was a neat experience and the food was extremely tasty.

We headed over to the Contemporary Resort for a character breakfast on the Sunday morning of our trip.

We were greeted by some of Disney's classic friends such as Minnie.




The next few picture are with characters from throughout the parks. I forgot to include them in my first post.

Tigger was bouncing around and accidentally hit Hayden in the eye with the autograph book.

Jasmine and Aladdin

King Louie and Baboo



Our Disney World trip was phenomenal. Honestly, I hope that we can go back in a few years.

So long!

I'll leave you with a little flamethrowing!