And when the music stops and everyone has to find a house to stay in! We vacated last week's house and officially moved over to the new one today. It made for a crazy morning, but we were done before 10. From there we spent a lot of time debating what we would do for the day. We thought about going to see the Hatteras lighthouse, but then the kids didn't seem overly excited about that. Then we thought about going and climbing the sand dunes, but it was the middle of the day and we thought the sun would be too hot. So we finally had to go drop off the keys to the old house, grab some lunch and then we just headed back home.
On the way back we stopped at a little shopping area on the sound and the kids picked up some new toys from a hole in the wall toy store (paid for courtesy of Nana). The photo above was taken on the deck /pier of the shopping area.
Once we got back home we lounged around the house for a while and everyone played the Wii for a bit (with Ken and Amanda creating a couple of new Mii characters). Quinn ate a small amount of peach in order to play. Of course he gagged on it though, so I'm not sure what's going on. He can sit there and lick something for minutes and have no problem with the taste, but then when he takes a bite he'll gag. That has to be some kind of psychological block.
Anyway, after everyone played the Wii some (Quinn actually beat me at Tennis once, quite thoroughly I might add) we decided to go do paddle boats. I ended up not going on the boat since it could only hold four people. Instead I wound up being the official photographer of the outing taking pictures and videos of everyone (no easy task since I was juggling Ken's video camera, my video camera, my D70 and my hand held Nikon).
They started off with Nana and Quinn in the back steering. After a couple of laps everyone switched and Catherine and Ginger were steering. I got some video of that, but no "good" pictures. And by good I mean I don't have any good shots of when they hit the bridge, or went in circles, or went through the edge of the bridge and ran ashore (only to be heckled by mini golfers on the bridge). All in all I think they made four laps total around the moat having what sounded like a grand ole time as everyone (including spectators) was laughing at the chaos. It did seem like Nana had a tendency to a back seat paddle driver, although since steering in the back I guess it would be called a front seat paddle driver.
Check out how hard Ken's working in his boat. It's no wonder Karen and Amanda decided to quit after only one lap around the moat saying paddling was too tiring.
I managed to go get some more sunset pictures tonight. There was a fox sitting right there in the sand from the sound had receded when I got there. Of course he was sitting right where I was planning walking. So I told him I was just there for pictures and wasn't looking for trouble, and if he left me alone, I would leave him alone. I tried taking his picture a couple of times, but I keep forgetting that with my lens if I go for the maximum zoom I need a lot of light to take a non blurry picture (and having hands that didn't shake would probably help as well). He moved off to the side, but didn't really seem to inclined to give up his ground completely, so I thought we would call it a truce and went around the other side of the area.
The sun went through some clouds on the horizon as it was setting, so it wasn't as dramatic as it could have been. But I'm still happy with some of the shots. I stuck around a bit after the sun finished setting to get some of the afterglow shots.
The water on the sound had receded even more today than it had yesterday. I was able to walk over 100 yards out into the water and barely have the water come up over my knees.
So what's the verdict here folks? I plan on taking more of these sunset shots (time and conditions permitting), but are people still interested in seeing these? Or have I beat this horse to death?
Evidently there was a big old storm off the coast this morning. I saw it when we checked the weather, but then didn't think anymore of it, until we got to the beach that is. The waves were huge compared to what they've been for the rest of the week. I mean Scott basically poo poo'ed the waves we've been seeing previously (even though in that very post I had mentioned that the waves on the east coast generally aren't that large).
Today though the sea was really choppy. I didn't even think about taking Quinn out in this stuff. I, on the other hand, had the most fun of any day we've had at the beach so far. Basically I was on in the water getting tossed around like a rag doll, and it was fantastic.
Catherine spent a lot of time chasing down and stomping sea foam, which was present in quantities we hadn't seen for the entire week. To be honest, we had barely seen any sea foam at all for the whole week before today. Catherine also spent a fair amount of time building a sand castle, which was really more of a sand town of towers than an actual castle. Quinn meanwhile spent almost all of his time playing baseball with Nana, until he decided to build a mini sand city himself.
We ended up staying at the beach for about an hour more than normal. That fact coupled with the waves being so brutal that they actually washed off my suntan lotion meant I ended up getting a mild burn by the time we left.
After we came home we did the normal routine of hanging out in the pool while Ginger went in and fixed the kid's lunch. Then we went by and saw the house we'll be staying in next week (we're sharing a house next week). It's pretty upscale place compared to where we're at this week. The bad thing though is that apparently the pool at the new house doesn't have a shallow end to speak of. The shallow end is evidently four and a half feet deep (not sure how that even qualifies as shallow). That's a shame, because some of the most fun we've had this week has been the kids playing in the pool here, where the shallow end is about three feet deep and extends for about four feet. So that means their isn't an area in the new pool where they can play with limited supervision.
After we checked out the new house, we headed up to Timbuck II again to do the Go-Karts. This time Quinn decided he didn't want to drive alone (probably still traumatized about the whole almost running over the attendant thing). So Quinn and I went on one of the bigger karts and Ginger and Catherine raced with us in another kart as well.
Once we stopped by the new house on the way home since the kids wanted to see Amanda. That's because when we were there before Ken, Karen and Amanda weren't there yet due to being stuck in traffic (which must have been a brutal day of driving for them since they left DC at 7:30 am, that's like ten hours in the car, although apparently they did stop off somewhere on the way to pick up the new Harry Potter book, so maybe it wasn't a full ten hours).
We came home and got the kids dinner and put them to bed. Then Ginger and I shuffled a bunch of our stuff that we could do without over to the new house so that we have less to move tomorrow morning (we have to vacate our current house by 10 am tomorrow). We left Nana watching the kids while we moved things, then after we had finished that, Ginger and I walked down to the sound to see the sunset (so I could grab some pictures of course).
Once the sun was finally down we came back to the house to have some scallops for dinner (our last seafood of the vacation more than likely since Karen is allergic to seafood) and then played some cards before retiring for the night.
Now that Nana is here that means we ended up getting to the beach a bit later than we had on previous days. But we were still there for a good while, and the water seemed colder today than yesterday, which made cooling off in the heat for me more difficult. Catherine spent most the time there building a sand castle with a moat. She actually made several trips to get water before she realized the moat probably wasn't going to have water in it since the water kept sinking into the sand. Quinn on the other hand spent most of his time playing with some new toys Nana brought with her (a ball and bat specifically). He also rebounded nicely from yesterday and had me take him out into the waves numerous times. He did however insist that on the way back in from the waves I not put him down in choppy area.
Catherine still refuses to go into the water proper without an adult nearby. She'll run through the waves, but only at the edge and insists on someone being there to go out farther. And even then, she doesn't like going out too far. I'm trying to remember if she got knocked down by a wave last year or something that would cause her to be so timid, but I can't recall anything off the top of my head.
Once we got back to the house we spent a lot longer in the pool than we usually do. Which turned out to be a good thing since after we finally went in and had lunch a nice little storm came through. That provided all of us a good opportunity to take a nap. I think I slept for over two and a half hours (all those late nights playing Zelda finally caught up with me).
At that point though there wasn't much left to the day. I did manage to sneak off after dinner and take some sunset pictures. I almost didn't go, because the storm I mentioned earlier was blocking the sun right up until about 20 minutes before sunset. As such I didn't get to go to the area I wanted to, but had to settle for the same place I took pictures a couple nights ago. And I'm glad I went as tonight was easily the best night for pictures since we've been here.
I didn't stay long after the sun actually set since I wanted to get home and say goodnight to the kids before they went to sleep, but after taking this shot from our deck once I got home, it made me wish I had stayed out there just a bit longer. Although the bugs were eating me alive for the 15 mintues I was out, much longer and I would be just one big bug bite.
Man it was hot today. The temperature was 94 with a heat index of 123. I didn't think it felt like it was 123 myself, but it was pretty warm here today. We weren't at the beach today for as long as normal because while we were there I showed Quinn had to stand in the waves by bracing and leaning into it. The problem is he sometimes forgets to lean into the wave and shies away instead. He did that when a particularly big wave came by and ended up getting his face dragged along the ground for a while. He decided he was done for the most part after that. I was lucky enough to be able to get him to run around in the waves a couple more times before we left though just to build up some more self confidence. This would happen right after yesterday I mention how much progress he's made. But I think he'll bounce back from this one since he seemed fine once we got back to the house and then we all spent a fair amount of time in the pool.
And a couple of days ago when I said we had extra room here and asked if anyone wanted to show up, I didn't seriously think anyone would take me up on it, but today Nana showed up. I kid, we had planned on her showing up, so this wasn't a big surprise. Well, we had planned on her showing up yesterday, so it was somewhat of a surprise that it was today.
Later in the day, we decided to take a trip to see the beach access on the sound side. According to our brochure for the house, the access point was a block away. So three blocks later we finally found it. Guess that shouldn't have surprised me given their description of the pool. So after a walk through a trail through some serious overgrowth we ended up at the sound.
Calling what we found a "beach" is pretty generous. This is a small inlet with only about three feet of sand. And in the water there are cinder blocks. Not sure what the purpose of the cinder blocks are, but the kids liked standing on them..
From there we walked down the street to the ocean side beach. From there we walked down the beach to the access point we normally use.
No sunset tonight since a storm rolled in and we barely saw the sun after seven. The good news is the storm cooled things down considerably so we were able to enjoy dinner out on the deck.
The thing about taking these types of pictures is it really accentuates where the spots on my CCD are as you can see the discolored dots.
We got a slightly later than normal start this morning. Quinn initially said he didn't want to go to the beach, but I told him I would have none of that. I told him we're paying for a beach vacation and we will be out there enjoying the beach whether he likes it or not. But even though we got to the beach later than we have for the past couple of days, it was completely deserted when we got there. So we set up shop and started enjoying the beach, and it wasn't too long before everyone else started showing up. I'm really not sure why it was so quiet this morning. Maybe the rain storm that came through last night had something to do with it. Who knows, for a while though it was as if we had the beach to ourselves.
Catherine finally started warming up to the idea of playing in the water today. She's been hanging out at the edge of the water hanging onto Ginger for the past couple of days when she's ventured to the water (and digging in the sand when she was back at the blanket). Today though she started sitting down in the sand and making butterflies. Which is apparently akin to making snow angels, but you don't lay down and just move your arms.
Quinn spent more time today fishing and just running through the water. Hard to believe this is the kid that several years ago wouldn't even walk on the sand because it felt weird. He also was asked me to take him out into the waves several times also.
After we had our fill of the beach we came back to the house. As per usual it wasn't too long until it was just the kids and myself as we played in the pool while Ginger went inside and showered and got lunch ready.
After lunch Quinn did some cantelope tasting so that he could play the Wii some. And I got to see what I thought was an urban legend up close and personal. I keep hearing these stories of people throwing the Wii remote, but had always thought people were just making that up. Apparently not. During bowling Quinn launched the Wii controlled across the room and hit the ceiling just above the TV. I suppose it could have been worse and he could have hit the TV. After that in addition to the strap being on his wrist, I made sure it was nice and tight (it had been on when it happened, it just wasn't tight enough I guess).
Then in the afternoon we drove up to Timbuck II in Corolla for mini golf (which I see from Rob's comment should not be called Putt Putt, so that puts that discussion to bed I suppose) and racing. Turns out they have junior go karts there which you have to be 46 inches in order to drive. I think Quinn might be just under that, but they let him go ahead anyway. He did pretty good. There weren't a lot of cars on the track with him (they only have special races every so often where only the junior carts go out), so he wasn't in a lot of traffic. He was so serious driving though, I couldn't tell if he was having any fun or whether it was stressing him out. I filmed some of it with the little hand held Nikon and I could just kick myself, because on the last lap where they pull in I stopped filming as he was coming around the last corner. Two cars had stopped before him the first one stopped fine, and the second car bumped the first one pretty hard. The attendant was out directing the kids to the side to stop, but Quinn was still going full throttle, the attendant made a dash over to him I suppose thinking he could stop him from hitting the other kids who had just bumped each other at that point when at the last instant Quinn veers around the cars almost running over the attendant. To his credit the attendant made a an amazing jump using what appeared to be cat like reflexes to jump out of the way and just barely missed Quinn running him over. I thought it was hysterical, but it was probably only funny since no one got hurt, which is good. Quinn then zipped around the two stopped cars and pulled in right where he started and stopped on a dime. Afterwards we found out why he had done that. He had been told by the attendants before the race started that when the race was over he was suppose to park the car back where he started. Evidently he was merely following that instruction to the letter. It kills me though that I missed getting all this on video by about two seconds of filming though. As for how serious he looked when driving, once he was done he told us his hands had been sweating while he was driving.
After that we were going to do the paddle boat around a man made inlet, but Catherine insisted she wanted to do the mini golf instead. I decided (wisely I think) that I wouldn't play, so Ginger didn't either. The golf course was unusual in that it only had bricks blocking the play area in a couple places on each hole, so both kids spent some time in the rough (Quinn moreso than Catherine since he hits the ball harder than she does). Turns out Ginger and me not playing was a good decision, because after about 13 holes the kids had gotten their fill of playing and were about done (and we were getting held up by three or four groups in front of us), so we just skipped some holes and called it a game. And Catherine still doesn't have the whole golfing concept down pat yet. Her method of playing golf looks much more like someone playing ice hockey that mini golf.
So one more photo request. John had requested some food shots. I should have taken pictures of the dinner Ginger and I had tonight. Sea Scallops that we bought at one of the seafood markets while we were out today. Man those were good. But I told John I didn't really have any food shots because we're not eating out, and his next request was more beefcake pictures, so without further ado...
I'm almost positive this isn't what he wanted to see (I'll go as far as to say no one would willingly want to be exposed to this). The one thing I've learned from this picture though is I need to get in shape, I can see love handles. If only I actually exercised.
The sunset looked promising tonight, but then fizzled. So I've got some marginal shots, but nothing really good.
