Emerald Isle, NC 2010

Gosh, a month of weekends traveling coupled with 4 days of house guests and the start of school leaves little time for blogging. We are truly lucky that we have clean socks at this point and we remembered to bring all members of the family home.

Our adventures started with a trip to Emerald Isle, N.C. The kids had a big first - Jet Skiing. The Boy was cautiously excited and the Girl was ready to rock and roll from the mention of the word. Needless to say they had a blast and now a jet ski is on the X-Mas list..... got that one Santa, better get those elves working! We had a house with a pool across from the ocean and the Boy learned how to do flips into the pool which was a bit of a nail biter for Mommy. We also did go carts, arcades, tasty treats, a boat trip to an island and lots of other fun stuff. The Boy loved learning how to body surf and Bella collected lots of shells and did her share of boogy boarding. It was a great trip! Next, camping with our new RV and the wedding!

The latest addition to the family!

This is totally uncharacteristic of me, but I fell in love with this RV, yes RV. Some girls want diamond tennis bracelets and a 2 cartat engagement ring - me I love to travel. Given that travel abroad isn't in our cards right now we'll have to settle for road trips in style. It also completes our little "Redneck Yacht Club" we have built here in the county since movin' from the big city -We now have our pop-up pool, slip-n-slide and big old RV on the side of the garage. I have at least 2 more acres here to fill with stuff!

Great Wolf Lodge

We took our kids and niece to the Great Wolf Lodge and we had a great time. I had a tiny Oh My God I am Surly Going to Loose a Kid moment as I peered down through the plate glass window onto the gigantic waterpark.

Every time the bell rang 1,000 gallons of water came pouring out of this gigantic bucket. Thank God I have good hearing!

This was our downtime after the fire alarm woke us up and we had to wait to get into the waterpark.

We spent about 10 hours in the waterpark and there was a lot of other stuff to do that we didn't even have time during our stay. The kids got to eat rock candy and run around the hotel in their PJs way past their bedtime.

They even had story time each night which was cool.We rode the world's scariest water slide. We willingly got into a raft which dropped us into a 6-story funnel and we flew 30 feet up the sides of the funnel and I thought for sure that I was going to loose my first born. At the bottom he said that was awesome and when asked if he wanted to do it again promptly responded "No way!!!".

Sandy Toes

We spent a great week at Emerald Isle, NC. We had never been there before, but are always up for new places.

The boy learned how to swim over the Winter and now he is fearless! Dad was thrilled to have a partner to surf the waves and Mom on the other hand needed a glass of wine after the beach trip.I even managed to catch one very small wave.We went to a cool bowling alley and learned that Wii Bowling is much easier than real bowling. Bella beat us the first game with the assistance of her bumpers and ramp, but that is still really pathetic!The water was so clear.There were many sand castles to be built.Tons of waves to play in and run from in some instances.

We took the world's fastest ferry boat ride to an island to look for shells and wild horses. I knew we were in for one heck of a ride when he said hold on to your hats and anything else that may blow out of the boat. We saw one horse, but there were lots of shells and beautiful scenery. Bella was whimpering when we first got on the boat, but then she suddenly felt a need for speed and started laughing and WhooHooing once we started.

We had a great ocean view and spent a lot of time on the deck.

We went on a couple go cart rides that convinced me that neither one of my kids should get their license.

Hurricane Bill stirred up the ocean during our last day which made it a red flag day on the beach so we headed to the aquarium. Of course it is best to save that trip till the end of the vacation because the sharks are scary and I would rather not think about them while on vacation at the beach.

Here is a nice picture of my three children at play - I mean my kids and my husband. I can't wait till next year!