Oak Island, N.C. once again!

Hi all.

Yes. We've been back from Oak Island for awhile now, but here I am, finally telling you all about it!

The drive down there was pretty uneventful. My boys are seasoned travelers already! It wasn't until we got there that we ran into trouble. Our friends, Meg and Joe, are the ones that reserve the beach house every year. They were not told about the construction going on down the length of the street in front of the house. Maybe the rental property people didn't think the work crew would be in front of our house yet. Actually, they weren't. They had stopped digging in front of the space between our beach house and the one to the left of it. However, they did leave a huge pile of pipes in front of the house, leaving us nowhere to park.

The rental property people told Meg they had no idea that construction was going on in front of the house. They wouldn't take Meg's word for it, they had to send someone out there to see for themselves. We eventually got the OK to park in front of the public access two houses down, with a guarantee the police wouldn't give us all a ticket for parking there overnight.

Come Monday morning, a construction worker came to the house and apologized and got the pipes out of there. That's when we learned that the rental property company did indeed know that construction would be going on during the week of our vacation. It was only Monday that the heavy equipment was in front of the house. Overall it wasn't that much of a problem...for those who did't want to sleep in! The equipment made a heck of a lot of noise at 7:30 in the morning. A vacationer across the road let his unhappiness be heard.

It was pretty warm there, mid 80's the entire time, but not nearly as uncomfortable as last year. We also had one rainy day, Wednesday. It was a good down day. We did some shopping and had brought the Wii along for the kids to play.

We went on crab walks with flash lights and glow sticks. We didn't see any jellyfish on the beach this year. After the rainy day on Wednesday, the beach looked completely different! Before then, there was a long, shallow trench of water the kids could play in. It was as warm as a bath tub! We cleaned out the rocks in the stretch in front of the house and Dev and B splashed in it and Meg's son, Stevie, floated with a mask and snorkel, watching the little bait fish swimming in and out of his still fingers. He became part fish that week! LOL

Last year I didn't get much beach time as Bryce was only a few months old. When he went down for his naps I'd take the monitor back down to the beach with me. I did that again this year, but Bryce just needed short time outs in the shade and he was good to go for awhile again. We'd put him under the cow print shade at the top of the beach or under the cover of a beach umbrella, secured in the sand around an area dug out and walled up. It was quite the kiddie pool which I neglected to take pictures of. I didn't want to risk water and sand on my camera. I meant to get a waterproof disposable, but forgot. :(

Hunter behaved the same as last year. He mostly stood in the surf, no deeper than mid shin. He had his toys and did his thing. He did stay longer on the beach this time around. Like Stevie, Devin wanted to be a fish, too! He kept telling me he was swimming as he crawled around in the surf on the sand. He went out a couple times with his dad, but I could tell he was more comfortable on his own two feet at the shore line.

Some of you may not know it, but I don't really like to float out there in the ocean, not being able to see what's under me, but I did it. One of those times I did, a jelly fish stung me. My hubby says he didn't see anything. He was behind me and could seeif something was there, but it felt like the back of my leg, below the knee, was being poked by a needle. I started swimming to shore but kept getting poked. I finally swatted at whatever it was with my hand and I think the force of my hand in the water loosened whatever it was. An area the size of a quarter was red and when that faded there were tiny, dark red spots. Tim says it was probably the spine of a fish.

On another day Tim and I were throwing a football back and forth on the beach. He tossed it out to Joe but didn't quite make it to him. As the ball floated there I saw what I assumed was a small shark surface and then disappeared. Tim assured me that it was just a fish checking it out, nothing to worry about. On the way home though, he said yes, it was a shark. He didn't want to scare me out of the water!

For $40.00 one day we rented a two person kayak. Oh my goodness my body just did a shake remembering all the jelly fish we saw! It was quite a sight. They were as dark as blood in the center, with a paler red underneath. They were easy to spot and I was very helpful telling Tim which way to go steer back there! With that surf, I didn't want any getting splashed into my lap! While floating out there I was also reminded of seeing the rays jumping out of the water like a flat stone skipping across the surface. We were fine, nothing happened to us, until my hubby failed at keeping us straight coming in and a wave flipped us! LOL

I told Tim I didn't want to spend every day at the beach, that I wanted to do something else. So I took the initiative and reserved us some seats on a charter boat that promised we'd see lots of dolphins and other sea life.

It was about a 30 minute drive and we boarded the boat and headed out to sea. It was an hour and a half tour, an hour of which was travel out to the open sea and back. All of us had good sea legs, but Hunter lost his seat to a lady who had to sit down pretty quick. She was looking kind of green! She didn't move the entire trip.

We met up with a shrimp boat that was owned by the same company. We followed slowly behind it while it brought the shrimp nets up. We could see the shrimp in the net and watched as some floated loose of the bunch and were snatched up in the claws of the birds that squawked and hovered all around us. Other shrimp were made meals of by the dolphins swimming under the water. Some dolphins even jumped for us! At the end of that the crew of the boat we were on brought aboard other sea creatures and had dead samples of even more, including a Man-of-War, the most dangerous jelly fish out there! They sold preserved specimens in mason jars, but, uh, no thank you!

Meg and Joe had brought a baby sitter with them, so we got a couple adult night outs. Just dinner out and time away from the kids.

The way home was opposite of the way down. We left earlier than Meg and Joe because Tim had to be back, clothes washed and bags packed to catch a plane to MN the next morning. Instead of caravaning like we did on the way down, we let the GPS lead the way. When we stopped for lunch Tim took a closer look at our planned route and was shocked to see the computer was sending us toward Washington D.C.! With some adjustments and a new route thru the back twisty, hilly roads of beautiful West Virginia, we made it home two hours later than planned and a small bag full of pukey clothes. Bryce had a bit of car sickness. Even in the front seat my tummy was doing some flips.

Overall it was a good vacation. There have been quite a few times where all of us have wanted to be back there again!