Big Kids on the Beach

 

This is Charlotte, Zander and Rehm having a great time on the beach. I am so glad that they had this opportunity to play together. They had a great time playing with the sand toys, digging holes, catching little fish and sand crabs. I think they would have stayed out there all day, which would have been fine with me.

Bubbles in the wind

 

This is one of my favorite pictures from the beach this year. When Zander couldn't wear his fireman hat, he wore his goggles instead. He loves bubbles.

Lions and Tigers and Ghost Crabs - Oh My!

 

this is a picture of the ghost crabs that Summers caught. He stayed up half of the night chasing these things.

Sea Turtles

 

When we arrived at the beach we were very excited to find out that there was an actual loggerhead turtle nest right in front of our hotel. This is a picture of it. We also found out that the eggs would hatch sometime during our stay. How lucky is that. Summers parents are both marine biologists and neither one of them have ever seen a next hatch. We watched every night and waited. We knew that the turtles would come out and go to the water and swim away. Well, that is what is supposed to happen. Around 10 one night we heard someone say, 'the turtles are coming!' We all ran to the beach and sure enough there was a hole at the top of the nest. We didn't know if it would be 10 minutes or several hours before they came out. They (team sent from the aquarium to protect the eggs)told us that we could not take pictures or use regular flashlights. Also we were not to touch the turtles when they came out. Well, about an hour later the sand looked like it started to boil and all of the little turtles were trying to come out at the same time. The problem began then. The moon was not very large that night and even though they shown the flash lights in the direction of the water, the baby turtles saw the lights on the hotel and started going the wrong direction. There were at least 20 people standing around and no one wanted to touch them because they had told us not to. It became evident in a matter of a minute that we were going to have to round up the turtles or they would be lost or eaten by the ghost crabs. I tried to pick them up and put them back in the right direction but they just kept coming at me. There were at least 20 of them coming over the top. I finally held out my T-shirt and put in very carefully as many as I could carry and took them down to the edge of the water. It was so cool to put them in a wave and watch them swim away. We continued to find babies on our walk back to the hotel. Summers stayed out for a couple of hours trying to catch ghost crabs and rescued a few more. Later in the week the group came back and dug up the nest to do the research that was required and then very carefully covered everything up. The nests are protected by the law in NC, you can not mess with them. I tried to explain to Zander and Esy how amazing what we had just seen was, but they didn't understand. I hope that they remember it later and realize how lucky we all were.

Riding the Waves

The beach was perfect this year! I can not remember a time when we didn't lose at least 1 day to the weather or really rough waves. The weather was perfect and the waves were perfect as well. We had so much fun and stayed on the beach the majority of the day. It was really scary to me to see Zander out there in the waves. You just never know what could happen out there, but he had a great time. I did too. That spot at that beach is my favorite place to be and I am so glad that I was able to share it with my whole family.

Funnel Cloud!!!

 

You have to look hard but you can see the funnel cloud. It was awesome to watch. The funnel would form and then it would touch down on the water for a few seconds and then go back up. It contined for quite a while.

Zander and Esy

 

Zander and Esirae

Grandkids

 

The best we could do trying to get 6 kids to sit still and take a picture. We had just watched a water spout and we were getting ready to leave the beach.

And they're off!

 

Summers and Zander riding go carts at he beach

Professor Hacker's Golf

 

This is a photo from Professor HAcker's Golf at the beach. Zander loves to go there because you get to take a train ride. I hate it because it is so hot!

Wet N Wild Emerald Point

Sunday our family went to Emerald Point. Summers new company paid for us to go and provided lunch. It was very nice. We had a fabulous time. We swam in the wave pool, let Zander play at splash island and our favorite thing was the wild rafting rapids. It was a raft with three holes in it so we could all ride together. You went down a huge slide and built up alot of speed. There was a big splash at the bottom. Zander was scared but loved it. We also rode the lazy river. The picture is from the lazy river. That is where Zander took his nap. I think we went around 6 times before he woke up. It was a wonderful day.

Beach

We had a great beach trip. The ocean continued to be really rough until Friday and Saturday. But those days were perfect. You could walk way out and just sit on the sand and watch the kids play. We saw jelly fish, crabs and a porteuguese man o' war. A man on the beach caught a small shark and Zander got to touch it and look at it really close. We also visited the aquarium which all of the kids loved. Zander's favorite thing was the Sand Tiger Shark. He also like the Morey Eel. He brought a stuffed one home with him.
http://picasaweb.google.com/bohenstiel/AquariumVisit2007?authkey=6f_YZF8ymzk



We took all of the kids to play putt-putt. They got to ride the train and played 18 holes of golf. That was enough for us all. It was really hot and sticky. Zander and I rode the go carts. He loved it. They had a two seater, so he thought he was driving.
http://picasaweb.google.com/bohenstiel/MinatureGolfGoCartRide?authkey=H7ZiNceUfXo


My favorite part was our trip over to the waterfront. Zander and I went for a boat ride. We got to see all of the wild horses on the islands. It was alot of fun. Zander liked going fast
http://picasaweb.google.com/bohenstiel/BoatRide?authkey=Dy2trDAURcg

travel day

We went to breakfast on Sunday morning and gave Daddy kisses and then headed for the beach. It was quite uneventful. Zander did great. He watched The Jungle Book and then the Lion King. We stopped for lunch and before you know it we were at the beach. Believe it or not, our room was ready. Zander did not understand that we had to unpack our things and eat dinner. He thought we were going in the ocean. After all of that it was time to go to bed.



On Monday morning, we woke up and met Jenn and the kids for breakfast. After that we came back and went to the beach. It was fun but, it was really rough. We had to stand right with the kids or they would wash away. They have pumped sand up onto the beach and it was really deep right at the edge. They had a great time, except for the babies. Eliza wanted no part of it, so they went in for a nap. After lunch and naps we went to the pool. Chalotte and Rehm have learned to swim, Zander did great with his life vest on and the babies want to swim. Mom got in the water with us for the first time in maybe 20 years or more. It was a great 1st day at the beach.

Vacation Day

On Friday, I had the day off from work. Zander and I went to breakfast at Mickey's with Cici and Papa and all of their breakfast friends. It was nice, we haven't gotten to do that in a long time.
When we got home, we dyed Easter Eggs. This was our first time. I think I got it all on video tape but you know how that goes. We will see. It was quite uneventful. We covered the table, I let him drop the tablets in the water. He was more interested in the magic (clear) crayon that came with the pack than anything else. We dyed our eggs and cleaned up. I hope that he remembers times like that with me as fondly as I do. That was Easter to me, getting to dye the eggs and taking pictures after church on Sunday. Then our parents hid eggs for us at Granny's house for us to find. They weren't just thrown on the ground either, they hid them. It was alot of fun.
So, in memory of my childhood, we will have the first annual Easter Egg hunt tomorrow after lunch. I have stuffed over 100 eggs full of candy. Sounds wonderful, huh? The only problem is it is only supposed to be in the 30's tomorrow. We will see how it goes.