A Cold Day at the Beach

We only had one good day of beach weather last weekend. We are so thankful that we got to enjoy one morning at the beach.

On Monday we took the kids to the aquarium on Roanoke Island. One of the best things about this aquarium is that we get in FREE with our FONZ membership. I love being able to use our membership at other places besides the National Zoo. The American Alligators are one of the highlights. Wesley really enjoyed the movie, Alligator Swamp.

What the aquarium lacks in size, it makes up for in quality. There is a nice touch tank that the kids enjoyed. Below is a sea turtle. Below is a Caribben Spiny Lobster. We were only in the aquarium for a little over an hour but it was fun. So, if you are looking for a rainy day activity at the Outer Banks we recommend going to the aquarium. Lydia fell asleep in the car as soon we left. She slept while the rest of us enjoyed having Sonic for lunch. I wish a Sonic would open near us!

"What Did You Feed Him?"

Today, Wesley's preschool teacher asked me, "What did you feed him this weekend? He was a little rambunctious today."

Well, there was a lot of great food at the beach and lots of treats (lemonaid, OJ, cookies, brownies, and cakes).

This year the BBQ buffet on Saturday included this guy. He was very tasty!
Here is the food set up and ready for everyone.
This is Chris' boss, John, giving instructions on seafood prep on Sunday night. Only a few of us were allowed in the kitchen to help him. It was fun!

These were the best scallops I have ever eaten. Shyra cooked them with a little olive oil and salt and pepper. Chris normally hates scallops but he liked these.

I looked over and saw that Steve was supervising my kids while they looked at the crabs. Thank you Steve.

Jody checked out how Janie (John's wife) was cooking the soft shell crabs.

These were also delicious (albeit a little weird with the soft edible shell).

Janie and four of John's employees feasting on crabs.

After the kids went to bed, Chris had a little nap.

On Monday night we had salad, baked potatoes, and the best steaks!

Yes, we feasted!

Waves of Fun

We just returned from our annual trip to the Outer Banks with Chris' co-workers. This is the fourth year in a row that we have rented these two beautiful homes. Saturday was a beautiful warm day and we enjoyed spending three hours on the beach.
Wesley and Lydia love playing in the waves.
The waves weren't big on Saturday. The kids did get moved around by the waves but they loved it!
They also enjoyed playing with Layton again. We took sand toys down to the beach but the kids just wanted to play in the water.
More fun in the waves.
Here is Lydia taking a break. Look at the sand all over her. At one point Wesley got out of the water to rest. Or so we thought. He took his swim trunks off because they had so much sand in them and then asked, "Why can't I get in the lake naked?" Well, to start with it's the ocean and two, we don't go around naked. We couldn't help but laugh.
The birds were eating a dead fish.

The kids were also fascinated by the dead fish. Yuck!

Some of the kids came down to the beach with their clothes. I think their parents weren't expecting them to get in the water, but of course they did and they had a great time!

After getting out of the ocean, they warmed up in the hot tub.

One afternoon, Chris took Wesley out to play with some of the younger adults on the beach.

The Bike Got the Worst of It

I took the kids out before dinner so Wesley could ride his bike. He did great!

After about 45 minutes or so, he wanted to go up the big hill a little ways and ride down as fast as he could. He wasn't able to pedal very far up the hill but he pushed the bike to get where he wanted to go. He used to love gliding down the hill on his balance bike.

At first he did really well going down the hill and across the bridges. He did great breaking. But then he was going so fast that he lost all control of the bike. Too bad I wasn't videoing him. The bike was all over the place and then he crashed. I was so relieved when he immediately got up and started running to me. Thankfully, he wasn't hurt except for a couple of scrapes. I was also relieved to look up and see Chris walking toward us when the wreck happened. Wesley got one scrape above his wrist, but mainly he just scraped up his check. And the bike! He couldn't get back on it and try again (we all really wanted him to try again) because the chain came off the bike and the back axle needs to be realigned. The handle bars are scraped up but I think they are okay.

The hill is much bigger than it looks in this picture.

Wesley whined all the way home. Both kids and the bike rode in and on the stroller. Once we were home, Wesley wanted a band-aid to cover up his scrape so he couldn't see it. He was immediately fine after that.

He's Learning to Ride

After Wesley popped the back tire on his balance bike this summer, we ordered him a regular bike. He was so excited about his new bike when it arrived that the next time he saw the UPS man, he said to him, "Thank you for bringing my bike!"

I told Wesley he wasn't going to get the training wheels. When the bike arrived in the box, he pointed to the picture and said, "Look it has training wheels." I said, "Well, daddy isn't going to put them on the bike." He was fine with that.

The first time he rode the bike, I tried using a theraband like The Meanest Momma suggested. Wesley's biggest challenge was pedaling and steering at the same time.

These videos were taken during Wesley's fourth time out of his bike.

He has mastered riding down hill and on flat surfaces. He was getting the bike going like the balance bike and then putting his feet on the pedals but now he can start by pedaling.

Fun Fair

On Saturday I took the kids to a fun fair at a local church. The church gave out 20 free tickets to each child. Additional tickets were five for a dollar. The kids immediately spotted the train and wanted to go on it. The train was five tickets a person.
Next they did the big slide. The first guy we talked to said it was five times down the slide for five tickets. Since it was still early and not crowded, Wesley went ten or more times for his five tickets. In the same amount of time, Lydia went four times. She was much slower climbing the big ladder. Later in the day when it was crowded we found out it was suppose to be five tickets for one trip down the slide. Before we left, I went by the registration table and gave them some money for the all the extra slides Wesley and Lydia got at first.

Jumping in the moonbounce was three tickets for about five or more minutes. Of course, my kids loved that.

Wesley and Lydia got to check out the inside of a police car.

While I was taking this picture another dad walked up and said to me, "Let's hope this is the only time you see her in the back of a police car."

We met up with some friends and went to ride the ponies (five tickets). This pony was very big, just under 14 hands. While the adults stood in line for the kids to ride the pony, the kids played on the playground. Wesley started to get some trucks out of a storage bin at the playground. I told him not to get the trucks out and he acknowledged he heard me but he chose to disobey and get the trucks out. So, he didn't get to ride the pony as a consequence for deliberately disobeying.

The kids loved the petting zoo area (no tickets required). Wesley wanted to pet all the animals, especially the ducks.

Leslie said that the llama looked like her and that her kids really do have a llama mama. Silly mama.

Maybe Wesley was a little wild at the Fun Fair because he ate 2 3/4 donuts for breakfast. He wasn't really hungry for lunch and just wanted water. Lydia ate popcorn while I had a hotdog. I know, we were really eating well that day! We had pizza for dinner.

While we were eating, the winners of the door prizes were announced. There were five or six winners and Leslie's two girls were two of the winners! One girl won a Candy Land game and one girl won an extra twenty free tickets.

While we ate lunch, the kids enjoyed listening to and watching the orchestra perform.

Leslie rode the train with all the kids.

There was a guy making free balloon animals for the kids.

There was also free face painting but the line was very long. The kids bounced in the moon bounce again and then I rode the spinning ride with the kids and we called it a day so I could come home and watch the rest of the Hokie game with Chris.

The church must have spent a fortune on the fun fair. The food was so cheap, they weren't making a lot of money from it and they gave away so many tickets and charged so little for the rest of the tickets that I did not spend very much money. The church was promoting its new sermon series and Bible study groups. It was a great outreach to the community.

Water Play at the Sink

We recently stopped letting Wesley take a nap. He often will nap two plus hours and even if we wake it him up from his nap, he has trouble going to sleep at night. When he doesn't take a nap, he falls asleep rather quickly at night. Sometimes he even sleeps in until 7:30.

I do miss "my time" during nap time. He does play by himself or listen to books on CD for about an hour and then I play with him. It isn't the same as having a quiet house to myself.

One day last week, I had several things that I wanted to get done during Lydia's naptime. Taking a cue from one of my friends and her blog post about playing at the sink, I decided to let Wesley help me with my tasks. I let him wash my work toys - the bigger one that aren't usually mouthed and that don't have batteries. (I wash the baby toys i.e. the ones that get mouthed at the start and/or end of every session.)
Wesley spent a long time washing the toys. I was able to get some other stuff done and he had a great time cleaning the toys for me.