Ten Days {...at the beach}

Our beach trip went by way too fast. There was so much going on every single day. It was such a great time! We got there Friday, May 1st and Johnny and Maura (Tony's brother and his fiance) got there just minutes after we did. They spent the whole weekend with us and we really had a great time together! Friday night, I did Johnny and Maura's engagement pictures. Here's one of them and the rest of them (well, mostly the rest) are posted on my photography blog.

Saturday was too chilly to stay out on the beach, so instead, we just hung out with Johnny and Maura, then around five, Maura and I headed out to find a great spot and take her bridal portraits. I had so much fun doing them and it was quite stressful at the same time. Something happened to my BEST lens while we were out shooting and I almost had a breakdown. I switched to a different lens and everything was fine, and then when we returned home, it was working fine. It was extremely muggy in the location we chose and I'm thinking that had something to do with my lens malfunctioning? I don't know, but it really freaked me out a little. Oh, and Maura's bridals are beautiful, but I can't share them until after the wedding, because Johnny would surely sneak on for a peek. ;)

And Saturday night, Johnny cooked us an amazing meal of shrimp, salmon, chicken, and rice pilaf. It was really great. Here's Uncle Johnny and (soon to be) Aunt Maura with Noah and Emma...

Sunday was GORGEOUS!!! We spent the whole day on the beach! There was a group of kite boarders out, because it was super windy and I took about two hundred pictures of them doing their thing. I'm pretty sure they thought I worked for the paper or something, because one of them kept showing off right in front of me and smiling for my camera. It was so funny! :)

But what was hands down the funniest thing ever was this... When we first got onto the beach, the wind was blowing SO HARD that Emma's beach ball took off at top speed down the beach. It was hilarious!!! Tony chased it and chased it and chased it until we could no longer see him at all. MILES he ran down the beach chasing this $1 beach ball!!! hahahahahaha.... Okay, here's a picture of him returning from his impromptu run...

And here's my most precious little love muffin in his beach get-up...

Omgosh, I could eat him... how many times have I told you that???

And Tony and Emma spent the whole day building a sand castle... This girl loves the beach so much. She would stay out from sun up to sun down every day if we would let her. Such a sweetheart...

Building sand castles is such hard work...

Then, Monday we headed to Wilmington because #1... I really wanted to eat at The Waffle House and the closest one is 30 minutes away in Wilmington. Since we were driving all the day there, we thought... Hey! Maybe we'll head over to Fort Fisher and go to the Aquarium. So, that's what we did and somehow, we passed the road to the Aquarium and suddenly were upon a ferry. We had no idea where this ferry went, but we knew Emma would LOVE it! And as chance would have it, the ferry was leaving like 30 seconds from the time we pulled, up so we paid the $5 fee and onto the ferry we went.. the last car! :) That's when we found out this was the ferry to Southport. We didn't know what that was or where that was, but that was where we were going!

When we first got out of our car, this cool blackbird was on the back netting of the boat! He was so cool! See how he's looking at me?!? I quit taking his picture, because I thought he might attack me if I kept snapping..

Here's Noah and Daddy on the boat.... Let me tell you a funny story about this picture... the next night was cinco de mayo... Tony and I made strawberry margaritas... you'll read about that in a minute... and during the drinking of the margaritas, we started looking at these pictures from the day before... well, you know.. I had a little margarita in me, so I photoshopped Noah's hair onto Tony's head... pahahahahahahahaa!!! Okay... you had to be there, but seriously, we were close to peeing on ourselves after I did that... oh, and plus, I made his teeth like super duper glowing white and I made his skin look like a mask. It was the funniest crap EVER!!!! I wish I woulda saved it, but the funnier I made him look, the less and less funny he thought it was, so to save the marriage, I deleted the photo.. ;) However, you can picture it and you KNOW it's funny!

Tony took this of me and my babies. Hair's a little messy, my hand's over Emma's head like a claw and Noah's not looking, but other than that... it's perfect, dontcha think? Oh, and my boobs are hanging out. Sorry for that. ;)

Pretty, pretty princess on the ferry. She thought it was the coolest thing ever. That was the point. We knew she would think it was the coolest thing ever.


Just a pretty bird in the water by the boat.. probably hoping we would throw him some food... we didn't.

And Southport is the coolest little town EVER!!!! Pretty much no chain stores there, it's all little mom and pop stores. Loved it so much!! And THIS one was my VERY favorite!
Emma got to see her favorite old man in the world. Emma's one of those kids that sings Christmas Carols year round.. every day... loves Santa.. talks about him daily..
The Christmas House had a cool gazebo attached to it that had this cool train going around the top of it.. Emma loved it..

My fam-a-lam..

And here's Cinco De Mayo... do you know we bought that blender just so we could make strawberry margaritas? It's fabulous too, it's like a bar blender. Makes super smooth, perfect drinks. Oh, and it also does pancake batter quite well. I used it for that Thursday morning...

Tony said I make the BEST margaritas. I do. You should come over and try them sometime.

Emma's margarita was VERY virgin. Please refrain from calling dss. Thanks.

Noah wanted some of the action, but instead he got a bottle of milk and went to bed.
Here's WEdnesday morning. We were determined to find that Aquarium and boy did we!
I do not know how we missed the aquarium sign. It was so blatantly obvious. The only thing I can think is that God knew we were just supposed to take the ferry to Southport on Monday, so he temporarily made the sign invisible? It could totally happen. Right?

Okay, so this is a cool, pretty duck in a pond at the start of our aquarium visit.

Emma was so stinkin happy to be here. She loved every second of it.

This is at the part of the aquarium where you can touch the shell fish and anemones. I'm pretty sure this guy had a crush on Tony. Look how he's looking at him. Freaky. And Emma's holding a conch of some sort...

Noah very much wanted to be a part of this touching action. He was very happy when we let hiim out of the confines of his stroller and allowed him to splash in the water.

Emma the crab

Such a little daredevil he is!!! Emma was absolutely terrified of this alligator! Noah.. no way! He could not wait to get as close as possible. By the way, this guy's a statue in case you're questioning my parenting at the moment...

Then when she saw her brother's enthusiasm, she got a little closer, but still... not too close...
Thursday, my dad and brother came down and they stayed with us until Sunday. It was nice to have them. They fished most of the time so we didn't really see a whole lot of them, but still, they were there and we enjoyed them. Here's my dad and Noah having a conversation on the beach on Saturday.
I have a few more pictures I'm going to upload and share with you, but for the moment, this is it! :) Sorry it took me so long to get these up. The internet service at the beach is horribly sucky, so I just did not have the patience to wait thirty minutes for five pictures to upload down there. I'll share more with you later. :)


p.s. Yes, Jessica, I meant to say Holy Crow below. Everyone says Holy Cow and somewhere, sometime I heard Holy Crow and decided I liked it, so now it's mine. You can borrow it if you'd like. ;)