Last weekend of Summer Vacation

So last week was the girls' last days of summer vacation and I wanted to make the most out of it.  I took Friday off so we could have an open 3 days to plan stuff, and boy did we plan stuff!  We began Thursday evening by having Karsyn and Kailey over for a late night weinie roast and smores event.  They had been over the previous weekend and wanted to come back to ride 4-wheelers and spend the night, so we had them for entertainment all Thursday night and all day Friday.  When I say all night Thursday, its not to let you know they spent the night, but to tell you they were up ALL night Thursday!  Emily and Karsyn finally went to bed at 4am Friday morning.  That didn't keep them from being wide open all Friday though.  We put the inflatable slide up and between that and the 4-wheelin' they were busy.  They had asked our neighbor last time they rode if they could ride down his driveway and through his property to make them a bigger trail and he said it was fine.  He wasn't around Friday to ask again, so they made themselves at home.  They made dirt paths through the grass at our house by lunchtime and it dawned on me that there very well may be the same thing going on over at Clifford's house!  Whoops!  Oh well.  When you see 4 girls on 4 4-wheelers, you don't go out in the cloud of dust to stop them!  The waterslide had made a huge mudhole in the back yard and so that was an opportunity for them to go muddin' and our backyard looked like a 4-wheel drive mud event had taken place.  I had to hose down the kids before they could get in the car to go home! It was hilarious to see 4 little girls in bikinis, some barefooted, some muddy, some in cowboy boots, and one in mud boots.  It was a hoot!  Abigail has just learned to ride by herself and you would see the first 3 girls flying by and then Abigail in her bikini and cowboy boots carefully maneuvering behind them.  I really hated seeing the other girls go home because they were having so much fun. 

Making Dust

The Gang

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words!

Friday night we all crashed and slept like rocks.  Emily had an early morning softball practice Saturday morning that I had to drag her to and by Saturday night we were ready to go to the drive in movies.  My kids had never been to one and that was one thing on my list of TO DO this summer.  We saw a double feature of ParaNorman and Diary of a Wimpy Kid.  We sat in the back of the truck and fought over the towels and blankets I had packed because it got really cold on us after dark.  I have to say that this was a good idea and fairly cheap (and I like cheap) way of doing it.  $18 and all 4 of us watched 2 new movies! 

Tailgating at the Drive In

Sunday morning Emily went to spend the day with a friend and Abigail, Brandon, and I went to Morrow Mountain.  We had a picnic KFC lunch, went canoeing, and then went on a 4 mile hike to "The Rocks".  We had a very active day.

 

I hated to see the evening come and the thoughts of the 1st day of school came to my mind.  We had to rush around and find all the Wal-Mart and Target bags that contained precious new items for the new school year.  We couldn't find Abi's backpack and she ended up carrying Emily's old LL Bean one that has Emily's name embroidered across it.  She didn't seem to mind.  Bless the heart of a second child that doesn't even get phased by a "new" hand me down!  Abigail danced around the house and was so excited for school to start the next day.  This was a good feeling knowing that they were going to a new school.  Our beautiful nice school that is exactly 1 mile from our house got shut down and now they are being shipped into Locust to be put in a building built in the 1950's.  Nice huh? 
Anyway today was the 2nd day of school and again Abigail is singing and dancing around the house, but for a different reason...  She lost her 1st tooth tonight!  Yes, her first!  She is 7 years old and had a beautiful little mouth full of baby chicklet teeth until now.  Her permanent tooth for the one she lost is already in and so it was kind of necessary for Brandon to hook it with dental floss and jerk it right out of her little mouth.  She just told me that she cried because she had tears of joy not because it hurt!  She is so funny.  She was in the bathroom about 20 minutes after it being pulled getting ready for a bath.  I looked in at her because I heard her singing about the tooth and she was stripped down naked, slinging a shirt around and around over her head, and shaking her butt to her singing.  She truly is happy over this one!

Out with the Old, in with the New!

Well we spent the rest of our 4 day weekend cleaning out both girls' bedrooms, moving furniture, and giving the upstairs bathroom an update.  What a job that was.  I was so happy to go back to work on Monday so I could get some rest. 
Emily took our old queen size bed and gave Abigail all of her "little girl" furniture and we still haven't decided if we are going to put Abi's old furniture in the spare bedroom or just take it to the basement to add to the massive "old" furniture storage area down there.  Abigail has started sleeping on Emily's floor over the past several monthes just so she could be with her.  We decided to just go buy a queen mattress and give them a place to sleep together.  Now that Emily has the new bed she doesn't want Abi to sleep in her room.  All that work for nothing?  Oh well, I am not switching back now!
Emily has zebra curtains on 2.5 of her 3 windows and we are waiting for the last panel to come in so we can have Mawmaw Kaye hem them to the right length.  We need to get her a huge bookcase to consolidate all her little ones and we need to put some pictures on the wall and hopefully we will be done in there for another 3-4 years!  Abi's room needs a new ceiling fan (so we can get rid of the Tinker Bell one that is so 4 years ago).  Thank goodness Emily had a selection of old bedding stuff for Abi to choose from so we didn't have to buy new stuff for in there. 
The bathroom had a princess castle and frog theme and we got rid of all that and put in a Paris travel theme to go along with the "mannequin" Abigail purchase last month. It all looks pretty good to have come off the clearance rack at Sears!

New accessories-I slid them all to one side for them to get in picture together

New Bathroom Rug with no toothpaste stains yet!

Eiffel Tower Shower curtain-HOW CUTE!

Emily's new room. Still need to hem curtains and add stuff to walls

Abigail's "new" bed

Abigail's desk with dresser mirror to the side that Brandon "forgot" to hang over her dresser for her

18 Hour Beach Blast

Brandon and I were both off for a 4 day weekend this week.  We watched the weather and decided that the first day of our "vacation" would have the best weather so we decided to take a quick trip to the beach.  When I say quick I mean QUICK!  There are a million other things that we need to get done this weekend and we wanted to be at home to do them.  Brandon insisted that we leave at 3:30am, but I tweaked with the alarm clock before bed and hit snooze several times!  We did leave at 4:55am though.  We were eating breakfast in Supply at 7:55am and on the beach by 9am. 

My girls enjoying there half priced boogie boards!

HB Bridge.  I remember the first time I went over this bridge in 1986 I put my canvas float under me in the back seat of the car just in case the bridge caved in. There used to be a draw bridge here until this bridge opened.

Magic Mountain Waterslides. Doesn't look like it has changed a bit!

The good ole Beach Mart.  Went here every time I came to the beach as a child looking for some special trinket or keepsake.

Now who do we have here guarding the Keebler snack box and beef jerky??? Ahh, it's my shade loving husband!

Our little piece of the beach.

Here we are at Sunset Beach's Twin Lakes Restaurant on the waterway

My Silly Hushpuppy Eater

My Silly Blue Eyed Beauty

I wanted to go down to Holden Beach since we hadn't been there in over a decade.  I talked to some people a few weeks ago at a ball tournament from West Brunswick and it stirred some nostalgia and a need to go back there.  I told the people from Shallotte that I pretty much spent all the summers of my childhood there at Holden Beach, but we had to travel to Shallotte to go to Burger King and Food Lion.  They told me that Holden Beach had a Food Lion now and they told me of all the places in Shallotte that were still there and what had shut down.  I told them that when I was little anytime a car was pointed in that direction I was in it!  They reassured me that Magic Mountain was still there. This was a waterslide place that my grandpa Wetter would drop me off at and come back and get me when my time was up.  This is strange to think about because I was pretty young and on my own.  There was also a public pool nearby that he would take me to and leave me for several hours.  I had to be somewhere between 8-12 years old!  Could you imagine doing that now with kids? 
Anyway we went to the beach and set up our area and the kids played hard all day long.  I was relieved to find out that they still hadn't let big business and high rises on the island. That is what I love so much about North Carolina beaches like this. I love the colorful houses and not having the sun blocked by a 30 feet tall building right on the ocean!  I read 2 magazines from cover to cover and Brandon read a book under his little sunflower umbrella.  Brandon is not really a sit on the beach kind of guy, but the umbrella made it more bearable for him.  He doesn't have a love for the beach and blames it on all the years he worked for Allendale Furniture and had to work at the beach delivering and setting up furniture.  So I was lucky to have him agree to come along and sit there all day with us!  Abigail and Emily bought themselves a boogie board down at the HB General Store and they practiced catching waves.  Abigail got pretty lucky on several, but she paid the price because she crashed and burned a few times.  The area where the waves break was full of a thick bed of broken shells and she would get churned up in there almost everytime she came in.   I had to keep taking her out in the deeper water to wash the shells out of her bathing suit.  She would have these quarter sized shells in her crack and all up in her suit.  She was tough though and kept at it despite the bleeding leg, knee, back, and feet!
We played until 4:30 or so and then packed up to go down to Sunset Beach where we went to the Twin Lakes Seafood Restaurant.  It was really nice and right on the waterway.  We has some really good tuna steak, shrimp, and flounder and ended with the "Beached Whale" dessert.  Abigail spent dessert time with her head down on the table asleep and woke up when all that was left was a dollop or whipped cream.  Thank goodness she wasn't in the mood for dessert! 
We left Sunset Beach at 7pm exactly and pulled into our driveway at 9:55pm.  I think this was our quickest trip home ever!  We all got quick showers (during a thunder storm) and climbed into bed together.  I didn't want kids upstairs because of the wind so we all snuggled together in one bed.  Emily eventually went to couch to sleep and Abigail slept across me and Brandon's feet.  We are such a cooky family but we have a fun time being cooky!