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!