North Topsail, NC 2009 with Jefferies

After a pretty uneventful car ride we arrived in North Topsail ready to relax. And relax we did. We spent a week at the beach. That's pretty much it and it was wonderful. Lucy spent as much of the week as she could in the waves or building wet sand castles. She wore Ian out so much that he was falling asleep just minutes after the girls nearly every night. They even spent hours out in the ocean on rainy days in 75 degree weather. They turned blue, but they were in the ocean and Lucy was loving it. Lu loved collecting shells and rocks, rolling around in the smaller waves and "feeding the fish" sand that she tossed out into the ocean.

Harper ran around, chased seagulls and stayed away from the waves. She did not like the look of the waves- at all. She eventually decided that she liked the wet sand in the evenings and the puddles that were left behind at low tide. She ate sand, destroyed sand castles and collected shells. She also loved deconstructing seaweed.

While not at the beach they both enjoyed reading with Gramzie and Pop Pop, playing in the curtains in the rooms, taking long showers, and watching the waves and seagulls from the balcony. Lucy loved going to the turtle hospital with Gramzie and Pop Pop and Harper just plained loved Pop Pop. In fact, Harper would say over and over again at every meal "sit down Pop Pop, sit down". He also got extra hugs and kisses and she treated him like a jungle gym. Lucy and Gramzie had their own lovefest playing with a dollhouse and doing crafts. Lucy entertained us all one night with her version of "Don't stop believin'". In fact, Harper liked it so much that she danced and clapped and thought she was part of the show.
Lucy also enjoyed a treasure hunt and loved spying "pirate ships" each and every day out in the ocean. And one of her "summer list" items was fulfilled- to get ice cream from the ice cream truck. She chose a gigantic popsicle from "Pop Pop's ice cream" (the real name of the truck!) and Harper got a Tweedy bird ice cream- as big as her head. Both girls liked to see the helicopters that breezed along the shoreline every day.

All in all it was a great vacation. Ian caught up on sleep in the evenings and I did so in the mornings. We got to spend time together in the afternoons while the girls napped and I didn't go into labor, so that was definitely a great thing- although little man did like to keep me up in the middle of the night!

We made it home in decent time on Saturday with a pretty uneventful ride home. Lucy was ready to call friends an hour after we got home and Harper was ready for a good nap. Being away from home served us all well- now we have more energy to pull the house together, get ready for the birthdays, baby and school that are looming and dream of our next beach trip!

wit

Smoosh Face

Pass the Windex, please. My favorite feature in the new house is the huge windows throughout. We have glass front and back doors, a bay window, an entire wall of windows in the kitchen, etc. And the girls like them too. Harper in particular. She has never been able to look out of a window on her own before and now suddenly, she can always look out a window. This means that she is fascinated with yelling out the windows, banging on the glass and yes, smashing her face into the panes. Lucy tries to have entire conversations through the windows and if she is outside and I am inside and she catches me looking at her, she feels the need to come and tell me something, anything, each and every time. All that going in and out and looking out the windows means that I have finger prints, nose prints, forehead prints and even some tongue prints all over the house. "All over the house". That sounds nice. Still no complaints here. Still love the windows. Will love them even more when Lucy and Harper learn how to clean them.

No flower power here

Lucy got a new bike a few weeks ago. Funny story that I hadn't put on the blog and wanted to make sure was included:

Ian and I went and scouted out bikes before I actually took Lucy to buy the bike. This way we were in agreement on price, etc and I could steer Lucy towards the bike we wanted her to get and still let her think it was her decision. We chose a bike named "flower power". Pretty typical, pink with pink and purple flowers on it, white tires, etc. Same ol' bike you've seen a million little girls riding on any sidewalk in any neighborhood. Uh, we forgot we were dealing with Lucy.

When Lucy and I got to the store and I let her look around for a minute and then I began hyping up the cool "flower power" bike. She said something like, "Yeah, it's ok. But... it's pink." We forgot one crucial part of Lu's sense of style- no pink and certainly nothing that is super-girly. It just isn't her thing. Instead she directed me to the Thomas the Tank Engine bike that was about 3 times as much as the bike Ian and I had chosen. So she continued to look. The final outcome? "The gravel crusher". It is the same as the flower power bike but the boys' version. It is blue and yellow with black tires. She wanted a basket for the front, to her dismay they did not have a black basket, only white ones with flowers on them. She settled for one that had some rainbow colors thrown in. In the end we have a boys' bike with purple and white streamers, a rainbow basket, a silver airplane attached on the handlebars and a pink bell (the Easter Bunny forgot about the pink thing too and brought a pink bell in her basket this year). She thinks it is the coolest. I guess now that we have a boy on the way a preschooler sized bike will not be a thing we have to buy again. Hopefully Harper won't mind its gravel crushing ways.

Move in/ tails

Photos from moving day. Ronin and X joined us and all four of the kids ran around the backyard with tails on. Lucy misses Ronin so much and begs to see him all the time.