Memorial Day 2010

On Memorial Day, Jack, Casey and I headed down to the Outer Banks to visit with our cousins who rented a house there for the week.  What a great day!  I even enjoyed the 2 hour drive down...so many interesting roadside stands and billboards to see.  We stopped at one stand and got some fresh strawberries, corn on the cob and potatoes.  Ever since we went strawberry picking last month, the store bought strawberries seem even more lackluster than normal.  Jack and Casey even notice it too.  We went to the Strawberry Festival on Sunday and they both kept asking where all the strawberries were.  (I guess they sold all the strawberries on Saturday.)

Anyway, back to the Outer Banks.  We arrived at a gorgeous, huge house right on the ocean with its own private pool, only steps from the beach.  We literally spent the whole day in the pool or on the beach.  Jack and Casey were anxious to go to the beach...until they saw the pool.  Jack put a lifejacket on and after about 30 minutes, he decided he didn't need to have his feet on the ground anymore and that he could actually swim.  It's still "swimming" as defined by Jack, but he really made progress in the water.

Later we went to the beach and Jack, Joey and Casey had a great time playing in the big hole that Mike was digging.  Casey sat in the hole for hours and Jack and Joey kept bringing buckets of water up for the hole.  At one point, Jack saw Mike had headed out in the ocean and he thought he should do the exact same thing and just started heading into the water.  Luckily I saw what he was doing and went after him.  I even offered to take him out there, which was no small offer.  I like my water to be bath temperature and while the ocean wasn't bone-chilling cold, I would barely have put my feet in if it weren't for Jack.  As we started heading into the water a big wave came at us and was going to break right on top of us.  I was still holding Jack's hand but I was thinking more of how cold the water was going to be instead of the fact that Jack is only about 3 feet tall and the wave would be literally breaking on his head.  He was fine but after that he wasn't as interested in heading out in the water any further.

After filling a couple buckets with shell treasures, we headed back up to the pool.  Luckily the pool was as warm as bath water and I spent a good hour in there playing with the kids.  Jack and Casey could barely be lured out of the pool with food.  Eventually Casey got tired and wanted to get out.  Jack said, "Mister Mike said I could stay in here as long as I wanted."  Eventually we convinced him to get out and get ready for dinner.

We made a short trip to feed the turtles before dinner.  It was rather amazing how many turtles flocked to the scene.  And it made for some really weird dreams that I later had about turtles.

After a delicious dinner, I packed the two exhausted kids in the car and we headed home.  The kids had a great day with their cousins in the sun and sand, and I am very grateful for the extra help I had and for the yummy food that we ate, which just made the day even better.

(That's not Jack's margarita!)