Beach Vacation #2. Man is Henry spoiled!

Once again we find ourselves at the beach, this time in North Carolina. The water wasn't as warm as the Bahamas and the waves were larger, which was fun for us, but the kids weren't too keen on getting cold. Henry enjoyed jumping over the small surf but was most interested in digging in the sand and making giant sand castles. Henry also learned how to swim! It was basically a result of him putting on goggles and probably because he was watching Kaitlin swimming around all week. He still needs to work on technique and still has a hard time treading water to get a breath, but he finally will put his face in the water with his head down and do a general forward crawl. Yea! So once again I have to just make a list of the fun things we did because I hate logging every detail of long trips so here we go. Fun things we did....

Spent some time with our friends Sarah Morris and family in VA
Flew Henry's dragon kite for the first time on the beach
Went at night to the ocean to chase after casts of crabs with a flashlight
Climbed up a steaming hot lighthouse to see the view
Drank totally delicious regional light house root beer and decided that someday we would, instead of a wine cellar, have a root beer cellar where we kept many varieties of root beer ready to be brought up for parties and such.
Made giant sand castles with moats and waited for the tide to come in to fill it and I quote Kaitlin Chou, "Woh! I didn't know this was going to be so cool!".
Ate gourmet meals every night, including my favorite dinner, shrimp enchiladas and two of my favorite pasta recipes, caprese, and bacon squash
Actually read a book, "The new global student"
Attempted surfing again with no luck. Justin and I are getting really frustrated with ourselves. I mean, shouldn't two hard core snowboarders be able to get up?
Found one of the coolest houses we've ever seen. I just love the asymmetry of it all
Boogie boarded and body surfed as much as possible until they kicked us out of the ocean because the waves got too big(residual hurricane Bill) for you East Coast babies who don't know how to swim in real waves.
Spent countless hours in the hot tub and pool playing with the kids and getting Henry and Kaitlin to dive for grapes in the hot tub.
Found a local type of grape in NC called the Muscadine grape, yum, but the peaches were a totally let down. Big, but mealy with no juice. What a pity.

Caught two sticky tree frogs and a big toad, all of which Bea tasted
Got freaked out by the giant spiders all around the neighborhood. I'd seen them before in Japan, but not here.
Ran on the beach in the blazing heat with Courtney(because we were too lazy to get up early)
Had a photo shoot to try to get a decent photo of the family without much luck. Sorry Paige, I can't find one where everyone looks decent. Mostly Justin's fault as usual.
Unsuccessfully tried to take a photo of all the grandkids on the beach
Collected shells and jelly fish bodies washed up onto shore.
Rested, relaxed, played, slept, ate and drank delicious things. Thank-You Lynn and Burnell for the wonderful vacation!

I'm sure I missed a lot, but that's what I remember right now