We went to the beach this past weekend, and let me say it was well worth the trip down! We stayed in Wilmington Friday & Saturday nights. Friday, we went to Carolina & Kure beaches, and then stopped at Fort Fisher for a couple hours of swimming in the Atlantic Ocean. The kids had a BLAST! This was Maddy's first trip to the beach and the boys' second time. None of them wanted to come out of the ocean.
Then we went over to the point and fed the seagulls before walking out of Fort Fisher's wall. We also walked out on the Kure Beach Pier and watched the people fishing. Early Saturday morning, we had rain an some wind gusts from tropical storm Cristobal. Wilmington got over over 3 inches of rain, but only about 2 hours of our day was actually rained out. We got up that morning and went to tour the Battleship NC ( http://www.battleshipnc.com/ ) The boys loved it! We made it all the way through the first half of the main deck and had just started to go below deck when another squall line of rain came in. When we came back to the main deck, it was beautiful out! We finished the battleship and did some scenic driving past the state ports and to Carolina Beach State Park. About the time I went back to the car to get my camera, it starting pouring rain and blowing sand. So we just went back to the motel.
After our scenic drive, I had Kevin stop at Carolina Beach so I could take a couple pictures of the angry ocean (since Cristobal was right offshore). I was so glad that we didn't try to do the "beachside" thing Saturday because although the waves weren't extremely high, the ocean was very choppy.
That evening, we went to visit my Aunt on the other side of Wilmington for a couple of hours. It was a very good visit (and delicious steak dinner!) As I was loading the kids into the car, it started raining again. It continued to rain until about 8:30. Once it finally stopped, I took the kids swimming in the pool for about an hour while Kevin and his friend Chad (we went down with his family too) went fishing with my Uncle Richard. While they were gone, we found out exactly what type of motel we were staying in. Granted, we knew it wasn't the Hilton, but we didn't expect a "lady of the night" to frequent the room next to Me!! We watched this girl come and go 4 different times, leaving with a different guy each time! Needless to say, they will never get our business there again! It was funny at the time but it is something we never want to go through again.
Finally, Sunday morning arrives and we have to go home. But before we headed back, we drove to Fort Fisher again and rode the ferry to Southport. Maddy wanted to get down and go back to the van (directly below the end of the observation deck! lol) We looked around Southport a little while and then drove to Oak Island. At the west end of the island, the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway meets the ocean. You can see Holden Beach from it. We let the kids swim in the waterway since the ocean still had High rip tide warnings. They had a blast! After we were done swimming, we drove to the east side of the island again and went to see the lighthouse. It was very nice.
All in all, it was a very good vacation and was also very much needed. We hope to go back down in a couple of months, but it all depends on some things that we have going on here right now! I am looking forward to our next trip already.
