NC: Day 3

Today we had a relaxing morning, complete with glasses trying on sessions.

  

After lunch, we took the ferry over to Fort Fisher to visit the aquarium. The ferry ride was a huge hit. The girls thought it was so cool to drive our van onto a boat. We were lucky it was such a beautiful day for riding out on the deck. 

The aquarium was so much better than we expected. The girls loved the giant statues. And seeing all the fish and jellyfish and other sea life.

MiniM.E. thought she had found the best part of the place when we stumbled across the tiger shark touch tank...

Until we walked out to the playground and found the dinosaur walk. It was so well done!

I'm pretty sure the girls would have stayed into the night, but we had to catch the ferry back for dinner plans with Uncle Dave. 

NC: Day 2

Off to Myrtle Beach!

First stop: Alligator Adventure. We visited Alligator adventure the last time we came to NC with just Molly, and even though she was in the stroller and probably didn't care, it was my favorite place we visited.

And it was WAY BETTER with kids. Or maybe they made it better since our last visit? Or I just don't remember.

But there were alligators everywhere. And they had lots of other animals too!

We got to see two animal shows, one where MiniM.E. and Meamaw and Grandpa got to touch and alligator, and another where she got to hold a tortoise.

After Alligator Adventure we went to the SkyWheel (per request of MiniM.E. who loves ferris wheels). It was eons better than we expected. And also four times as expensive. But worth it.

The girls took a walk on the beach with Meamaw and Grandpa while Bob and I took a break with BabySlimJim.

The grand finale of the day was the Pirate's Voyage dinner. They didn't allow photography (not that I could have taken many photos while trying to feed BabySlimJim a bottle and get him to sleep and feed LittleL.G. and I chicken on the bone!) so I just have this one photo of MiniM.E. in the gift shop. But it was so fun and totally worth it if you are near one.

NC: Day 1

I have big plans for our week here. I didn't realize how much cool stuff there was to do around Southport, and even though we drove so we packed some toys, and Meamaw and Grandpa got some toys for the kids, I knew (especially with curious crawling baby) that we couldn't spend lazy days relaxing at home.

So today we started with breakfast at Taylor's for their favorite purple pancakes. Which I thought were great. Even if the kids didn't agree.

It wasn't very nice, so we headed to the Southport Maritime museum. It was small but had a good number of entertaining things for the kids to play with. MiniM.E. especially liked the real sail rigging.

We decided to head to Wilmington about a half hour away to visit their well-reviewed Children's Museum since most of the Southport activities were outdoors.

Meamaw and Grandpa stayed home to prepare for the big day we have planned at Myrtle Beach tomorrow.

The Children's Museum was definitely worth the trip. The girls LOVED it, until they decided to have a fire drill.

Fortunately the weather cleared so we had a snack at a restaurant by the water and watched the boats.

Back home for dinner and early to bed!

Road Trip: Day 3

We made it! I have to add FINALLY! Because it was a loooong day of driving.

We stayed a while to swim again in the morning before we left the hotel so that (maybe) the kids would rest in the car and we could take a break to stop for lunch.

It was a pretty yucky day out but we did have one stop scheduled at the Vollis Simpson Whirligig Park, courtesy of RoadTrippers. It was early in the drive and was probably the stop farthest off our path, but I really thought we needed something to break up the day and it sounded really neat.

Here is what we saw when we arrived at the destination, courtesy of Waze.

We had just driven through a part of town where I was glad our doors auto-lock and we had to pull into an unused parking lot to see this across the street. The kids wanted to get out and walk around but I insisted we just look out the window and proceeded to curse RoadTrippers as I tried to change a baby in the passenger seat of the car.

It was humorously frustrating, but I guess that's the risk you take planning a roadtrip through an app. And we headed on our way.

And as we were driving, we passed... 

The ACTUAL whirligig park. 

Which REALLY WAS neat and exciting. Turns out RoadTrippers is awesome after all!

Of course, the trip took much longer than we planned. The weather was yucky and we were all tired, but at least we made it!

We unloaded the half-house we brought and the girls opened Easter baskets and made a giant mess. It was a fantastic welcome.