Here he is helping Opu get plugged in...
...and wearing Aunt Ulli's hat.
Once on the beach, though, we did a lot of running after Charlie, who was alternately fearless and perturbed that the water didn't listen when he asked it to stop moving. But he was outnumbered 8 to 1, and I highly recommend this ratio when at the beach with a 2-year-old.
He loves the sandbox at home, so we did lots of sandcastles and crab hunting. We saw a few pretty good-sized specimens, and "pincers" has now entered his vocabulary after a long discussion about why we don't pick up crabs.
The garage of the house we stayed in was full of sand toys, and we found a few kites as well. I haven't flown a kite in probably 20+ years, and we all had a good time keeping it going and watching Charlie try to figure out the physics of flight.
We took off to Wilmington for 1 day as a little break from the beach, and had a great time. The highlight, for Charlie anyhow, was a trip to the Railroad Museum. They have a great children's room with train tables and toys, as well as a huge model train with push-button automation. He's been talking about the museum ever since we got back!
We also took a nice boat ride on the Cape Fear River (yep, it's that Cape Fear), which passes by the USS North Carolina. We decided not to stop because of the heat, but it was fun to ride around the river with no particular purpose.
The next day, we visited a turtle rescue hospital in Topsail Beach. The NC State vet students do surgeries on the turtles and help determine treatment plans, and then the turtles recuperate until they're ready to head back into the ocean. We got to see 6 turtles, some of which were 100+ pounds, and they were just amazing. Sadly, we couldn't take any photos, but you can check out the turtle-cam at their website.
On our last day, the water was calm enough that we took Charlie out in the ocean for some wave-jumping. Earlier in the week, my mom got bowled over getting out of the ocean, and it was little touch-and-go getting her back to a standing position. We were laughing because I'd convinced her to tie up her halter top before we got in, and thank goodness she did! So when I made my exit with Charlie, I figured no problem, and then had my bikini bottom yanked down by a wave. The sting rays and half of my family got a nice free show that day! Evan was watching from the shore, and neither of us could stop laughing...
A little post-swim rest and snack break
The Marbaise girls...
...and their toes!
One last family shot before we took off....
A few interesting discoveries of note:
-One 2-year old can easily occupy/amuse a group of adults for several hours, given that these adults are not the child's parents.
-Poop that stays in a swim diaper for too long turns grey.
-If you put carbonated beverages in a sippy cup, the pressure will cause a six foot stream of liquid to shoot out. This is my punishment for assuming that Sprite was really water.
