a week at the beach

A little before 1:30 this morning, we returned home from a weeklong stay at the beach. Yes, we were crazy enough to put the boys in the car at 11:15 last night to make the drive back home. (Bennett was already asleep but woke up briefly while we were fastening his car seat. Anderson fell asleep about thirty minutes into Star Wars Episode III, which he has seen at least one hundred times.) We decided to cut our trip short because Bennett contracted the vomit/diarrhea virus and had a high fever. We all agree that our vacation was so much fun...until Bennett got sick. At that point, we became confined to the condo with a beautiful view of the Atlantic but no ability to venture out and enjoy it as a family. (Sigh...) One of our favorite activities while on vacation is dining out at various restaurants, sampling a variety of foods. But when you are certain that the food will too quickly make its way through your child's digestive system at any unpredictable (and usually most inconvenient) time, you really do lose your appetite for dining out (pun absolutely intended).

Enough of the less enjoyable moments of our trip....

We arrived at the beach late Sunday afternoon. We unpacked and went to The Deckhouse for seafood. Paul and Anderson are always happy to eat seafood! They both ate a lot of shrimp this past week.

The first day of our vacation was so much fun. We drove into Wilmington (just a quick fifteen minute drive) to take the boys to Monkey Joe's, an indoor facility with inflatable houses and slides for children and adults to enjoy. After we expended quite a bit of energy racing through the obstacle courses, climbing up and bouncing across inflatable walls and floors, and sliding down slides, we decided to go to Mayfair near Wrightsville Beach to eat Asian cuisine at Mama Fu's. The food was delicious, but as we left the restaurant for a little shopping excursion, Bennett had a blow out--our first clue that maybe things in his digestive system were not "just right". We now laughingly refer to Mama Fu's as "Mama Poo's". Needless to say, I didn't get to shop any that evening, but I knew I would have more opportunities later in the week. Or so I thought.

The second day we went to The Children's Museum in the historic riverfront district in Wilmington. We had a blast playing in the grocery store where Anderson was the cashier and bagged the groceries for me. I enjoyed loading my grocery cart and withdrawing money from the pretend ATM. Little did I know at the time, this would be my only shopping trip of the week. When we left the grocery store section, Anderson informed me that he wouldn't mind working in a grocery store when he got a little older, and I told him that was one of his dad's first jobs when he was young. Bennett loved Anderson's and my performance for him in the puppet theater. Paul and I enjoyed the performance stage and the karaoke stage (surprise!). We even did a televised interview for the boys where I was the reporter interviewing Paul who had just won his first U.S. Open golf championship. One of the funniest moments of that day was when I next interviewed Anderson, the quarterback who had just won the super bowl. When I asked him to whom did he attribute his success to, he quickly and confidently answered, "The cheerleaders." Yeah, I'm already praying for him. The testosterone is on the rise, and adolescence is closer than I am comfortable with.

After we left the museum, we walked down towards the river and ate at Elijah's. The boys especially enjoyed sitting out near the water. Bennett kept pointing at the river and saying, "wa-wa", which is "water". In fact, every time we drove over a bridge at the beach, he instantly found the water and pointed it out to us.

The following day the boys joined me at the lake at the beach that has a playground and paved trail encircling it. The lake is filled with wildlife, including alligators, which Paul is not all that happy about. Every time he sees the "do not feed the alligators" sign, he just shakes his head in disapproval that they would even allow alligators to live in a lake by a park where kids play. Paul has a little crocodile/alligator phobia, and he's not ashamed to admit it. Anyway, I ran around the lake while the boys played.

I finished my run, and we departed for the condo, but as Bennett was falling asleep, we decided to go ahead and take the ferry to Southport and then drive to Myrtle Beach for the day. We got to the ferry only to find that it would not depart for at least an hour. So, we grabbed a quick lunch and decided to start driving towards Myrtle.

We stopped at one of the first putt-putt golf facilities we came to at North Myrtle Beach. It is the one that is a volcano with red water running down it that is supposed to be lava. Anderson had an early lead, then Paul and I were tied for the lead, but by the time we finished eighteen holes of putt-putt golf, Paul was the winner by about seven strokes, thanks to quite a few holes-in-one. We were all a bit distracted as we played because Bennett wanted to dive into all of the water hazards and waterfalls. It was not an easy task monitoring him on the course, to say the least. We have already decided that this summer he will be living in a life jacket. That's all there is to it.

Next, we took the boys to Broadway at the Beach where we played on the outdoor playground and fed the huge fish in the lake there. Still, I didn't get to go shopping. The boys had been confined enough in the car that we didn't need to take them into stores and expect them to be well-behaved.

At the end of the day, we drove to Calabash, NC where we planned on eating at Beck's, the home of the original calabash-style seafood, but they were closed. So, we walked across the street to The Boundary House where we had a fabulous meal with an excellent waitress with whom Bennett was just smitten. He flirted with her all night--grinning, smiling, laughing, and jabbering at her wherever she was--even when she was across the restaurant. And she loved every minute of it. He is so outgoing, he just started smiling and jabbering at everyone seated nearby. One lady, when she left her table, stopped by just to talk to him, and then she started waving at him from across the restaurant as well. He was truly the center of attention that evening, and Anderson was a gracious big brother in allowing him to shine. I guess when you have had all of our attention for so many years, you are confident enough to allow others to have it sometimes. I don't think a better big brother has ever existed. I really don't.

The next morning, we went to Hugh MacRae park, a beautiful park in Wilmington that I highly recommend visiting if you enjoy walking or running or if you want a safe playground for the children. Paul and the boys played while I ran. After my run, we drove a few blocks down Oleander to a driving range where we dropped Paul off while the boys and I headed for the mall so I could shop for maybe an hour at the most. I was so excited that I was finally going to get to shop! Halfway to Mayfair Shopping Center, I heard the unmistakable sound of vomiting, followed by Anderson's voice, "Oh my gosh, he just threw up!" We did a u-turn, returned to the range where Paul finished up just one bucket of balls, and headed home. From that point on, Bennett's illness took up much of our time, rest, and sleep. I did manage to get out for runs each day, Paul took Anderson to Jungle Rapids Arcade for several hours one day, and I played on the beach with him one evening.

By Friday evening at 7 pm, Bennett was still quite sick, so we concluded that it was time to go home. We cleaned the entire condo, washed sheets and towels, re-made the beds and by 11 pm, we were ready to hit the road.

Today, we are all a little tired, but we are happy to be home. I have some great pictures of our trip that I will post soon. The cord to my computer is damaged, so as soon as that is fixed, I'll download them and post them.

Now, if you are still reading and have managed to make it this far into a very (too) long post, you all know where we have been and what we have been up to this past week.