DUCK

With no school schedules to stop us, my mom and I planned a late-September family trip to the beach in Duck, NC (part of the Outer Banks.)  With Mom, Dad, and Ryan's work and my tutoring, we ended up with a half-week trip. Mom, the boys, and I  headed out Tuesday mid-day, and Dad and Ryan joined us that night.  The trip had many "pro's"- the boys got lots of extra quality time with Daddy, Grandma, and Grandpa; the weather was PERFECT mid-70's and sunny; I got to sleep in an extra hour or so a couple of mornings; AND we had four straight days of delicious seafood.  It was so good!

There was really only one "con", but it was enough to make the only 5-day trip seem just about right.  In our otherwise nice time-share condo, every single step the people above us took was amplified x 20 into our unit below.  And those people did not know how to relax on vacation.  I swear they were pacing, running, dropping things up until 11 or so at night and then starting again at 6 or so in the morning.  Sit down, people! Any thoughts I had of nicely mentioning this to them were squelched by the bumper sticker on what I can only imagine was their car in our parking lot.  It so cleverly read: "Keep honking, I'm reloading..." Cute, right?...
(Okay, I'm moving on.)

Back to the many highlights, here are some of my favorite photos:

I loved their one-piece swim suits!

Admiring "his" hard work with the sand castle.

This happened- a whole hour just Ryan and me on the beach.  Thank you, Mom and Dad! :)

Beach babe!

My color-coordinated cutie :)

We all took a lot of turns holding Anderson's hand right at the edge of the water.  He very happily got wet up to his waist, and he loved to watch the waves!

Goofy, but he laughed :)

Our view from dinner!

The boys had a lot of fun playing inside, too:

Friday was mighty windy, and Saturday was supposed to be even windier, so we opted for a pool/ aquarium day instead.  The boys loved the pool!  Brady is still a little frog in the water, and Anderson loved "swimming" and let me dunk him a couple of times again.  He came up one time and said, "Eat water!"  Oops.  Haha.

The aquarium was really fun- I think Anderson was more into the fish than he has been the animals at the zoo.  He's definitely getting to a fun age for these types of trips.  

Sour-puss face from Anderson.  Because he is two, and we had some moments of this.

At the zoo, Anderson is usually ready for "anutter animal."  But at the aquarium, he never wanted to leave each tank.  He really liked the "big fish"

Anderson refused this photo op- we are completely in a "No pictures!" phase.  Thankfully Brady is happy to oblige. :)

Otters!

Yay for a smiley family photo!

And this one- Anderson cracks me up every time I see it :)