Life's a Beach

Well, it's been a while! Over 2 months since our last entry. The rest of the summer was full of highs and lows, and blogging sort of fell to the wayside.

Naturally, there are many photo updates to catch up on. We'll start with our two beach trips. Then Mommmy will try to play catch-up on the rest of our summer happenings in a separate post.

OBX:

In August we went to Duck, OBX with Mommom & CharliePop. This was our long-awaited beach vacation we'd been planning since February. We wound up with only a few days down there, but we still managed to get in two perfect beach days, some shopping in Duck, exploring in Corolla, a dinner outing, and relaxing in the super cute beach house.

Isaac really loved the beach house, which he kept insisting was "Mommom's house". He enjoyed eating breakfast outside, playing Yahtzee, sleeping in the cozy trundle bed all by himself, and watching movies.

The beach was perfect! Not too crowded and the water was the perfect temperature. Mommy and Daddy really enjoyed swimming while Isaac played in the surf with Mommom and CharliePop.

We spent one morning out and about, exploring the cute Duck boardwalk and then venturing north to Corolla where we didn't see wild horses as planned, but we walked around in the heat, trying not to melt, checked out a lighthouse, a cool playground, and then grabbed some lunch before spending the afternoon back at the beach.

strutting around with his newly purchased lunch box:

playing on the cool tire swing at the playground:

checking out the menu at Roadside

Ocean City:

Since our OBX trip had to be cut short, the DeBoys kindly offered their Ocean City condo for a September getaway. We took them up on their offer for a long Labor Day weekend. 

Mommom and CharliePop took Isaac with them on Thursday evening, and then Mommy and Daddy joined them Friday after work. Isaac was very excited to go to Ocean City with Mommom and CharliePop and stay at Jim and Barb's "Congo", as he called it. 

Thanks to hurricane/tropical storm Hermine, we got to spend a lot of quality time in the condo, enjoying the great oceanfront view from the 2nd floor balcony. There was a lot of playing, reading, TV, snacking, crocheting, and "special treats" (and a good deal of toddler screaming and defiance).

Ah, sweet, sweet nap time!

all "dressed up" for our candlelit dinner

lots of early mornings on the balcony with this guy!

We didn't really have the greatest beach weather for most of the weekend, so we spent some time at the library, where Isaac had a lot of fun playing with the dinosaurs and building towers. 

We also had a few outings at Northside Park.

And spent one night walking along the boardwalk and getting on some rides. This was a bittersweet experience. Isaac enjoyed most of the rides, but cried on the bumper cars, and had to get a few "refunds" on some others due to a lack of cooperation on Isaac's part. His favorites seemed to be the hot air balloon ferris wheel and spinning on the teacups with Mommy. 

spinning on the teacups:

ferris wheel bliss

The ocean was way too rough over the weekend, even after the rain stopped. So we decided to go for a swim in the pool. The water was quite cold, so it was a short-lived dip!

Daddy left Monday morning so he could be home to go to work on Tuesday. The rest of us stayed until Tuesday afternoon. On Monday we tried going to the beach, but it was still very chilly, and Isaac wasn't being particularly cooperative, so Mommom took him back up to the "Congo" while Mommy and CharliePop toughed it out in the breeze a bit longer. Then on Tuesday we had perfect beach weather! We spent about 2 hours on the beach in the morning, collecting shells, getting our feet wet and walking along the pretty much empty beach, before heading back to the condo to pack, clean, and head home for Isaac's first gymnastics class.