Atlantic Beach, NC

On July 28th we drove to the coast and stopped by the beach for a bit to dip our toes in and to show the kids the Atlantic Ocean. They LOVED it, of course. It was a beautiful day.

Pine Knoll Aquarium

Looks brave, doesn't she.....crazy kid.

Scott and Brett petting stingrays.

Hello Mr. Stingray!!

Petting a horned crab...I think.

The very cool and large tank at the aquarium. Brett is pointing to one of the sharks. This part of the coast is considered the graveyard for ships due to the tricky currents. Inside the tank is a replica of a sunken submarine to show visitors how sunken ships turn into habits for oceanic animals and fish. Super cool. Better than the shark aquarium at Sea World in FL.

Brady and Addison looking at the fish.

Brett "likes" hammer head sharks. Here he is with a replica. I love this part of the exhibit it says, "Please touch". It imitates the textures of fish and underwater animals so the kiddos can see what they really feel like.

An otter decided to stop and look at the babes. I'm sure it was thinking, "hmmm, are they twins?" LOL.

The otters are always fun to watch and this tank is ginormous. We got to watch them hunt for hidden carrot snacks, do flips, and swim laps. Neat.

Reagan on a frog.

Brett on a sea turtle outside the aquarium.

We broke away from our painting at the house on July 28th and did some fun things the day before Brett's birthday. It was Scott's last day home before having to go to work so we are glad we got to fit in some fun. We bought a yearly pass to the aquarium. We only have to go one more time for it to pay for itself....no brainer. The kids loved it. The big two also got to pet a corn snake but I didn't take pictures. The gal was showing them how you can tell a harmless corn snake from a poisonous one by the shape of their head. Um, lets stick with they are ALL dangerous, thanks!

Random pics from our first couple of weeks in NC

We were happy to see some neighborhood ducks when we arrived!! We had ducks that came to our house daily in Iowa City so it was great to have these two quackers. As the story goes they were a very cute Easter gift to the girls down the way....then they grew.....and when they "set them loose", they didn't leave. SO, they put collars on them and they were the neighborhood mascot. One afternoon I looked out in the yard to find one in distress....Tommy.....his lower bill was caught in his collar! I yelled for Scott and he went to help it but couldn't hold it and get the collar so while he held the duck I undid the collar.....off he went quacking away, fine. Yet, we haven't seen him since that day. From that day on there was only one duck around then a week or so later no ducks at all. We think they took the other duck to a near by pond so it wouldn't be alone. Sniff, sniff....I kind of miss them!

Scott painting with the automatic roller that Diane and Bob gave to us. SWEET!! We used this in the big room....it saved a lot of time.

Miss night owl got up in the night one night when we were painting so she got to help.

Addison helping Daddy paint.

I picked up a slip n slide for the kids. We had a week and a few days in the house empty before our stuff came and they were a bit bored.

Reagan and Brett got in on some painting too. This is Reagan's room.

We bought a Gator for the kids while we were in Iowa City, didn't show them and just had the movers put it in the truck. They were excited and surprised to see it on the moving truck. Brett said, if it belongs to someone else and it got in our stuff then FINDERS KEEPERS!! LOL. Reagan figured it was just a Gator box and there was other stuff inside. Nope. It's a Gator and it's yours! They love it and the babes like it too. The neighbor boy has a truck he drives so they are all crazy and tool around the yards together.

The frog that frequents our front porch in the night. Eat all the bugs you want little guy!!

Scott and the neighbor Jason putting up shelves in the garage.

Coloring....they did pretty good, then ate the crayons.

A crazy and tan Brady playing in the paper.

Addison with her first pig tails.....awwwwh.

Addison playing and obviously pleased with herself.

We built one of Brett's race tracks the other day. They all had fun making the track into different shapes and formations.

The kids doing Just Dance on the Wii.....Addison sings along to Who Let the Dogs Out? She 'woofs' when the song does and dances away. Brady can get down with the best of them too. It's pretty cute.

Our trip to North Carolina

We started our journey to North Carolina on July 15th. We planned to take 4 days to travel in attempt to make things easier on the kiddos. Our first stop was in our old stomping grounds of Iowa City. We met Brett's friend Julius and his Mom and little brother at a park, had lunch and played for a bit. It was good to see them one last time. Reagan's good buddy Greta's family was on their summer vacation so we didn't get to see them but Reagan has been pen palling back and forth already and is enjoying it. Another neighbor that we'd hope to see came down with a stomach bug and didn't want to expose us so we missed her too.....I'm certain getting the stomach flu would have been a NIGHTMARE!!

Scott's buddy Lamont or Malont, if you ask Brett, stopped by for lunch too. Lamont now works in Scott's old Iowa City office and has since Feb. of 2010. It was fun to get to see him often. I know Scott enjoyed working with him as well.

Our second stop and first over night stop was in Peoria at my Uncle Bob and Aunt Diane's. They graciously let us stay the night at their place since it was along the way. My three cousins and their kiddos came over for a BBQ. It was good to see them all and the kids had a blast playing. Here is a picture of Brett with Devron and Ethan.

Reagan and Taylor are the same age and enjoyed playing as well. They naturally went right to the make up....as you can see!!

Here's their crazy pose. Silly girls.

Here's I am with Bob and Diane's girls, my cousins, Laurie, Ashley, and Bobbi. A super huge thanks to Diane and Bob for letting us come stay and for dinner and breakfast in the morning!!

Our next destination was Louisville, Kentucky home of the Louisville Slugger. I had promised Brett months ago that it would be one of our stops along the way to North Carolina. I found a kennel to watch the dog while we did the tour and we were on track.........but not for long. We needed dry ice and couldn't find it anywhere so we settled for real ice for the time being. As we approached Louisville I realized I forgot to account for the time change after Indianapolis...oops. This put us in a ringer as the kennel would be closed before we could complete the tour of the bat plant not to mention put us even later to our overnight location, Lexington.

As you can see we made it work and survived the GPS not knowing where to go. Buddy hung out in the Suburban and was fine. Luckily the parking area was a ramp and it was shaded. We did the tour and enjoyed it very much. I'm so glad we stopped.

Reagan with The Babe.

The big kids testing out some old time bats.

It's not "thee" pine tar bat, but it's one of George Brett's bats.

Brett holding a billet...trunks of trees are cut in lengths then out of each length they core out 6 or 8 billets. The billets are what get sent to Louisville to be put on the machine to be made into a bat. The tour didn't allow pictures so this is as much of the story as I can tell. We were happy that they were actually making bats that day. It was pretty cool.

At the end we each got a mini Louisville Slugger, we opted for four vs. six! Six weapons is all I could see!! Anywho a good time and a nice break from driving.

We got back on the road only to hit a major traffic jam....not a pretty scene.....styrofoam cooler broke, meat thawing and wrapping is getting soggy.....angry husband and um, oh, the ac went out in my truck and it was making a strange squeaking sound. Yippee! The joys of travel. When the alternate route was jammed too we opted to stop at Wal Mart and get a new hard cooler and transfer the meat....still no dry ice, but at least water wasn't leaking all over. We had to call Scott's cousin in Lexington and tell them we would be getting in there to late to see them that night so we moved our scheduled BBQ to lunch time the next day. Traffic finally thinned and we were on our way....again. We rolled into our hotel in Lexington around 10pm. Loaded the meat with ice again and found food for our starving children and went to bed. We spent the better half of the next morning looking for the damn dry ice again.....finally found some.....paid way to much for it probably but whatever, it's done, meat is no longer a worry....I'm sorry I was talked into bringing the meat with us for as much of a pain as it was, geesh.

Anywho we made it to Luke and his girlfriend Brooke's apartment complex by noon and grilled and swam and had a great few hours with them.

Reagan, Brooke, Luke and Brett in the pool. The kids were SO happy to not only see Luke but to swim.

The babes got in on the fun too. Here's Luke and Brady playing. So sweet.

Me and Addison. Daddy got to sit this one out.

Reagan, Luke and Brady. We were so glad that we could meet up with them. We grilled burgers and hot dogs and got to hang out which was perfect.

After leaving Lexington, KY around 2 pm we knew we had nearly 10 hours left of driving. We plopped in our books on cd and drove to Greensboro where we found another Red Roof Inn (they gladly accept pets). We got a good nights sleep, got breakfast on the road in the morning and drove three hours to New Bern! The kids and I went to the store to grab some milk and TP while Scott got the keys from the realtor. We were home.