I can't believe it's been almost two weeks since our annual family beach trip. This year's trip was great, I think the kids enjoyed the beach much more this time around...at least they seemed to play in the sand longer without the immediate "let's go to the pool". Teddy took a few diggers in the waves but that's to be expected, right? In fact, on our second morning Katherine asked if we could stay an extra day. Unfortunately we had to head home right after breakfast to get ready to get back into the grind. Ted and I are contemplating a day trip, we're lucky that Wrightsville is only a couple of hours from home.
So what did we do? Besides digging in the sand we took the kids to explore the Battleship North Carolina, a World War II era battleship. I was a bit nervous about this with Teddy because of all of the climbing. He thought it was great and happily declared "I do it myself!" at each ladder, which led to one parent hovering in front of him and one hovering behind as he climbed up or down. Katherine didn't care for the tour around the lower decks but she loved seeing how high up we could go. All I gotta say is that I could never serve on a Navy ship, those are some tight quarters! I can't imagine the amount of space has gotten any better in the last 70 years.
I think the highlight of the trip for the kids was the pirate tour. Yup! After a quick boat ride over to Masonboro Island, Captain Don Juan Cortez took the kids on a treasure hunt. If you have young kids and are planning a trip to the Wilmington, NC area, I HIGHLY recommend this. Wrightsville Beach Scenic Tours offers it.
Full album of pictures are up on the photo site (link on the sidebar). This one may have to be on this year's Christmas Card:
I even got in a great run early Monday morning along the beach while everyone else was still tucked up in bed. The bunny pictures you see on the album are from that run...a beach bunny!
The kids have started their summer travels, their up at Papa and Gram Coberly's for a long weekend. After that it will be up to Massachusetts at the end of next week. Ted and I are basking in some kid free time!
I'm a week behind in posting this but better late than never. Katherine attended Gold Medal Day last week at gymnastics. It was a chance for the kids to show off the skills they had learned over the year. Initially I wasn't going to sign her up for it (horrible mom that I am) because Katherine seemed to be lukewarm about gymnastics, this was an extra session that you had to pay for (of course) and it was mid morning on a Saturday and I knew that meant she wouldn't want to leave the neighborhood kids to go. She caught wind of it during her last class and wasn't going to miss out on a chance to get a medal. I gave her the ultimatum that by signing her up she was going no matter what, to which she eagerly agreed, and filled out the registration form.
True to form on Saturday morning she shyly said that she didn't want to go. I told her that wasn't an option. I wanted to reinforce the point that when you say you're going to do something, you do it. It's been that way off and on all year. Plus once she's there she has a good time, which was definitely true this time.
They divided the kids up into teams and they rotated around each of the events, similar to a real gymnastics meet. Check out her floor routine:
And vault, the best one I've ever seen her do:
At the end they let the each of the kids stand on the podium for their medal:
Then they cut them loose to do what they want so that the parents could get close up pictures. I got her to do a quick pose on the bar:
Before she headed straight for her favorite thing, the rope and the pit. Check this out:
Will she continue in the fall? I don't know. She wants to attend some of the open gyms this summer and has mentioned that she'd like an earlier class time in the fall. But who knows what her answer will be in August when it's fall registration time. I'm trying not to be pushy.
