Summer Vacation - Nags Head, NC

Nags Head, North Carolina is my absolute favorite vacation spot.  I fondly remember trips there from my childhood.  Honestly, I don't think we really went there more then 2 or 3 times...but it's one of those places that really sticks with you.  On this particular occasion it had been 10 years almost to the day since I'd been there.  The situation was virtually the same, except this time I was an adult, married, with 2 small children of my own.

We left home on Friday in the afternoon.  We lucked out because both kids napped for the first few hours of driving.  Both of them travel really well, I can't complain, but 3 or 4 hours in the car is rough with any small child.

Path over the dunes by the hotel

I'm forever in my wonderful aunt's debt!  Bonnie vacations in Nags Head every September  and adores my children, so she insisted upon getting us a room for 2 nights in her hotel.  Were it not for her, we probably wouldn't have gotten to do this at all....or would have at least had to get a room a ways away from the beach.  Even in the off-season, rooms aren't cheap!

The hotel was just on the backside of the dune so we immediately got to go walking on the beach after chucking our bags in the room and checking out the view from Bonnie's 5th-floor balcony.

No surprise, Dani was taken with the huge waves.  She and Aaron played in them for probably an hour before heading back in to get cleaned up and ready for dinner.

She's wet because a wave knocked her over

Day 2 brought bubbles on the balcony and shopping before a full-fledged beach excursion.

Two of my favorite places to visit while in Nags Head is Jockey's Ridge State Park and Kitty Hawk Kites.  Because it was a hot and very sunny day, we put off the trip to the Dunes til later that evening, but the Kite Store was a nice air conditioned distraction.

I picked up a reasonably priced basic kite for $12 and then a lovely cooperative board game called Mermaid Island (for Dani's upcoming 3rd birthday) from Peaceable Kingdom.  After checking out there, we headed for the local Sweet Frog location and enjoyed some frozen yogurt before hitting the beach.

Outside the Kite Shop

I literally PUT the kite into the air.  No running or help required.  It was that easy.

Recent storms stirred up a lot of impressive shells

Building castles

Oscar had this vacation thing down

I must say, taking 2 small children to the beach is exhausting!  Getting them and all the various paraphernalia that children require there and back again damn near killed us both!

Being at the beach was lovely, however.  My husband, Aaron, has only been to the ocean probably one other time in his entire life.  He was born and raised near Fargo, North Dakota.  Beaches are NOT something they have out there!  Dani, needless to say, had a blast!  Oscar mainly slept, but that's just fine for a 3-month-old.  I mostly took photos and helped Dani look for shells and rocks in the sand.  I packed knitting and several books to read, but I didn't really get much of an opportunity to either knit or read.

By the time we were done playing in the waves and had drug all the stuff back to the hotel, Aaron and I were ready to collapse!  We ended up putting off the Dunes til the next day.

The Dune from afar

Arrrgh!  Pirate baby.  Yep, I forgot his hat.

Putting off going to the Dunes til day 3 (our final day) was a mistake.  We ended up going at noon, I wasn't prepared at all, and it was just too sunny for the littles.  Oscar was probably the biggest obstacle on that venture.  At 3-months-old he already weighs at least 16lbs!  It's a lot to carry...particularly UP a very LARGE sand dune.  In the end, we didn't go beyond the wooden observation deck.  I really wish we'd been up for it the night before!  At dusk it would have been perfect.  Oh well, there is always next year.

We ended up leaving for home a lot earlier on Sunday than we had expected.  Dani was tired and missing home.  She really didn't understand the whole hotel thing.  Nighttime was not fun.  She had a really hard time falling asleep in a strange place (something she definitely got from me!) and our laptops refused to play the DVD's I'd brought along for downtime in the hotel room.  The 2nd night we borrowed Bonnie's laptop which would play them, which was a lifesaver!  Again, the kids napped in the car for most of the way home.  I did too!  When I woke up I had a headache from hell and we stopped for a pretty terrible lunch at Denny's before making the last hour of the trip.

In all, it was a great little vacation.  The sleep issue was something of a bummer, but I imagine another year will make a world of difference on that front.  :)

A Day In Nature - The Beach

Labor Day weekend we packed the kids up and headed to my parents' house near the Potomac River in Westmoreland County.  I admittedly have a very love/hate relationship with the beach because of living there for nearly 12 years myself....but now that the children are getting older the beach can be a lot of fun.

Dani is really starting to notice nature more and more.  Finding acorns and leaves in our yard, feathers in parking lots, shells at the beach.  The best thing the world for her right now is an empty pail she can collect bits of nature in!

Sandcastles are finally something she can enjoy making as well!  She had a wonderful time slowly filling up a large bucket with damp sand and getting her father to help flip them over.  Grandpa also got in on the action while the rest of us sat close by in the edge of the river chatting and playing with the babies.  Dani is also extremely social these days and instantly made friends on the water's edge and recruited other young kids to build with her.

After a few hours of playing in the sand we went out on the boat and headed for what the locals call "Sharks' Tooth Island".  You actually can find sharks teeth there, though they aren't the fresh white teeth most people are used to.  They are ancient black teeth from ages ago that get washed ashore.  My sister-in-law, Jessica, is particularly adept at spotting them...meanwhile I have little luck with it myself.  Aaron did, however, find two teeth after she told him what to look for (he assumed they were white at first).

Oscar, thankfully, doesn't mind his life jacket (which ALL of the children wear at all times when on a boat that is underway).  He napped most of the trip til we got to the island where he enjoyed some jacket-free time while he nursed and then sat on Grandpa while the rest of us combed the beach.  He is very fond of my father, it seems.  My father is pretty funny looking though....so it's no surprise.  lol

There were lots of gulls on the island.

Dani enjoyed looking at the bird tracks in the sand as well as making tracks of her own.  She looked for rocks and shells, mostly and it was a special treat when we found what we have always referred to as "Phospors".

They're actually a creature called Ctenophora or "Comb Jellies".  They're little balls of jelly similar to a Stinging Nettle or Jelly Fish, but without the venom or tentacles.  They also light up at night when you touch them.  We've been finding them in the river my entire life, but until now I never knew what they were actually called.  Gotta love Google!

An oyster shell.

 The trip, all in all, was very enjoyable for everyone.  

Onward to adventure!

Stormy Weather

It's really hard to take photos in a hurricane.  It's a shame though, because Dani had a wonderful time playing in the rain!

Mother nature is having a field day with our neck of the woods, as of late.  First an earthquake on Tuesday (which is almost unheard of in Virginia) and now hurricane Irene passing through on the weekend.

Saturday for us brought a lot of wind and rain.  Oddly enough, nothing was damaged in our yard.  I thought for sure at least one of the many old trees that surround our house on all sides would have at least dropped some large branches on us....but they didn't.  Many of the other trees in the area came down though, sadly.


As of 2:30-ish on Saturday our power went out.  I was napping on the bed with the kids while Aaron ran out to the store.  We really weren't thinking the storm would do much in our area so we didn't really plan for a long-term power outage.  Later we had to make another trip to get some snacks that didn't require opening the fridge or cooking.  I also thought to grab an activity book for Dani while we were out.

I have to say, the Funky Sticker Backpack was a real lifesaver!  It kept Dani busy the whole weekend!  I was pleased with the variety of activities and themes it included.  Some were "girly", but most of them were gender neutral or even "boyish" (in some people's opinions).  We set her up by a window while it was still light and after dark we lit all the candles we could dig up and continued playing and coloring by flashlight.  At which point I did some experimenting with make-shift oil lamps...

Between these two tutorials I came up with a couple different types of lamp.  The first using a baby food jar, yarn, and some wire.  My favorite was made with nothing but tin foil, a strip of old t-shirt, and olive oil.  Just shape the foil into a shape something like a Genie's lamp and lay in the wick.  It works great and is truly the easiest type of lamp to throw together in an emergency!

 After awhile Dani and Oscar started getting tired out.  We played with shadows in bed for a bit and then read storybooks by flashlight til they both fell asleep.

The camera's flash was the most light we'd had all night!

Power was still off this morning and it was doubtful it would come back on anytime soon so we headed out for food and then took the contents of our fridge with us to see my good friend Amanda from Not My Expectations.  The girls had a great time and so did the littles!

We had a tea party on a lovely stump table and chairs

Dani and E

Oscar enjoyed the Storch Leo I borrowed

A in the Girasol

Surprisingly, the power IS back on now.  I much say I'm surprised....we had been told it wouldn't be on before tomorrow night.  I must say I've had enough wild weather for quite some time!

Bird Tree Decorations

Ella and Dani did a lot of snacking

 I opted to go with these birdseed ornaments from Saltwater Kids as well as classic peanut butter pine cones, and popcorn strings.  This morning I packed up Dani and a bunch of supplies and headed off to my friend Amanda's house to get crafting.

birdseed gelatin mix...yummy?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First we started off with the molded ornaments.  The kids enjoyed spooning the mixture into the cookie cutters, but their favorite thing was placing the straws that kept the holes open for a hanger.

At first I thought maybe I should mix up a double batch of the birdseed mixture, but I'm really glad I didn't!  We ended up with a dozen ornaments from just the one batch which was more than enough with all the other things we had planned.  I also have to mention that these things are tough.  I knocked the pan of half-dried ornaments off the top of the Learning Tower and they didn't break!  I was shocked!

she might look serious, but she loved filling the cups up

Dani was really taken with filling the orange-half baskets.  They were probably the easiest thing we made and still fun for the kids.  The downside being that they birdseed all ended up in the floor when I knocked over the tray...but we swept it up and refilled them easily enough.

We decided we'd leave the peanut butter dipping to us adults and the birdseed rolling to the kids.  We mixed a bit of oil with the peanut butter to thin it a bit (don't overdo it though, you don't want it too drippy) and then laid out a cookie sheet of seed for them to mess with.  We couldn't get the pine cones dipped fast enough for them!

Ella thought they might be tasty

and this is only half of it!

In the end we had quite a pile of stuff and the kids enjoyed it all.  Amanda and I agreed that we were actually more excited about decorating the trees for the birds than we were about decorating them for the holidays.  Is that sad?

Tomorrow we will be decorating the tree outside once the ornaments are fully dry.  Daylight will also help of course.

Recon - Decorating the Bird Tree

When I was a child we would get a bit of extra life out of the family Christmas tree each year by moving it out into the yard and decorating it for the birds.  Up until this year my husband and I had used an artificial tree due to living in an apartment (the 3rd floor no less) and had no desire to deal with the mess of taking a live tree in and out of the apartment....however this year we're renting a house and I was absolutely thrilled at the prospect of having a real Christmas tree!  And more so than having a real tree inside, I have been dying to continue the bird-tree tradition with my toddler (who, by the way, loves birds!)

While we only ever made the pine cones rolled in peanut butter and birdseed, I'd like to branch out a bit.

Tutorial & Link Recon -
Classic Pine Cone Feeders
Thrifty Birdseed Ornaments
Birdseed & Gelatin Ornaments
Orange Peel Bird Feeder Cups
Holiday Treats For Wild Birds
Bird Food Cake
Popcorn & Fruit Strings
Popcorn & Fruit Garland
Speedy Bird Cake

Coming soon: Our experiences!