Overheard

Madeline and Colin are best friends and play together beautifully all day long (except for when they are fighting, which does happen). I just love it. They also have very funny conversations between the two of them. I sometimes stop what I'm doing just to eavesdrop. Here's one from today when I told them to go get dressed:

Colin: Mads! This is my room! Go get dressed in your own room!

Maddie: No! This is Ethan's room!

Colin: This is Ethan's room and my room! See...that's my bed, and that's Ethan's bed.

Maddie: Oh! Your bed and Ethan's bed! My bed is in my room. Want to come see?

Colin: Okay!

And they run off to Maddie's room.

Love it. Love them.

Happy birthday, Jason!

For your birthday, I updated the blog, which you've been asking me to do since I got behind a year ago. It was a good exercise...it reminded me of how fun it is to be married to you, and how much I love the cute family we've made together. I love you!!!

Bald Head Island

We left Chimney Rock and drove 6 excruciating hours to the coast. Actually, it wasn't that bad, and the kids were really good, but it's still too long in the car for me. We hopped on the ferry over to Bald Head Island, one of our favorite places.

We had a great beach day on Friday. We practically had the place to ourselves.

On Saturday we climbed the lighthouse and visited the alligators.

It was supposed to be on the cooler side, so we weren't planning to go the beach, but it was a pretty day and we had time, so we stopped by for a little while. Ethan wrote "I (heart) family" in the sand. Awwww.....

We found out they were excavating a green sea turtle nest early Sunday morning (it had hatched Friday night). We headed down to check it out. They found a bunch of eggs, of course, and a baby turtle inside. The kids got to see it up close before watching it make its way to the ocean. AMAZING experience.

We stopped on the way home to pick up Greedo, who was being lizard-sat by Mark and LaDonna and their kids. LaDonna sent funny emails every day with Greedo posed in different scenarios. It was so nice of them to watch him for us. We visited with their family and my dad and Carolyn before heading back to real life, which is basically work (for Jason), school (for the kids) and piles and piles of laundry and dishes (for me).

Chimney Rock

We rented a little house on the Rocky Broad river in Chimney Rock for a couple of nights. The house was over a hundred years old and had a lot of character. We got to Chimney Rock only to discover that the elevator is being replaced and won't be functioning until next spring. I should have checked beforehand. We decided to take the stairs...the equivalent of 26 flights. Madeline wouldn't let Jason take her in the Kelty so I had her on my back. Ethan ran up, and Colin didn't complain at all until the very end, and then not much.

Apparently riding on my back made Maddie very thirsty.

Maddie let Jason carry her down (thanks, Mads) and on the hike to the waterfall.

This is Maddie's "Mom, don't take my picture!!" stance. Stinker.

We left Chimney Rock and stopped at Laura's House for lunch, where the food (especially the cakes) were as good as we remembered. Then we headed over to Lake Lure and rented a pontoon boat for a couple of hours. The kids (and Jason) loved it. Jason tried to fish along the coast but didn't have any luck, and Maddie was starting to melt down by then, so we headed back for dinner and bed.

Poor Ethan always has to share a room (and usually a bed) with Colin when we travel. Colin is a very restless sleeper (he reminds me of my sister Erin at the same age). Ethan was in bed trying to fall sleep when Colin suddenly flung himself over Ethan. That's Colin's pillow over on the right side. They're laying across the bed...if they sleep the other way Colin inevitably ends up on the floor, so we put Colin parallel to the headboard and use Ethan to block him in. Sorry, Ethan!

Fishing

We read about a trout farm in the Boone area and decided to check it out. There are two ponds...one with smaller fish and one with much larger fish. We opted for the smaller one since you pay by the pound and our kids don't eat fish. Of course Colin and Jason caught the ONLY 5-pound fish in the 1-2 pound pond. Since it wasn't supposed to be there, the guy only charged us for 3.5 pounds. Ethan then caught a fish (more appropriately sized) entirely on his own. They gutted and cleaned it for us, and Jason made us a very tasty dinner. Unfortunately we still had to throw out lots of trout, since we couldn't take it with us and there was no way to eat 6 pounds of trout in 2 days.