Thursday, June 07, 2007
Making a list....
As we discover things here I'm making a mental list of places to make sure we visit when we return with Noni & Popi and Uncle B and Aunt K in August. So far we have Angelos Pizza and Village Grocery. This place is awesome. They have great looking produce, tons gourmet and organic products and a terrific deli, meats, and bakery section. It was totally unexpected. Oh, and their milk is cheaper than Food Lion's.


This is the section for Aunt K.


Here's Uncle B's section.


Dancing to piped in Billy Joel music.


Good citizens return their carts to the cart park.

Pirate Treasure
Daddy had the idea to look for pirate treasure at the beach. Emma's seen pirates on Dora, Backyardigans and Little Einsteins so she knows all about pirate treasure. The pirate episode of Backyardigans has some of the catchiest tunes in kiddy TV land. Here is the treasure the pirates left behind. It included smooth stones, glass ocean-themed accents, shells, gold dollars, half dollars, a Silver Eagle for the safe deposit box and a few pieces of jewelry.


Here is the treasure map that the pirates left behind...


Emma studies the treasure map before we leave the house.


The first landmark is the basketball goal beside the car.


Then we traveled down the road.


Here we hit the boardwalk and passed by the flower bush. Things got dodgy here when we were walking toward the ocean. It was hard to convince her that the map showed us taking another boardwalk and not crossing the dunes.


We looped back around and ended up under our very own house! Daddy is removing the boards that marked the "X."


Plastic shovels were the best tools we had.


"Look! We've found something!"


How many here would have predicted that the first thing she'd pull out of the treasure box was a smooth stone? Raise your hand, please.


"Look, a gold necklace!"


"Wow, so much stuff."


Back in the house, enjoying her treasure.

Favorite pastime
I'm not sure what the game is, but she enjoys it.

The pool, day #4
I'm so jealous of my daughter; she is already brown. We have a blue-eyed blonde who tans. Where did this kid come from?

The truth about the beach...
We would have been disappointed either way.

Yesterday M and I were finally able to get into the water at the beach. After about 15 minutes I determined that it was a beach for adults. The only thing children would be able to do safely is stand where the waves wash up on the beach. Once we got out past the point where the waves were breaking we stepped off a shelf and found ourselves chest/neck deep. There was no middle ground.

We thought the surf looked really tame compared to what we'd been seeing so far and it still knocked us around pretty good. This particular beach at this moment is not the one for Emma.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Serendipity
Our day began with a fire truck that found us on our morning walk. It ended with an ice cream truck that found us on a boring errand for bread and water.

We were pulling back onto our street to return to the beach house when we saw it up the road. We parked the car in the driveway and walked across the street to wait for the ice cream truck to pull up. We knew there was no way she'd drive on by because the four houses across the street from us are filled with kids from a school in Maryland.



Discovery
We found what I would suppose is a "local's secret." It's a little pizza place in Buxton. From the outside it looks pretty iffy. I even sent M in to scope it out for us and see whether it looked child-friendly before we got out of the car. He came back and said that they had spent all the money on the inside and he thought it looked fine. He said it was like a 50's diner inside. After that I almost knocked him down with the car door to get inside. Here are some shots of the interior.



I want this chair.


Another discovery we made is that at the back of the restaurant there were double doors leading to a sprawling arcade. There was a princess birthday party going on back there. We found that it had a...gasp!...air hockey table. The pestering is officially starting now for Noni and Popi and my brother's family to go back there in August. It looks PERFECT for our crew.

Seeing the boats
We drove Emma down to the end of the island at Hatteras Village to see some boats come in to the marina. Unfortunately there weren't many boats out because of the choppy water. We did explore the docks thoroughly.


Of course we had to "pull the rope."


This is the sound side of the island. Even seeing this put Emma into a panic, although it was of a lower order. We thought because there were no waves it would be fine. Maybe it's the big water that scares her. I don't know.


Now they're playing some "wind it up."


This was the entrance to a bar and grill at the marina. They were piping country music to the porch and she wanted to dance.

Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Bye Bye
This morning we said goodbye to Noni and Popi. They have to go back to work tomorrow. We're sad to see them go but we understand they have to save those vacation days for our trip back here in August.


Morning walk
Emma has been waking up way too early here. It's hard to keep her quiet while everyone else sleeps in. This morning I decided to take her for a walk on the street. She loves that, but don't even mention the beach to her or she gets all panicky. At around 7:00 a.m. we were walking down our street, which is the oceanside residential street parallel to the main drag. A fire truck was creeping up the road behind us. I showed Emma and she watched as they passed us. They got about 25 feet in front of us and stopped. She stood stock still. I nudged her forward and we walked toward the truck.

Someone climbed down from the passenger side of the fire truck, walked around the front toward us and held out a little plastic fire hat to Emma. Thank God she took it from him graciously. He was in his fire suit pants. The truck had about five guys in it so I guessed they were coming back from an early morning call. The guy was really sweet to Emma and they commented about how cute she was. She actually thanked them and waved. I was thrilled. Emma isn't quite old enough to understand what a treat that was. Maybe she'll read this one day and understand.

The Pool
We've had no success getting Emma back to the beach. Yesterday we staged an "intervention" and it still didn't help. The whole time we had her down there she never ceased her litany of "I want to go back." It's really quite tragic; M and I both love the beach. M is struggling with his disappointment. I have hope for the future.

Meanwhile, our beach house is part of a home owner's association with awesome pool privileges. We go in the morning and have the place almost to ourselves. Emma loves, loves, loves the pool. We'll be there every day this week that the sun shines, I'm sure.


Sunday, June 03, 2007
Popi the Pirate
Playing with Emma's dollar store pirate kit. We bought it for the telescope. Emma's been needing a good telescope.

Sunday morning at the beach
Prospects for this morning don't look so great.



UPDATE:

I talked Popi into walking down by the shoreline to get a closer look. We were sandblasted on our way over the dunes and then coated with a salty mist when we got there. Then more sandblasting on our sticky selves on the way back to the house. Popi complained that I lured him out just to make him salty and sandy and sticky. I told him not to complain, people pay good money for a sea salt scrub. We got exfoliated for free.


Making friends with the ocean, Part II
Didn't go so well. It was going great at first. Popi was showing her that it was OK when the water washed over your feet. Emma was warming up to the idea. He put her down and a wave covered her feet and retreated and she was fine.


Two cute little waves covering her toes and then this...an evil rogue wave that creamed both of them.


Popi grabbed her up but it was too late. They were both soaked and Emma was terrified. She clung to him like a monkey the rest of the time we were down there.


The aftermath. She was not happy. We may have to wait until Daddy arrives to try again.

Getting there
Zonked out in the car.


A stop to stretch out legs at the famous Virginia Diner, where you can buy Wakefield , VA peanuts. They actually are superior peanuts.


Helping me unpack the next morning. She's big on lining things up neatly these days.


Yesterday's nap lasted well over three hours.